Carlotta Jacobson thinks CEW’s Women’s Leadership Awards need to evolve as quickly as the industry they celebrate.
“This is the new face of beauty,” Jacobson said of this year’s honorees, who span beauty giants like L’Oréal, Unilever and the Estée Lauder Cos., as well as founders from companies like Pattern Beauty and Thirteen Lune. “These are the women who are going to become leaders in this industry, and that alone will bring up a lot of change.”
The awards, Jacobson said, initially started with just one woman as part of the organization’s Beauty Awards. “We realized there’s more than just one woman to honor, and the women that we want to honor are not usually getting honors. Usually, it’s the head of a company, who is usually a man. And we had all these women who were achievers…. 25 years later, we still find enough women to honor, and we have enough women for the next 25 years.”
Related Articles
Rather than only honor corporate leaders in their respective disciplines, Jacobson also sought to capture different trajectories in the industry with the inaugural class of Founder’s Award honorees, which include Pattern Beauty’s Tracee Ellis Ross, Thirteen Lune’s Nyakio Grieco, Pacifica Beauty’s Brook Harvey-Taylor, Grande Cosmetics’ Alicia Grande and Anisa International’s Anisa Telwar Kaicker.
The impetus for the new award, Jacobson said, was “because they are in a different class. Their trajectory has been different — most, but not all, of the other women are coming from companies and corporate brands. And this is a group of women who have had different experiences, yet they’re very important in the industry.”
It’s not the only change afoot. This year, CEW is also bringing back the Catalyst for Change Award, which is going to Nancy Mahon, Lauder’s chief sustainability officer. “The first one was to Sharon Chuter, who was brave enough to ask all the questions of the companies and actually started a whole movement,” Jacobson said of Pull Up for Change, Chuter’s campaign founded after the murder of George Floyd.
“This year [the award] is going to Nancy Mahon because, when she went to Estée Lauder, it was the first time a company had added this significant position. She’s had many positions, but she’s brought about a lot of change and a lot more philanthropy from the companies,” she continued.
For the Achiever Awards, Jacobson aimed at incorporating a more global perspective from industry heavyweights. “Three of them were not brought up in America — Nikki Eslami, the founder of Bellami, is Iranian and emigrated to Canada. Hilla Ram is Israeli, and Christina Fair, from L’Oréal, was brought up in Cyprus,” Jacobson said. “No matter whether they spent much time there, though a lot of them did, or if it’s their background, their way of thinking is always at play in whatever they’re doing.”
Jacobson added that the awards’ goal is to both advance women in the industry and celebrate them at the same time. Here, Beauty Inc celebrates the 2023 Women’s Leadership Awards honorees.