On Tuesday, the CEW hosted its annual Women’s Leadership Awards. Honorees, including Tracee Ellis Ross of Pattern Beauty and Gregg Renfrew of Beautycounter, took to the stage to accept their awards and discuss their approach to the business.
Here, some words of wisdom from the honorees and speakers:
“To be a founder first and foremost is to be delusional, completely bonkers because the first thing you’re saying is I can do this better than companies who’ve been doing this for hundreds of years with a lot more money than I have and a lot more resources, including people.” — Sharon Chuter, founder of Uoma Beauty
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“I’ve been a beauty founder for 22 years, and my first brand Nyakio Beauty was my entrance into this industry and CEW was my very first network. Here I sit almost two-and-a-half decades later. I am so deeply grateful. I feel liberated. I feel celebrated and seen and just empowered and inspired.” — Nyakio Grieco, founder of Thirteen Lune and Relevant: Your Skin Seen
“One of our lines in our brand manifesto is ‘Fearlessness is our greatest natural resource,’ and that is so true as an entrepreneur — being fearless and believing in what you’re doing and being an eternal optimist. Being an entrepreneur is one of the most optimistic things you can do, because it takes a lot of believing in what you’re doing, even when everyone else around you doesn’t.” — Brook Harvey-Taylor, founder and president of Pacifica Beauty
“Being a founder is about having a vision, and for me, my leadership style has to do with the language that we use and articulating specifically what we want and the solution that we’re here to serve and that promise. That’s a lot of what happens in the industry, particularly around the Black consumer, is [that] marketing is based on, ‘you have a problem we’re going to solve it.’ I disagree as a beauty shopper. I shop the most when I feel good not when I’m told I look bad. Pattern was built on celebrating our customer.” — Tracee Ellis Ross, founder of Pattern Beauty
“Women who are aging are looking for products that not only give instant results, but they give long-term benefits. I’m forecasting a lot in that area.” — Alicia Grande, founder and chief executive officer of Grande Cosmetics
“We must punch even higher above our weight in how we define personal beauty and joy. We need to include more of us from different races and genders and sexualities and cultures. We must continue to work together to make an impact on our products.” — Nancy Mahon, chief sustainability officer of Estée Lauder
“It’s taken me a very long time to understand leadership and I have so much respect for the word and for the word ‘leader.’ I’m to really look at management, directors, vice presidents, leaders, C-suite, what are we supposed to do as leaders and to me, what I want to do now is make it easier for my people to do what they need to do.” — Anisa Telwar Kaicker, founder of Anisa Beauty
“I was born in Iran and my family emigrated to Canada. It’s a striking dichotomy to me being a woman in the business world, especially in the business of hair, when women in my home country of Iran are fighting for the basic right to show their own hair.…As a young immigrant female founder I experienced firsthand how underrepresented underestimated and underfunded we are in every corner of the business world.” — Nikki Eslami, founder of Bellami Hair and New Theory Ventures
“Expect that you will be successful, define what it looks like for you and never forget to share it with others.” — Christina Fair, dermatological beauty division president of L’Oréal
“There’s a commonality with all of these women and some men.…We lift each other up. We do not compete with each other. We celebrate our accomplishments together.” — Alison Hahn, senior vice president, merchandising, makeup and fragrance of Sephora
“To all of the little brown girls in the room who are seeing me on this stage and wondering if you can stand in this moment, you can, I promise. If you just keep walking your path, if you do what’s in your heart and follow your convictions you can and you will. In fact, you must by faith.” — Taydra Mitchell Jackson, chief marketing officer of Sundial Brands
“The more you open to receive, the more you believe, the more you grow, the more you can give what you know. Shine that light, purely, genuinely and take delight in those who embrace it freely.” — Kory Marchisotto, chief marketing officer of E.l.f. Beauty and president of Keys Soulcare
“Take your chances, look for them, lean into them. Trust your choices. You’re unlikely to go wrong. Take chances on others, too, those who need your support. I try to do that every day, and I hope it can inspire you to do the same.” — Hilla Ram, senior vice president of global hair care brands and global beauty analytics and insights leader of P&G beauty
“This world in which we live today is wrought with sadness and challenges. We’re divided again and again and again on so many issues, but the one thing that we can do is connect through love, love of life, love of one another. That to me is the most powerful thing that I have learned through working in this industry and through building the Beautycounter movement — the power of our collective voice.” — Gregg Renfrew, founder of Beautycounter