Category Archives: Women Entrepreneurs

Interviews with Influential Women – Liz Edlich

Authenticity and kindness are essential to long-term success. Equipped with these attributes, Radical Skincare Co-founder Liz Edlich ranks them high in what has propelled her success. In this latest Interview with Influential Women, Liz highlights the people that have helped her along her journey and discusses the steps you need to take to ensure your next chapter of life is one you desire.

Please give my readers a short background on your personal journey that brought you to today.

We approach skincare and life the same way, radically. As daughters of Dr. Richard F. Edlich MD-PhD (world renowned Professor of Plastic Surgery), we worked in his lab and burn unit at the University of Virginia. Before the age of ten, we were exposed to the science of skin rejuvenation at extreme levels. Since then, we have been inspired by our dad to be radical and go above and beyond, as he changed the landscape of medicine from his wheelchair with multiple sclerosis.

It was part of our DNA that we ended up in the skin care industry in Los Angeles. For 15 years, we created over 100 products for celebrities and others. But when it became personal, we had to get radical. With Rachel developing Rosacea after her second child and gravity taking its toll on our skin, we decided to do something about it.

We challenged our chemists and after perfecting it and trialing it, we found it.

After scooping the product out of lab in sample bottles and labeling them with magic markers, we gave this youth elixir to our friends as party favors. This experiment transformed our skin and the skin of our friends. Given our family heritage and life-long mission to make a radical difference, we were compelled to share radical skincare with others.

Just like there is a technology for creating the strongest skincare that can soothe sensitive skin, there is a technology for creating a life you love. It is with that commitment that we have been traveling around the world sharing our life- changing skincare and coaching woman on creating a life that they love. Delivering radical results and nothing less in life is our mission.

Who are your top 3 female role models, and what about each inspires you?

My Mother: I am inspired by her ultimate kindness… her quiet strength to have stayed by my father’s side and watch his degeneration with MS for 40 years, selfless dedication to her kids, and love of music and people. She always supported the underdog and those that cannot take care of themselves.

Yvette Mimeux: As an all-time beauty, actress and force to be reckoned with, Yvette, “Tinkerbell” as I call her, is an activist for joy, travel, animals, food and life experiencing every moment and making it beautiful. Her artistic eye casts a poetic hue of vibrant color, exotic tastes and laughter that make every moment a celebration. I carry this nature with me and work to breathe the same spirit into each one of my moments.

My Sister: There are no words. It just is.

I am lucky. I collect people. I have many mentors and friends that I learn from, and I take the best of them with me.

Dyan Cannon: for teaching me unconditional love and faith.

Cynthia Kersey: for her loving energy and giving.

Maria Price: for mentoring and molding me from 19 to 31 in the business world to help me operate within structure, although I still can be a bull in a china shop. 🙂

Melanie Griffith: for her loving generosity.

Goldie Hawn: for her grace and laughter.

Shawn Taddey: for her generosity, magical expression and embracing passion.

Eva Vapori: for her joy and laughter.

Baroness Scotland: for her humility with purpose and driven spirit.

Really, the list is much longer. Each person left his or her imprint and special footprint. And on life’s journey, it is wonderful to draw from them to become a better me.

P.S. there is a very long list of men as well.

What are the 3 most important things women need to do or consider when charting their next chapter of life, whenever that may be for them?

First, it is important to identify your passion and what lights you up. It may be different at different times in your life. Passion and purpose are great indicators of a direction that you should explore to achieve success and happiness in whatever stage that you are in.

Second, set clear goals and have a vision of what lights you up. Being able to see the image of what you want is important to get emotionally involved, providing you with the energy to create it.

Third, have a radical dream team around you that see your possibility and support your journey. Don’t be afraid of failing; be terrified of not trying, says Baroness Patricia Scotland (Attorney General of England).

As we progress through life, we get the gift of perspective and realize that every moment counts. No excuses; no regrets.

Experiencing life, people, places and things is the spice that guarantees a rich life well lived.

What are the 3 most important things you do (or did) that contribute to your success?

