By Sara Vicente Barreto
5
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The podcast currently has 30 episodes available.
You can feel the energy in the voice or the video. It is contagious. A breath of fresh air in a world that is almost afraid of joy. That is how I felt coming out of recording the new season of the podcast with Carmen Alfonso Rico. It is not every day that you meet someone who is unapologetic about having fun and enjoying what she is doing.
Kicking off with politics
Carmen wanted to be the US Secretary of State when she was a little girl. Note she was not a US national or living in the US, but that did not seem to stop her. Serendipity determined she would start her career in politics, in the middle of the PIGS crisis. What she most learnt that stayed with her was the human aspect of the industry. The work was very human-driven, which aligned with Carmen's goals.
London and Finance
Carmen is quick to affirm her life is not a straight line. As she wanted to grow and learn more, she realized a lot of her peers had moved to London to work in Finance, so she decided to follow along and "served" her time in Investment Banking. Despite the clear change in seniority level, she did learn the value of attention to detail, translating it into a responsibility when you are entrusted with someone's business. We share a few stories on our focus on the colour of charts or the spacing between words. I am not always proud of it, but Carmen's interpretation certainly makes me feel better.
Finding out what you do not like
Carmen wanted to keep moving and go into what she thought would be her future - being an entrepreneur. First, she got herself into VC and then decided to go on to become a tech entrepreneur. Against her expectations, she did not like it and she also missed investing. She preferred to cover many things rather than a single thing very deeply. For a moment, I thought it was me talking I must admit. She came to the conclusion she preferred the variety of content and took that as she moved her career forward.
Serendipity and opportunity
As Carmen found her way back into the VC world, she stumbled across the Hopin opportunity. That is when she first started being an angel investor. But not just any angel investor. Carmen built a unique relationship of trust with the founder, working alongside him in a very collaborative manner. She truly enjoyed becoming the trusted advisor and went on to do more angel investments.
Seeding Killers with a Heart
Carmen saw the opportunity to scale up the angel investments she was doing into a business model. Counter-intuitively, she went back on the cap table by moving to the seed stage of the companies to focus intensely on the "power of small", as she calls it.
Why Killers with a Heart? Carmen has a strong preference for companies that are solving a very painful pain and have a high amount of customer love, almost like a cult. As to the Killers part, she did learn in banking that you can be delivering but still be kind, so that is part of her due diligence process. Over time, the importance she placed on IQ and EQ was a journey of acceptance of what truly mattered in making a business successful.
Energy from fun
For Carmen, a good day will start early and have exercise, reading a book, meeting great founders and hosting people. This will give a good perspective of what matters to her. As I tried to understand what drives her energy, her response no doubt surprised me:
"I'm obsessed"
It is the fun and energy she puts into things that drive the enjoyment that you hear in her voice. And she reminds herself of the importance of having fun before every meeting, no matter how big or small. She does it with immense conviction that she has found her superpower and is joyful about living it.
When I came out of the podcast, a smile of energy lightened me up on a day that had started very gloomy. And more importantly, I felt connected, and just a bit more normal. Passion and obsession are more common than we think sometimes.
Carmen's List
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Before the summer break, I reconnected with old colleague Samreen Ghani to talk about her journey and her role as President of Moonbug Studios. It had been a long time since our M&A times together! And we end up finding ourselves in a similar life reflection on "how you measure your life"!
The Early Days
Samreen did not follow the expected path. Her earliest memory from childhood was spelling the word "doctor", which was exciting for her parents as she grew up. In Pakistan, her expected paths would have been doctor, engineer, lawyer or banker if she wanted to define herself as successful. So as she finished her degree, she joined investment banking, which she sees today as a great grounding experience to give you the technical skills, but also the discipline and work ethic you need later in life. From there, Samreen started moving along her "5-Year-Plans".
Career Transition
As she evaluated the next 5-year period, Samreen realized she did not want to stay in M&A and started looking at the industry she enjoyed and the type of transferable skills she had. With that, Samreen moved to entertainment but stayed in Finance. Whilst she gained the work-life balance, she did not feel she had a fit with the corporate culture. She found herself only halfway through her 5-year plan but not happy with where she was going. That is when she really started exploring what she wanted to do and in which type of corporation.
She felt the clock ticking on her as she engaged in her career break (I can see where she is coming from) and really gave herself time to reflect. For her, what worked was to talk to different people and be open about what the future would be. She was talking to people across industries and different types of small to large corporations. More importantly, she was open to herself about what worked and did not work for her.
