The Empowered Challenger

Harriet Dwyer went from working as a grant researcher to revolutionizing support work in Australia as the Chief of Staff at Hireup. By removing the traditional agency middleman, Hireup’s online platform connects people with disabilities directly to support workers that fit their lifestyle.

Without any success stories or existing competitors, Hireup was created as a peer-to-peer platform aimed at empowering people with disabilities to make their own decisions about their support.

On this episode of The Empowered Challenger, Harriet discusses how her team overcame challenges they had no idea how to approach, Hireup's controversial decision to hire staff as employees instead of contractors, and what it's like building a tech platform in a new niche.

When women put on makeup, what are their goals? And how do they hope that makeup will help them achieve those goals?

These are the questions Aishetu Fatima Dozie, a banker-turned-beauty entrepreneur, thinks about every day since creating her own beauty brand, Bossy Cosmetics.

Aishetu stays busy checking social media to pick her customers’ brains and stir up meaningful conversations around women’s empowerment — and as a result, her business is thriving and disrupting the cosmetics industry. As a challenger in the industry, she must sometimes shake off imposter syndrome, and it helps to know that her brand is doing something completely different.

At the end of the day, Bossy Cosmetics is a vehicle for female empowerment, Aishetu’s life passion. Learn how she went from burnt-out banker to owning a beauty company with a mission to create meaningful change in the world.

Andrea Brimmer was once asked how she got her CFO to give her the greenlight to allocate half a million dollars for a customer giveaway during the week of Thanksgiving.

“I said, ‘I didn't ask her because I don't have to,’” Andrea says. “And that wasn't me being facetious or cocky and saying I don't have to get permission from anybody to do anything. But it's me saying she believes in that program as much as I do.”

Andrea is CMO and head of PR for Ally Financial, a completely online financial services company. With the promise of 24/7 support and unique virtual reality (among other) offerings, Ally strives to create meaningful and lasting connections with its customers — and all of Andrea’s work is driven by that mission.

The hallmark of the brand is customer centricity, and with everyone from the CEO to call center employees committed to that core value, what else could a company need?

Brian scaled a junk hauling side-hustle into a $300+ million business empire.

Enrico Frezza went from testing skincare products in his kitchen (and sometimes burning layers of skin off) to building the number one acne brand at Sephora North America.

As the founder and CEO of Peace Out Skincare, Enrico is challenging the clinical, unappealing acne industry with effective, revolutionary products and a brand centered around “acne positivity.”

After suffering from severe acne as a teenager and not finding any products that actually worked, Enrico was inspired to create something entirely new for the skincare world: a spot acne treatment that combined wound care technology with acne skincare. In addition to creating acne products that get great results, Enrico is also focused on building a supportive community for people with acne — something he never had as a teenager.

"Nowadays with social media and faking perfect skin with [the app] Facetune, it makes it even more challenging for somebody in their teenage years to feel okay with their own imperfections," Enrico says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger.

From community building to marketing to building a product that 65 labs said wasn't possible, tune in to this episode to learn how Enrico built a skincare brand that sold six months of inventory in three weeks (!) and is now stocked at Sephora stores around the world.

The COVID-19 pandemic has business owners and public service providers worrying about infectious diseases more than ever. Lisa Tecklenburg, Chief Marketing Officer at R-Zero, wants to help ease some of those concerns.

R-Zero’s flagship product is the Arc UV-C system, which uses ultraviolet-C (UVC) light to kill pathogens in the air and on surfaces in just a few minutes. It sounds like science fiction, but according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), UVC light has been used as a disinfectant for decades. It’s been shown to disable the SARS-Coronavirus, which is similar to the virus that causes COVID-19.

On this episode of The Empowered Challenger, Lisa explains how R-Zero is creating positive brand recognition among a rightfully skeptical market, why she wanted to get involved and what being a college athlete taught her about overcoming challenges.

Craig Dubitsky is a self-described lifelong entrepreneur.

Craig founded Hello Products, a friendly, all-natural personal care brand, and he now works as the Chief Innovation Strategist at Colgate (after Colgate acquired his brand!).

You'd be hard-pressed to find someone more obsessed with packaging and design than Craig, who believes there's no such thing as a boring category — only boring execution. As a testament to this belief, his first product at Hello was toothpaste.

On this episode of The Empowered Challenger, Craig talks about his brand's unconventional direct-to-consumer journey and how to humanize your brand. He also shares what he really thinks about "market disruptors" and why a big part of profitability is how you can make people feel.

Early on in his life, Matt Salzberg knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur. After earning an MBA from Harvard and spending a few years seeking out jobs at venture capitalist firms to help build his professional network, Matt was ready to begin his entrepreneurial journey.

Matt is the founder and chairman of Blue Apron, the pioneering brand of meal delivery services. It’s essentially a household name at this point but if you aren’t familiar, the service partners with farmers to source high-quality ingredients for meal kits delivered right to your door.

Are you ready to learn about how Matt skyrocketed Blue Apron's revenue from zero to $900 million in six years? We are, too.

Amy Risley believes that everything happens for a reason.

By that logic, it makes sense she ended up with a successful beauty company. Her family worked in the beauty industry for years and after meeting Estée Lauder at the age of five, Amy felt empowered seeing a woman in such a powerful business role.

As the founder and CEO of Skinfix, a beauty company that creates daily moisturizers, eczema treatments and other skincare products, Amy is taking on household name beauty brands with products that are clean, effective and backed by scientific studies. Not to mention, products that have changed the lives of many customers!

On this episode of The Empowered Challenger, listen firsthand as Amy discusses her brand's journey from $100,000 in annual revenue to being carried exclusively by Sephora. She talks about the spark that led her down the entrepreneurial path, how an early partnership with Target helped develop her indie brand and what it's like to truly run a clean, sustainable and life-changing company.

Despite living in the fashion capital New York City during and after college, it was an eventful trip to the Gobi Desert that inspired Matt Scanlan and his co-founder Diederik Rijsemus to start an ethical cashmere apparel brand Naadam.

The pair had planned to travel around Asia, but through a series of miscommunications, they spent a month living with nomadic sheep herders in Mongolia. After returning to the U.S., they started Naadam to help their new friends sell their cashmere for a fairer price.

On this episode of The Empowered Challenger, Matt explains how a dressing down from an irate goat herder caused an epiphany that changed his life, how he channels his personality and story into the brand, and why he doesn’t want Naadam to feel too cool.