One: I am incredibly tenacious. I will persevere in the extreme, if I am on a purposeful mission that matters. This has served me and hurt me at times, as I have achieved regardless of the adversity before me and hung on too long when I should have let go.

Two: I am an optimist. I see what is possible, not what isn’t. I always think of how to go over, under and around to get where I need to go. I see a better, brighter day and believe that people are basically good. As my mom would say, “We are all doing our best at any given time” (as long as my hormones are in line 🙂 if they are off – no telling)

Three: I am a risk taker and willing to make mistakes. That has been a real gift.

Four (if I may add one more): I am authentic and kind. I think that these are two very important factors in creating success, happiness and fulfillment. People feel it, and it moves them. You feel good when you practice both, and it moves you.

Who is the most influential women in your life?

Liz Edlich brings an extensive career in financial management, capital sourcing, product development, production and market strategy to her position at Radical Skincare.

Edlich’s cultivation of relationships with top investment managers and funds led her to become Managing Director of Heritage Asset Management, where she took the firm from $68 million to $500 million in assets under management during a three-year period before advising and brokering the sale of Heritage Asset Management to a third party. As a private investment banker and strategic business consultant, she was involved in numerous public and private business transactions. She has spent the last 15 years of her career in the Direct Marketing and skincare business at her company One World Live, developing over 100 products for celebrities and influencers. While at One World, Edlich focused on corporate strategy while managing product and company acquisitions, celebrity relations, commercial production and closely collaborating on product development and packaging.

Edlich’s career has also been defined by her commitment to giving back. Throughout her life, Edlich has volunteered her time and resources to advance important causes. From working with burn victims and developmentally disabled youths to children with facial deformities with Operation Smile in LA and in Africa; seeing her father through Multiple Sclerosis Rehab to working with the American Heart Association, Edlich has always been dedicated to making a difference in peoples’ lives.

Moving your dream forward starts the moment you wake up

I love the hibernation energy of winter—hot teas, glowing fires, the urge to curl up with a good book and inspiration to move your dreams into action.

Slowing down is part of our natural biological clock at this time of year, and Mother Nature often forces the decision—even if we do not heed the call. Even though cold weather may be blustering outside in the Northern Hemisphere, it does not have to slow your movement towards your dreams. At the same time, pursuing your dreams does not require you to be overactive and miss out on the sweetness of renewing yourself.

One thing that probably keeps you from moving forward on your dream is the mountain of tasks you wake to each day—just to keep your existing life in motion. When I start my day trying to whittle down my to-do list, I rarely get to my main goals, and when I do, my creative juices are slow as molasses.

I have a trick that can keep your sights on the prize—while you enjoy steaming soups and fireside chats. (Even those of you basking in warmth down south can enjoy this trick to prosperity.) My trick?

I always start my day doing something towards my big goal.

Whether you invest 30 minutes or work until noon on your dreams before you start on the to-do’s, you will be amazed at the massive progress you will make.

What if you don’t do this? Well, I will be writing to you next year at this time, and you will be in about the same place as today; your dreams still unrealized.

Go ahead, give it a try. A year of 30 minutes is a whole lot of movement forward. You won’t miss the 30 minutes if you do it; but you will deeply miss your dreams if you don’t.

Lead with your heart and success will follow

Jane Chen, of Embrace Innovations, has created a wrap for premature babies to keep their body temperature stable–a big risk for these babies. Her baby warmers are significantly less expensive than incubators and one model has an insert that can be warmed with hot water, eliminating the need for electricity. Jane is making both an impact on thousands of lives and a profitable company. Now that is thinking with her heart and outside the box!

Most people think of helping poor impoverished adolescent girls as charity. However, the Girl Effect Accelerator (GEA) thought differently. Sponsored by Nike, GEA has sponsored 13 entrepreneurs who had product ideas targeted exactly at this market of low income young women, especially in poorer areas.