"Sometimes there is so much noise around us that we forget who we are and what makes us happy!"
Listening to your inner self
You may not always want to listen to it, as sometimes it tells you things you don't want to hear. But it is when you hear yourself that things may work out better, so talking to people is a part of the process but can't be the main driver. Amongst one of the many conversations, an opportunity came up to participate in a project that then became a role. Samreen stayed close to the finance space and used her early career skills along the way.
Further along the way, as her 5-year plan included building a family, she also had the opportunity to join Moonbug as CFO and later President, while doing multiple acquisitions and funding rounds. This experience tested her in ways like never before.
Prioritizing and Focusing
There is enough work to fill any hour of the day, so you need to focus on the big things you want to achieve. Samreen runs a to-do list across work and family, but she reminds us that you also need to create the right level of infrastructure and autonomy so that people can help you and you are not the bottleneck.
On top of it, it is important to keep an eye on the end goal, to ensure you are prioritizing accordingly and ensuring you are taking small steps towards the longer-term goal.
A non-linear path
Samreen describes herself as very organized. But when you are figuring out your path you can't always expect it to be very linear. Staying nimble and going out of her comfort zone has been key for her, however if she were to look at the chart of her career throughout time, it would still be on a positive trajectory towards her goals. It just does not have to mean the same path to everyone. It is important to remember that you could do things differently, but they may not have been better or worse than your current choices.
"Don't be afraid to be not liked"
As a leader, you can't always be liked. That is a defining characteristic of Samreen. You need to make difficult decisions, but they are not always going to be popular. You can make difficult choices, but you can do them with empathy and kindness. In running a business, there is a big people element in it, with a lot of grey areas that need to be managed.
Samreen reminds me that the need the small kids have goes away very quickly and there is a short amount of time to make the most of it. That helps her keep perspective with her priorities and the demands on her time coming from everywhere.
Samreen's List
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Rita Vilas Boas first connected with me on Linkedin. After a lot of online engagement, we finally met in person last year to find out we shared many passions. When she was a little girl, Rita wanted to dismantle things and figure out how things worked, but deep down, she wanted to be part of Fame, and dance on a Taxi roof in the streets of New York. Can you picture it?
Different lives
Rita studied biotechnology but soon found out about marketing, where she started her career. She threw herself into it and got a job at Loreal. For 20 years, she was a marketer in multinationals and large family businesses. Through social acquaintances Rita started investing on the side and, in the Covid era, thought this was something she could do full-time, supporting founders and thriving as an investor. Between these areas, Rita talks only about serendipity:
"if we plan too much, it never happens, be ready to change and pivot."
Rita believes we should have 3 careers in our lives. She is now onto the second one, but the future is open for the third phase. Perhaps that's when she will get to the dancing part!
Becoming an investor
Rita is a hands-on investor and puts her money where her efforts will also be. She is keen to be part of the journey and be there along the way for founders.
"Instead of just saying the talk, I walk the talk"
Rita is taking an increasing role in the ecosystem and going through the VC Lab to take her efforts as a business angel further. She wants to bring more transparency into the VC world and is keen to put the new ideas to life. She invests when she believes, and that energy and passion translate into her day-to-day actions.
The day-to-day
Rita has a structured approach to her day, reserving some focus time for due diligence on her potential investments, but also a lot of time out there to see pitches and attend conferences. The balance is hard to find, but it is important to be open to the flow of information constantly thrown your way.
Common threads
Rita claims the common thread in her life is "breaking ceilings". She chose a male-orientated sales environment over marketing, she chose the wine business as the first woman director in the family business, then start-ups in China and now an investor in Portugal. She wants people to hear her voice, and through that, also be inspired to find their own voice. She has become a player with a diverse background because she believes that is where her advantage lies. Rita is a strong believer in diverse teams and believes time will demonstrate the results.
Rita's List
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Coming back to the podcast after a long pause has been refreshing and inspiring. The next guest is already in the oven. Send feedback and enjoy!
When she was a little girl, Sabine wanted to be a businesswoman. In the middle of the pandemic, faced with economic distress in parts of the world and her day job helping large companies restructure and prepare for the economic downfall of Covid, she went on a life change. She became an entrepreneur and has since then been living the rollercoaster of start-up life.
