In episode fifty three of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder of Floral Street, Michelle Feeney.

Michelle Feeney has been described as one of the most powerful women in global beauty- and rightly so. 

In 1993, Michelle was headhunted by the team at Estée Lauder and, after 10 interviews (including one with Leonard Lauder himself), was given a senior role with the company. Lauder had hired Michelle at a time when they were beginning to acquire other brands and, in 1994, they tasked Michelle with developing a launch strategy to turn a pot of moisturiser into a global cult product. That moisturiser was Crème de la Mer. 

In 1998, Estée Lauder Companies acquired MAC Cosmetics and, given that Michelle had already proven her ability to turn a great product into a legitimate icon, she became MAC’s Vice President of Global Communications, leading the growth of the brand and launching into 40 countries. When Michelle took on that role, MAC was a $65 million company. Less than 7 years later, it was worth $1 billion. Michelle is also largely responsible for spearheading and bringing mainstream awareness to the MAC AIDS Fund, signing the likes of Elton John and Mary J Blige to front the Fund’s campaign. That initiative saw Michelle sit on a board in the United Nations and hand $750,000 over to Kofi Annan. 

Beyond Estée, Michelle spent 4 years as the CEO of St Tropez, quite literally transforming the way the entire world viewed self tanning and turning the brand into the market leader. In 2017, Michelle founded Floral Street- an award winning, “quintessentially British” fine fragrance brand with sustainability and eco-responsibility at its very core.

In this conversation, Michelle explains why it’s so important to stay open to opportunity rather than having a concrete plan, what the beauty industry can do to ensure it doesn’t lose its creativity and what it really takes to turn a product into an icon. 

You can read this interview now at: glowjournal.com/

Follow Floral Street on Instagram at @floralstreet_

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected]

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