Ayzh, another GEA company, has a low cost clean birth kit to decrease infections during and after child birth. According to BBC News, Zubaida Bai, the company’s founder, says that companies such as her own, with the support offered by GEA, are helping to challenge the mistaken belief that only charities can assist people living in poverty. I love this idea that we can create profitable companies that do good!

These women had ideas and got the boost they needed by getting information and mentoring from the GEA initiative. (GEA does not fund the selected companies–which may be what Nike needs to think about next, since access to capital is often the missing link in women with great ideas getting them to the level needed to make an impact.)

If you had the needed capital, mentoring support and a team with the right skills, what idea would you pursue to make the world a better place? Wait a minute, let go of that thought that you can’t because you have bills to pay, kids to raise, or some problem to fix, first.

Just imagine you have everything you need. Now ask yourself again, if you had the tools and support to make it happen what idea would you pursue that could improve the world?

Take 5 minutes every day to journal and imagine what this would feel like to pursue. Add in the details of what you would do, who you would be helping, and what it would look like. If you do this regularly with enough imagination you might find yourself one day living your dream!

What is beneath your snow storm?

Do you feel covered over in a blanket of to-do’s, as if you’ve been buried in a snow storm? Maybe something big has happened that was unexpected and unpleasant; leaving you feeling tumbled by an avalanche.

Somewhere in that tall drift of heavy snow is a hidden gem; something totally beautiful.

As you remove the snow (read obstacles) from your path, take your attention off the weight of the snow in your shovel and the pain in your shoulders and view your surroundings.

Take a few deep breaths and think of something you are grateful for. Then with your attention off the obstacles in your life, look around from a wider perspective.

You will soon notice the little blessings and momentary beauty like this statue of Quan Yin in my friend’s yard one recent morning. Quan Yin’s serene morning reflection in her cloak of snow is no doubt gone today. However, she offered her blessing at the moment of this picture.

Widen your vista and your own blessings will appear. They are there to lighten your load and give you momentum that no amount of force or attention to your problems can bring.

Women in Politics

The 2014 midterm elections marked a series of exciting firsts for women in politics.

Did you know…

the first black Republican woman was elected to Congress.
the first 30-year-old woman was elected in Congress.
Congress amassed 104 female members for the first time ever.

Yet, there is still so much more ground to gain. Why? If we want to be fully represented by our government, we need women to be involved in politics–running for office, helping in campaigns and voting for women.

95 years after we have won the ability to vote, we are still far away from equal representation.

Here are some other interesting statistics from MAKERS:

Today, the Senate includes only 20 women.
Women make up nearly 60 percent of college students, and law schools are half-female–but Congress doesn’t reflect those numbers.
The number of women chairing committees has actually been reduced from 9 to 2, leaving less women in powerful positions.
63 other nations have had past or present female heads of government.
95% of American voters would vote for a well-qualified woman (up 20% from 1978, according to a Gallup poll.)

To feel fully empowered in our society, we will have to be creating the rules that govern us and have our views be part of the very fabric of each important discussion. Look hard each election at how you can help our daughters live in a world where women in leadership is a given, not a goal.

Interviews with Influential Women – Monica Dodi

Success requires knowing who you are and what you want, being willing to take risks, and adapting. At least, that’s what I deduced after chatting with Women’s Venture Capital Fund Co-founder Monica Dodi. In this Interviews with Influential Women, we discuss the key components leading to Monica’s success that are critical for other female entrepreneurs. We also discuss the much-needed focus for successful women to play a bigger role investing in their counterparts.

Please give my readers a short background on your personal journey that brought you to today.

I was born and raised in New York City by immigrant parents. I always helped my mom in her beauty salon and dad in his restaurant. It was this entrepreneurial spirit that influenced just about every job I’ve had (even my first one at eleven years old). After attending Georgetown University, I joined a start-up, providing a service similar to Lexus Nexus (only for engineering). I was fortunate enough to be involved with one that was a big hit, and it enabled me to ride the wave. In five years, we sold out to a German conglomerate, which was when I went back for my MBA at Harvard. Soon after that, I worked for MTV, as their number two person in Europe. From MTV, I ran Disney’s Consumer Products in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. I left Disney to start my own private company as a Disney licensee. When I finally came back to the states, I moved on to Warner Brothers and American Online (AOL)—working within start-up divisions. Now, I’m on the other side of the start-up world—the funding side as a venture capitalist, helping entrepreneurs.