"It's not always the big decisions that impact your life", Clay Christensen
Share ownership as a goal
The idea for Upstreet started with a focus on rewarding customers for loyalty through company shares. Research shows that customers are more loyal to a company they have a stake in. Moreover, they are willing to pay more. Upstreet came in as a provider for these share ownership programs. It also allowed people to give shares in the ever more exciting space of micro-investing. More recently, the company has evolved to facilitate share ownership for employees. While we may think that is an already resolved issue as we hear of start-up employees winning small fortunes when the companies become unicorns, this is still not always a common form of reward. Sabine believes it is important that more companies can do this, as it is key for employees to have an upside stake in the future of the company.
Women Share Ownership
In Australia, the percentage of women that make up the total number of Australian investors is still around 18%. Sabine believes Upstreet can play a role in reducing the inequity here as well. It starts with women earning the first shares through one of Upstreet's programmes and then demystifying ownership from there.
From consultant to COO
The skillset that came with her consulting background is extremely valuable, however, Sabine describes the start-up life as very different. A consultant's life is stressful no doubt, but it is also surrounded by lots of comforts and the certainty of payroll coming in at the end of the month. On the other side, Sabine now knows a whole new level of stress, that of running a company, having to meet payroll, winning a customer to find out they won't do a contract until perhaps the next year.
"That is what real stress looks like!", Sabine
Finding the Silver lining
Sabine reveals her way of dealing with these challenges. Since early in her life, she has always sought to find the silver lining, to identify the good, even if small, in any bad situation. Yes, she still gets upset when something bad happens, she is still human. But she has a tendency to bring perspective and find something that makes it better. We also talked about how everything seems to be better just when you sleep on it and wake up the next day. We both seem to have a tendency to try to go to bed early when we have a particularly bad day, in the hope a new day will be halfway through resolving the feeling. It mostly works.
A holistic approach
Sabine does not believe in balance. In fact, the way she described her single to-do list seems very much like she is practising "Work-life sway", my newly learnt expression from the book "Power Mums". Her to-do list incorporates anything she needs to get done, be it for the company, for her or for her family. She approaches her day as a whole and does not try to compartmentalize too much as she does not think balance is a real thing. I tend to agree (but I still keep 2 separate lists)
I had not spoken to Sabine in almost 15 years. Speaking to her felt like meeting an old school friend. I am passionate about how she is pursuing her own type of balance through her life choices whilst growing a company she is extremely passionate about. And the added bonus that can contribute to a reduction in the equity ownership gender gap no doubt makes it even more special to me. I can't wait to see what Upstreet is up to next!
Sabine's List
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It is unusual to find someone who wanted to be something as a child that they are today. Daniela started volunteering at age 12 and she always knew her life would be dedicated to making the problems of the world better. These experiences increased her resolve to do something about it, even if she did not know how.
A glide path
"When you look back, it all seems to make sense"
Daniela
However, it was not so rational at the time. As Daniela was working in Private Equity, she realized her skillset was truly invaluable in the social sector and realized she could start making a difference in this space sooner than she expected. The right opportunity appeared to go and work at Save the Children and she took it. This was a great opportunity to evaluate the challenges and benefits of charities and the whole development space and provided the best information for the following career moves.
Impetus
Daniela recognised the models of traditional finance were not working. So at Impetus, she focused on supporting charitable organizations in order for them to be more impactful, being able to scale and broaden impact. This was at a time when impact investment was not a thing. I remember this is when I first met Daniela, as I considered joining a world at the time (very little) known as Social VC. They experimented a fair amount and it was Daniela's first large stride in creating impact at scale.
Scale is the key
Daniela is fundamentally interested in impact at scale. It needs to come hand in hand with impact for her. So, when looking at opportunities, she is looking for pathways to finance projects that can be replicated and open avenues for more funding going into it. Snowball was also the first fund of its kind globally, optimizing for risk, return and impact. The model was done scalable from the start, with the view of making impact investment available for all. With a 6-year track record, impact investment is what they do, not a strand, not a separate goal, it is intrinsic to the model.
Implementing a vision "Our vision is very big and the day-to-day is nitty-gritty"
Hardly a quote could replicate better how the best vision is implemented. In Daniela's view, every investment has an impact, even if people are not accounting for it. So at Snowball, they internalize these responsibilities day-to-day, to ensure the investment system is serving the environment and planet and recognising the impact of each financial decision. Whilst they have a grand vision of what they want to achieve, as CEO, she spends her time ensuring each action is aligned and contributing forward to this vision.
