Barcelona, 09 March 2022. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, Beauty Business School and Beauty Cluster invited 6 women who are part of the Beauty Cluster to share with all attendees the lights and shadows of female leadership.
If we want strong women, with self-esteem, self-respect, self-respect and a psychological base that helps them to grow with confidence and move forward, it is necessary to continue creating female role models. That is why, for this 8th March, we decided to honour, support and give visibility to all the women in our industry through a round table on female leadership. Because we wanted to show the future leaders of the sector that beauty is strength.
In a talk led by Silvia Bueso, mentor, trainer and expert in ‘The art of asking’, we learned from each and every one of them what the keys to female leadership are. And yes, men can also lead in a feminine way.
She showed us the skills that women have, such as managing uncertainty and resilience, as well as all the obstacles that make it difficult for us to move forward. Silvia developed a whole method that we can learn in her book “De darlo todo a pedir lo que te dé la gana” in which she gives us the keys to learn to ask, something as forgotten as it is necessary in the whole process of female leadership.
Cristina Salvador, founder of Both People & Comms, then moderated a panel discussion with 4 female managers in the beauty industry. Cristina raised different questions to give visibility to the strengths and weaknesses of female leadership. How is female leadership and what does it mean to be a woman in the business world.
The table was attended by Puri Martínez, CEO at Sensalia Labs, Sahily Deus, Managing Director, Birchbox Spain, Claudia Mustera, Founder at The Organic Republic and Elena Grau, Founder at ILOS.
Cristina’s first question was: What does female leadership mean to you?
Puri Martínez: “For me, to lead is to connect with the best that we all have. As leaders, we have to help the essence of each person and of all the members of the team to shine through. It means putting ourselves at the service of everyone so that we can all give our best“.
Claudia Mustera, for her part, showed how starting a business after the age of 30 has not been easy: “there is a lot of social pressure: you have to be a mother, a friend…“. It has been a personal job. I haven’t seen the balance, it’s been one or the other”.
Elena Grau told us about her experience in entrepreneurship at the age of 40, something she couldn’t be happier about, as her ILOS project had been in her head for quite some time and she has finally made it a reality. In addition to being an entrepreneur, Elena Grau is CEO of EG Group.
Sahily Deus, unlike her colleagues, has not founded a company, but she is a born leader who runs a company created by a woman with honesty and empathy: Birchbox. She believes that this fact has made it easier for the company to support women in every way. “We lead by example, flexibility and the empathy of having experienced different situations first-hand“.
Although we talk about female leadership, this term does not exclude men, it is a way of leading that requires certain skills that are normally given to women. But men can also lead through empathy, communication and listening.
Before finishing, Cristina discussed the shadows of leading as a woman, such as the impostor syndrome, hyper-perfectionism or the difficulty of weaving networks of sisterhood among us. All of them affirmed that the shadows are or have been present at some point in their professional careers, but they have learned to overcome them. In the end, the lights far outweigh those moments of doubt.
In short, as they have shared with us, “There are fewer and fewer stones but there is still a lot of struggle ahead”.
