"How did you ever get into a business like that?" people ask me. They're confounded to hear that my product is industrial baler wire—a very unfeminine pursuit, especially in 1975 when I founded my company in the midst of a machismo man's world. It's a long story, but I'll try to shorten it. I'd never been interested to enter the "man's" world of business, but I discovered a lucrative opportunity to become my own boss—even if it involved a non-glamorous product. I'd been fired from my previous job working to become a ladies' clothing buyer and was told, "You just aren't management or corporate material." My primary goal then became to find a career in which nobody had the power to fire me and to provide a comfortable living for my two little girls and myself.
There's never been a better time to stop and think about how we can do better and be better as a people, as a society, and as collective members of this beautiful planet we inhabit together. Why? Because the need for social and environmental sustainability has never been more urgent, including members in the beauty community.