What are the most important things you do (or did) that contribute to your success?

While launching MTV Music Television in Europe across 16 countries, I learned some big lessons. I ran the business side of things dealing with revenue and distribution. Every country in Europe had different ways of doing things. Cable television was just starting there. We broke even after a year, but only by breaking through a lot of barriers.

Advertisers were accustomed to budgeting on a country-by-country basis. Even though many Fortune 500 companies (such as Coca-Cola) were natural advertisers for the MTV market of young adults 18 to 34, we could not get advertising deals because they would not commit on a pan-European level. We almost packed up and left. However, I ended up going to the headquarters of companies like these, bypassing the advertising agencies—which were none-to-pleased. This fearlessness to break the rules has been my number one key to success.

I also learned that opportunities are not always in the place you first look, so your willingness to stay open and jump when you see an opportunity is critical. When I joined Disney, they were looking to break up into various parts. Usually, that’s when people often leave, but I joined anyway. It was at that time Roy Disney brought in Michael Eisner and Frank Wells to turn it around, which began the era of The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and so forth. It was fun to be part of it. We restructured and reorganized the whole business in Europe.

Being part of Disney during that time, I witnessed licensees making a lot of money, so I jumped from Disney and started a paper products company mainly in greeting cards. I sold my products to major retailers and later cashed out to American Greetings. This is another component of entrepreneurial success—figure out what your exit is because that’s how you really make your money. Selling to American Greetings was an opportunity to get the return on my investment.

What are the most important things women need to do or consider when charting their next chapter of life, whenever that may be for them?

The most important thing to remember is the only sure thing is change. You have to be flexible if you are going to be successful.

I had a job at Warner Brothers when I first returned to the States. A merger with Turner stopped their entry in the market I had been hired for, which looked bad but led me to becoming CEO of brands at AOL—a much better job. While at AOL, they merged with Time Warner and moved their entire operations to the east coast. I did not want to uproot my kids again, so I stayed in California, which got me involved in the venture capital arena.

None of these changes were in my plans, and sometimes they didn’t look good at first sight. However, each one has led to amazing opportunities.

When I first entered the venture capital world with Software Technology Ventures, I found out that less than 7% of venture capital goes to teams that have women as part of the founding team. This is despite all the research showing gender diversity results in higher productivity, profitability and return on investment. These studies and more are linked on our website, Women’s Venture Capital Fund. Any woman looking to raise money should become familiar with these statistics, so she can sell herself better.

Wanting to change the amount of capital available to women entrepreneurs, I started my own venture capital firm with Edith Dorsen, who brought fiduciary rigor. and discipline to balance my entrepreneurial spirit. This is something all entrepreneurs must recognize—know your strengths and weaknesses and surround yourself with good people who do well the things you don’t.

We raised our first stage money from our close network of friends and family—a step many female entrepreneurs see as a detriment—then we started fundraising. This was during the depth of the recession, so it was challenging. Really challenging. There were many times that we thought that we should just pack up our bags, but we stuck to it. Many are not prepared to stick it out during tough times, but that’s what being an entrepreneur is all about.

As of now, we have invested in five companies and plan to invest in two to three more in the coming year. Our goal is to raise another fund that’s bigger, better and faster, but in this stratified environment of venture capital, we will have to prove our investment track record as a team especially because of our focus on women-led companies.

Who are your top 3 female role models, and what about each inspires you?

Ironically, one of my favorite role models is Lauren Bacall. Sadly, she passed away last year. When she first started, she did not experience much success. However, she got advice from some big shot (I believe, Samuel Goldwin) and became a woman that men respected. She gave them as much grief as she took—whether it was Humphrey Bogart or Jason Robards, Gary Cooper or Clark Gable. She had a robust sense of humor. She was a person of her own mind. She said what she thought. More importantly, she just didn’t take anything they said seriously.

