Christina Schwarzkopf is co-founder of Prolong, a business-to-business white-label software solution enabling fashion brands and retailers to offer and manage circular aftercare and aftersales services. Those services could include repair, cleaning, personalization, exchanges, and refunds.
Christina combines her commercial, strategy, and sustainability expertise built over a decade of fashion experience with brands like Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and...
Christina Schwarzkopf is co-founder of Prolong, a business-to-business white-label software solution enabling fashion brands and retailers to offer and manage circular aftercare and aftersales services. Those services could include repair, cleaning, personalization, exchanges, and refunds.
Christina combines her commercial, strategy, and sustainability expertise built over a decade of fashion experience with brands like Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and Zalando.
Prolong works with brands like Belstaff, The North Face, Veja, and Fusalp, covering apparel, outdoor, footwear, and jewellery, as well as multi-brand retailers.
Brands use Prolong to digitize and automate service journeys across channels, reducing operational complexity, increasing customer satisfaction, and driving loyalty. The platform integrates logistics, communication, and brand operations to simplify often fragmented service processes.
By linking customers, brands, and service providers, Prolong enables circularity at scale and helps brands move from one-off sales to ongoing, service-driven relationships. This makes aftercare a strategic business opportunity that’s aligned with sustainability and regulatory demands.
We’ll hear how the Prolong platform combines complex workflows into a single system, helping brands extend product lifespan and build stronger customer relationships, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Christina talks us through the value proposition for brands and service partners, and explains how Prolong supports service partners by providing steady business and connecting them to a growing global network.
Christina also shares some of the challenges and opportunities for brands, and offers tips on how to help customers discover, and access repair and aftercare services.
International speaker, author and strategic advisor, Catherine Weetman helps people discover why circular, regenerative and fair solutions are better for people, planet – and prosperity.
Catherine’s award-winning book: A Circular Economy Handbook: How to Build a More Resilient, Competitive and Sustainable Business includes lots of practical examples and tips on getting started.
Stay in touch for free insights and updates…
Read on for more on our guest and links to the people, organisations and other resources we mention.
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Links we mention in the episode:
Links for our guest:
- Prolong.io on Linkedin
- Prolong.io Website
- WeCareWeRepair community
- Christina Schwarzkopf on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinaschwarzkopf/
Books, people and organisations we mentioned
- Survey on job satisfaction: Not just about the money: pioneering study reveals best and worst jobs in UK https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/sep/09/jobs-full-earnings-wellbeing-income-gap-uk and the report, co-authored by Andrew Clark, Maria Cotofan and Richard Layard: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4114863
- Episode 159 Kyle Wiens of iFixit: the rewards of repairability Kyle Wiens is the co-founder of iFixit, the international repair community known for open-source repair manuals and product teardown. https://www.rethinkglobal.info/159-kyle-wiens-of-ifixit-the-rewards-of-repairability/
- Episode 154 Loic Le Fouest of Clarasys: creating circular customer experiences https://www.rethinkglobal.info/154-loic-le-fouest-of-clarasys-designing-circular-customer-experiences/
- Episode 144 Chris Allen of Decathlon: ever-evolving circular design https://www.rethinkglobal.info/144-chris-allen-of-decathlon-ever-evolving-circular-design/
- Episode 55 Anthony Burns – ACS https://www.rethinkglobal.info/episode-55-anthony-burns-acs/
Catherine’s work:
- Circular Economy Podcast on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/showcase/circular-economy-podcast/
- Circular Economy Podcast website: circulareconomypodcast.com
- Catherine Weetman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-weetman-9419107/
- A Circular Economy Handbook: How to Build a More Resilient, Competitive and Sustainable Business – buy from any good bookseller, or direct from the publisher Kogan Page, which ships worldwide (free shipping to UK and US) https://www.koganpage.com/CircEcon2
- Interactive podcast index https://www.rethinkglobal.info/circular-economy-podcast-index/
- Rethink Global www.rethinkglobal.info
- Sign up to get the podcast player and shownotes for each new episode emailed to your inbox
Guest bio
Prolong’s Co-founder Christina Schwarzkopf brings over a decade of fashion experience with brands like Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and Zalando, combining commercial, strategy, and sustainability expertise to drive Prolong’s mission.
Prolong is a B2B white-label software solution that enables fashion brands and retailers to offer and manage circular aftercare and aftersales services—such as repair, cleaning, personalization, exchanges, and refunds—across product categories, markets, and service partners. Its platform consolidates complex workflows into a single system, helping brands extend product lifespan and build stronger customer relationships.
Prolong works with brands like Belstaff, The North Face, Veja, and Fusalp, covering apparel, outdoor, footwear, and jewelry, as well as multibrand retailers. The platform simplifies fragmented service processes by integrating logistics, communication, and brand operations.
Brands use Prolong to digitize and automate service journeys across channels, reducing operational complexity, increasing customer satisfaction, and driving loyalty. It also supports service partners by providing steady business and connecting them to a growing global network. By linking customers, brands, and service providers, Prolong enables circularity at scale and helps brands move from one-time sales to ongoing, service-driven relationships. This makes aftercare a strategic business opportunity aligned with sustainability and regulatory demands.
Playlist: getting started with the circular economy…
Want to know more about the what the circular economy really is, and how it can help your business? Here’s a playlist to help you get to grips with the concept, how it creates value, and the common myths (spoiler alert – it’s much more than recycling!)
- #1 What is the circular economy: A quick intro to explain what the circular economy is and why it’s important. We explore how it helps create better products and services, and at the same time helps to make a better world. I break it down into my 5 circular economy components, helping you think about each part of your business.
- #2 The linear economy and your risk checklist: We dig a bit deeper into the way we do business now, the linear economy, and why that’s creating problems for business, society and our living planet. Also, we’ll look at the risks that emerge from those big-picture issues, and how they might affect your organisation.
- #90 Does circular mean it’s sustainable? Catherine Weetman is worried that companies are using circular economy solutions to grow their business (and their footprints).
- #101 Circular is better for people, planet and profit! How three simple strategies can help you get started with circular and regenerative solutions that are better for people, planet and profit.
- #120 Priorities are changing: people find life is better when we care for and share things – circular economy strategies make that better for business, too.
And here’s Catherine’s guide: What is the circular economy?
Want to dig deeper?
Why not buy Catherine’s award-winning book, A Circular Economy Handbook: How to Build a More Resilient, Competitive and Sustainable Business. This comprehensive guide uses a bottom-up, practical approach, and includes hundreds of real examples from around the world, to help you really ‘get’ the circular economy. Even better, you’ll be inspired with ideas to make your own business more competitive, resilient and sustainable.
Please let us know what you think of the podcast – and we’d love it if you could leave us a review on iTunes, or wherever you find your podcasts. Or send us an email…
Please let us know what you think of the podcast – and we’d love it if you could leave us a review on iTunes, or wherever you find your podcasts. Or send us an email…
Podcast music
Thanks to Belinda O’Hooley and Heidi Tidow, otherwise known as the brilliant, inventive and generous folk duo, O’Hooley & Tidow for allowing me to use the instrumentals from the live version of Summat’s Brewin’ as music for the podcast. You can find the whole track (inspired by the Copper Family song “Oh Good Ale”) on their album, also called Summat’s Brewin’. Or, follow them on Twitter.
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