A CEO that cares
Daniela's defining characteristic as CEO across all her ventures is that she cares. She cares about the mission, the people, and the outcome. Daniela surrounds herself with people that can challenge her and are also constructive and able to build something together. At the same time, she can operate at a very high picture strategic level and down to detail. My type of CEO, no doubt, navigating between the 2 at all times!
Daniela is extremely positive about the opportunities ahead. Seeing impact investing as the only way to invest, she identifies multiple areas of opportunity where we can achieve impact at scale. Throughout her life, she has tuned in this vision of purpose, of impact and of scale.
Daniela's List:
With a love for learning since early age, I have a feeling Inês will be learning for many years to come. She is passionate about innovation, and is not scared about solving a challenge. You just have to look at her resume to see this. I lost count of the number of roles and ventures in her LinkedIn profile.
A fast-starter
Ines assessed start-ups needed support way before it was cool to talk about accelerator programs. So she designed one. And expanded it to multiple cities. She determined there was a need for social ventures long before social impact was a concept. So she dedicated her efforts to Social Value Generator. She found she was often the only woman attending Tech events, so she decided to create a network for Women in Tech. She assessed that only a small percentage of businesses' procurement goes into woman-owned businesses - so she created a database of women-owned businesses that large corporations can use, so there is no longer the excuse that "they can't find them". What's next?
Time for space
Inês is taking time to define her next steps. She is not in a rush and is, as expected, putting a lot of time into learning. She knows it will involve AI, Web 3 and all the new developments in this area, but she has not defined yet where next she will put her energy. She has been brave to really take a step back and create this space for thought. In her daily life, she has also become better at incorporating moments of space into her life, especially as the pandemic thought us that there is so much we can do remotely.
Looking back
Inês feels the things she has done are mostly connected and the reason they seem so many are because she started early. But more importantly, she reminds us that there are a lot of ideas she had that never had the light of day. She was willing to try a few ideas that were not fully formed (like the first accelerator week for Start-up Pirates). The first step is the one that makes things happen:
"It is much easier to move something that is already moving"
Old piece of advice
The other reflection Ines brings us is one someone shared with her early in her career. As she met someone with a very different lifestyle more than 10 years ago (a famous digital nomad), she questioned his choices to understand what drove him. The answer was simple
"What is the worst that can happen?"
When thinking about it like this, we are often reminded we can probably live with the outcome.
Never waste a good crisis
As for many of her ventures, Inês was early for the pandemic. She got supplies early in February and buckled up. As she did so, she focused on this quote by Churchill to ensure she would not go crazy during these times. She focused on working hard on her company in consulting at the time. One of the things that Inês definitely put to good use, was the time to start eating healthy and take better care of herself.
Final thoughts?
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the 2nd best time is today!
To remember
Podcast edited by Alice Stansfield
Today, I am bringing you the launch of Season 3 - Creating Space. In order to tell you more about the upcoming season, I feel I need to go back in time and explain my concept of word of the year. Because Space is my word of the year.
For the last 3 years, I have been defining myself a word of the year. Why a word of the year? I already have goals, values, and even a vision board. I found a word goes beyond and through all that. A word gives me a true north.
Believe
In 2020, my word of the year was BELIEVE. And that belief helped me hold it together - do you remember the year of Covid? I acted through the year (or most of it) with a belief in myself that I did not think was possible. One I had not lived before. Believing in myself in a way that was sometimes blinding but also re-energising. It made me float through ideas, see the positive in all the crazy times, find new avenues, unleash dreams. When was the last time you believed that your dreams would be possible? That YOU are possible? Somehow, along the way, my beliefs have been shaken. I fought hard to dig the word back out into my life towards the year-end. And I did not let go of it. In all honesty, I almost thought of keeping it for 2021.
Fearless
But I took the next step on the belief highway. Believing can only lead to one thing - no fear. As I reflected on how I looked forward to 2021, I landed on a theme of courage. One that stemmed from a newly built belief in the possibilities. And one that I felt I needed to feel stronger and stand up again. After the year of Covid, where we recognisably lived with more fear for life than in many of the past years - even if not ours, for those of our loved ones, I recognised I can't be bold or brave if I have fear. So the word was FEARLESS. And that was no doubt a driving north through the year. In moments of doubt, hesitation, and fear where a choice was required. I carried on.
Space
And now SPACE. I took longer than usual to land on my word of the year for 2022. As I reflected, I started seeing a word come up often in my gratitudes. Space. The small bits of space I had felt rejuvenating, if not a lot of them. So I decided to dedicate this year, and this season of the podcast, to the ability to find, create and enjoy space in our lives.
Space is not a single event in time, it is something you continuously need to have. So as we go through these series, I will speak to our guests about their path, their business, their careers. But also about how they find space. Space to explore, think, feel and be.
Join me, for this journey, to find out how. It is time to create space.
For the Season Finale, I went around the world and down into my memory to pick the highlights of this season. What I learnt, what I discovered, what I was impressed about. There is no bittersweet taste in getting to the end of a season. In fact, it is exciting to look back and remember all the amazing women that crossed my path. After the hard to forget year of 2020, my goal was to bring to light in 2021, the stories of what are now almost 2 years of this pandemic, but more importantly, how each of us is looking to lift ourselves up, look forward and face life stronger and together.
As for me, 2021 was a year of multiple wins and also some bumps on road for women around the world. What have I learnt in this journey?
Yael Melamed
Yael helped me open up the season by talking to us about the importance of letting go of control. It is hard to envisage life without control. Control of schedules, conversations, moments, words. In fact, Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks argues that all that we fill our lives with is precisely because we fear death. In 2020, in one way or another, we learnt (mostly the hard way) that in fact, we have very little control. And, in 2021, we probably didn't go with Yael's suggestion of letting go (or Frozen's suggestion for that matter). We went with another slogan instead and sought to take back control. How did that work out for you?
Francesca Geens
I had been following Francesca for a while. In fact, we had been users of her amazing "Happy Self" gratitude journal for kids. Little Girl C has benefited greatly from it and even Baby S has his own. Given my great passion for the practice of gratitude, meeting Francesca for the podcast in early 2021, as I braced myself for what I hoped was the end of the pandemic, was just great. Francesca started studying the science of happiness the more she heard about people, especially children being depressed. And if you are thinking this is just a pandemic fashion, let me stop you there. Francesca launched her business in 2018.
Did you know that scientists have actually been able to measure the impact of a gratitude practice in our brain?
Amy Williams
Amy was a perfect guest to follow my goal of women empowerment, as the platform she has created "Fem Foundry", is dedicated precisely to this. Amy was a fighter of the pandemic. She launched a platform dedicated to all parts of being a woman, whatever that definition means to people. In fact, she Is focused on avoiding labels and reducing women to a single role. Amy thought she always had great resilience but she admitted that this brought her resilience to a whole other level. Amy found higher barriers, higher hurdles and more shut doors.
Catarina Gorgulho
Catarina had been wanting to be an entrepreneur for a while, to have something hers, that she could look and feel and, ideally, that would be aligned with her passion for wellness. Funny enough, compared to other entrepreneurs I have met, the product came last. And it was as simple as Lupin Beans. Catarina. Pedro and Alice have really worked on bringing a new face to Lupin Beans through Tarwi. As they set up a business through the pandemic, I was curious to know how to launch a dream like this during a time like this! With a good knowledge of social media, they launched with the people. This proximity of brands and people brought about by lockdown was already known to me by prior episodes of the podcast. But the result here was extraordinary. They were stocked out whenever they were back in stock!
Jessica Postiglione
Jessica and I went to school together in the US. She is now on her second start-up past corporate life and we had a conversation about the journey. A hot topic is always about the move from corporate life into entrepreneurship. She reminds us that there is never a right time. After her first start-up came soul-searching and just then the pandemic hit. As she tried to keep herself mentally and physically fit, her company was born. And if you think she was just in ideation mode through the pandemic, not quite! In fact, I will never forget she actually had her first factory tour over facetime. There was no stopping her determination.
Kirsten Robinson
Kerstin decided to leave the corporate finance life to create her business. As Catarina, she had a few ideas but not THE idea. She ended up making juice. They tried flavours, put them in cafes and hung around to see what people thought. A bit of stalking arguably, however humble in approach. Step by step, they were ready to expand. And as the pandemic hit, the multi-channel approach protected them from the hit (or part of it) and their customer appeal led them to close an oversubscribed round of crowdfunding.
Jenna Stein
Jenna founded Berlin Clothing Swap out of her own need to get clothes in an affordable and sustainable way. As we moved to a more personal conversation, there were quite a few bits that stuck with me. As we debated life past pandemic. Jenna did reiterate how important it was to learn that it is OK to say no.
There will always be another party.
Khyati Sundaram
Khyati was yet another financier Fellow that left into the unknown and without a clear path ahead, For the podcast, we focused on her start-up number 2, as she realised her resume did not fit after leaving start-up number 1. It is no surprise she joined Applied, focused on removing bias from the recruitment process. The focus is on skills alone.
To this day Khyati has given me what I still think is one of my favourite quotes.
Be as Water.
Joana Dias da Cunha
Joana runs the impact business Fair Bazaar, aligned with her mission to educate and inspire. Again, I found an amazing woman that decided not to stay still in the face of a problem. In her case, It was a movie that woke her up to the damage of fast fashion. Running the company has been a multi-stage adventure and one that is still very much moving. The pandemic forced store shutdowns, but also created the opportunity for her to grow her online business, launch Fair News and grow her education practice.
Zeze Oriaikhi-Sao
Malee is Africa’s First global Luxury fragrance and body care brand. Zeze describes herself as multi-hyphenated. To this podcast, I had not realized the presence of multiple hyphens in my life. But the way that Zeze described it was what grabbed my attention. In a time when I was truly thinking how I needed to drop hyphens, she called it limitless.
As I close. l think I want to stick to ZEZE's advice to all Of us.
Be bold, what is the worse that can happen?
I am grateful for this journey and grateful for the women that made it what it became. For the ability to find growth, for the ability to lift themselves up, for their authenticity and willingness to share,
Produced by Alice Stansfield
Zeze grew up with a love of play and a love of teaching. She became an entrepreneur early in her life and has evolved into a "multi-hyphenated" self as an entrepreneur, beauty and cosmetics industry expert, luxury brand consultant, influential speaker, podcast host, freelance columnist and social media personality. Her company, Malee, is Africa’s 1st global luxury fragrance and body care brand. Zeze tells the story of how she has grown with her company through the ups and downs of running a business and life all in one.
A non-considered start
Zeze started her entrepreneurship career more than 10 years ago shortly after finishing school. It all looks well thought of and planned out, but in fact, it was a product of factors and not very considered. Zeze did know she would eventually follow her passions and dreams in entrepreneurship but expected she would do that much later in her career. Don't worry, she did have a business plan, but the truth is that she was not yet 100% sure she was going to do this at the time she launched. That showed as she took a day job in the meantime and did not really believe when she got a call from CNN to talk about Malee. When she considered her options, someone gave her the advice she remembers today
"What is the worst that can happen?"
Losing the passion
Zeze started with her vision for the business but ended up deviating from it, going into retail, investing in manufacturing and working 7 days a week. At that point, she no longer woke up loving her business. And as the joy started to go down, she also started making less money.
As she had external consultants come in and look into her business, they helped her see the difficulty in scaling the operations and also the impact of any moments she was not there on the bottom line. At that point, she recognised she was working on it, but dying slowly, and without any joy.
It is interesting Zeze brought this up because people assume entrepreneurs always have a passion for their business. But a lot of times, passion can fade. And what do you do then?
"This isn't life"
Taking the helm back
Zeze focused on what she needed from the business to be able to continue to be at the helm of the ship. So that is how the business evolved, with this mix of personal and professional experiences. And from the realizations that come with running a business for 12 years. Not only do you change as a person, the business changes but even the world you are in changes. Retail is today totally different from what it was 5 years ago, and even from what it was 18 months ago. With a business that was 80% based on the hospitality industry, Malee took a huge impact when the pandemic hit and a lot of questions had to be asked.
How to pandemic proof the business?
The first adjustment that Zeze had to go through was to accept there was no work. There was no business to sell. This is when having a decade behind and being quite frugal has really helped her endure this period. At the same time, Zeze dedicated this downtime to sit down with the team and re-organize while getting operationally fit to be able to stretch the margins post the pandemic. So, for the first 6 months, all was cool and there was no panic. But as the pandemic stretched out and post a lot of cuts in expenditure and personnel, there was a point Zeze was indeed ready to panic.
Looking forward
All in all, the business survived the pandemic and has also taken this chance to change their relationship with their customers and diversify away from B2B. It is not the first time we hear on the podcast how the pandemic was such a crucial moment for brands to relate to their customers.
Back to the original business, Zeze is now also more focused on a broader lifestyle brand and is venturing into apparel. She has also become much bolder with the expansion, so has started pushing the business outside its comfort zone.
Being Bold
One of my favourites was to find out how Zeze described herself as a leader. She realized how bold she had been already in her 12-year business. Malee was the first female black-owned brand to launch in Harvey Nichols (even before Rihanna) - and extremely successful. She was able to grow a luxury brand out of Africa into the "first world" where there are so many options already and being able to stand next to the best in the game. It reinforces that no dream is too big.
"No one puts Baby in a corner
Dirty DancingThe secret of expanding time
I get this question a lot - how do I do all the things that I do. And Zeze is just like that. She has the mindset of being "limitless" in all the things she is working on. She loves the pace and the diversity. And despite the apparent lack of connectivity, they do all come together in an incremental way. Gone are the days where she felt confined to being Malee all day and every day. As the business is no longer a baby that needs her every second, she is finding value in all the things that make her "multi-hyphenated". I think I like her explanation!
The only problem I had with this podcast is that I could have gone on for hours listening to Zeze's story. She was an open-sharer and I feel like I learnt a fair amount and just kept absorbing her great stories. What was your biggest take?
Zeze's Short List
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Produced by Alice Stansfield
As I record my first podcast after my big move, I am a bit nervous. Is the sound ok, is the light ok, is the background decent? And then I start chatting with Joana. Once you get into the chat, it is just a chat between two passionate people. Joana is a sustainability advocate who has created a business around her passion. Fair Bazaar and more recently Fair News are her ways of changing the world of fast fashion one bit at a time. Into a world that we want to live in.
The Journey
Joana always dipped in and out of entrepreneurship. She started off as an entrepreneur straight after Uni, but then decided to spend a few years in the corporate world and then working with start-ups through the arms of Rocket Internet. In 2015, she started seeing the world differently. As she watched the movie "True Costs", she felt like she could no longer go on the same way. It is interesting, so many of us watch movies and think things need to change, it can't go on like that. And then some people do something about it. That is what Joana did - as she immediately started changing her fashion choices, she realized how difficult it was to do so and created a business that allowed sustainable brands to prosper. Fair Bazaar was born.
A multi-stage adventure
After the conception stage, Joana launched a physical presence in Lisbon and later an online shop. Hearing this today feels weird because we have just been through Covid-19 and the surge in online shopping. But at the time, that seemed to make sense. She provided a marketplace for brands and that was at the core of her mission.
However, the pandemic brought her business model under pressure. As she closed down her shops, her online business was insufficient to maintain the business. As an optimist, Joana turned to the other 2 pillars she had for the brand - education and inspiration. Amidst the pandemic, she started Fair News, a digital magazine dedicated to sustainable fashion and lifestyle. And she grew her education practice, venturing into B2B with masterclasses and workshops. Had the pandemic not hit, she may not have taken the brand there yet. Hard to guess now.
Challenges of Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship comes associated with the word uncertainty. We have heard that before from other guests at the podcast. So the pandemic added another layer to it, requiring what every entrepreneur has to live and breathe - adapting. Joana has had to make difficult choices during the last 18 months - that included firing people, closing shops. These are the dreaded decisions everyone launching and growing a business hopes they can avoid. And in fact, sometimes, that is the end of it. But Joana faced it as another moment where the business had to adapt and find another way. And she did so through a lens of opportunity, finding new ways to work and grow.
A different life
Living in Lisbon at the time the lockdown hit, Joana escaped the city for lockdown and adopted a new form of living, more communal. The importance of being with family in a time like this not only provided her with the practical support that an entrepreneur trying to hold a business together while having a small child at home needs to have, but also gave her the extra mental support these difficult times required. To help, she doubled down on her discipline of having a running, yoga and meditation practice. Even though she did not develop any new habits (I am still fascinated by my colleague who started a philosophy club), she certainly ensured these key habits of self-care were part of her life.
Looking forward, Joana maintains her optimistic stance. She sees a world of opportunity out there, as there is still so much to do in order to slow down fashion and reduce the costs it has in people's livelihoods and our planet. I hope she continues to promote, educate, and inspire.
Joana's List
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This podcast is produced by Alice Stansfield
The podcast currently has 30 episodes available.