Not taking things seriously has been my guiding principle. It’s not that I shrug off work, but I don’t let it consume me. You’re in control of your own work. You can’t let work control you. With my kids or work, I want to do it with pleasure and joy.

My second role model is Lucille Ball. You have to know your own mind. You really do. And Lucille Ball knew her own mind. She knew what she wanted to do and was the driving force of the I Love Lucy show.

Barbara Standwick would be my third. She was also a woman of her own mind. I love that. She set her mind on something and just got it done.

Don’t go for the “hat in hand / please help me” kind of attitude. In a business scenario, people won’t touch you (or your idea) with a 10-foot pole. If you exude more than just confidence (perhaps determination), you are likely to achieve whatever your goal is.

What challenge (s) did you face & overcome to get to where you are?

Every day has challenges. It’s often not the big stuff but the little things that trip us up.

Probably my biggest challenges have had to do with my children. That is where I have put my priority. My first boss always used to say, “The most fragile thing are people.” Money and resources can be manipulated, but people are fragile. If your child is having a difficult time, you have to take time to be there for them. Those challenges are the ones that keep me up late at night worrying, not the ones in business.

At work, the toughest feat is finding opportunities to find happiness in. I was really fortunate, and part of that happened by merely putting myself out there. I believe that if you make a move, the universe fills in the rest. I’ve really enjoyed myself. And when you’re having fun, you just perform better.

What do you consider the top issues women face today?

The problem is that on the other side of the table from women entrepreneurs—there are only men that invest. So I ask women, “Do you invest in startups?” There are many high net-worth women out there. Why not get in on it and start investing in them? It’s not just the fault of the men. Women need to step up and start writing checks.

If women with money set aside 10% for riskier assets as angel investors (like big portfolios do), it would help ENORMOUSLY in setting up a pool of money to invest in women and make a huge difference in the paradigm that we’re talking about. There are a lot of female entrepreneurs out there. There is no lack of that. There’s a lack of female investors.

We need to look for ways to change the way we look at where women are today and create solutions outside the box like the Women’s Venture Fund. We started this new fund by targeting women, rather than force change in the current private equity arena.

What are the biggest opportunities available to women today?

Women need to wake up to just how much power and influence we actually wield. Women control billions of dollars of assets. Women direct billions of dollars of consumer spending. Companies are starting to wake up to the market women represent, and if we step up, women could be influencing a great wave of innovation on the horizon.

Is there anything else you would like to share?

People will bend over backwards for you, as long as you make it fun and interesting (or if there’s a lot of money to be had). Yet, even if there’s a lot of money and you have an excellent business plan, things change. Investors, employees and suppliers entrust those with the ability to adapt. They want to know you’re not only going to survive but shine. That’s a characteristic that has no gender. Then again, in times of war throughout human history, it was women that kept civilization going.

—–

Monica Dodi is an international, entrepreneur. A visionary on the cutting edge of the high-tech landscape, she has founded four highly successful companies, spearheaded rapid turnarounds and negotiated numerous licensing deals with Fortune 500 companies.

As co-founder of MTV Europe and head of Business Development, Monica’s marketing expertise, operations and negotiating skills led to MTV becoming the fastest growing channel on the continent. She then joined Walt Disney where, as head of European Licensing, she was responsible for the successful turnaround of their Consumer Products business.

Returning to the U.S. to help Warner Bros. roll out television channels worldwide, Monica was recruited by Brandon Tartikoff to be CEO in charge of launching AOL’s Entertainment Asylum which soon became the fastest growing entertainment destination on the web.

At Softbank Technology Ventures, Monica focused on new media investments and served as the Fund’s Entrepreneur in Residence. She continues to be a sought-after advisor to and angel investor in new ventures spanning internet innovations, content creation and data technologies, mobile applications, and social media.

As Managing Director and Co-founder of the Women’s Venture Capital Fund, she spearheaded the formation of this fund focused on investments in new companies with gender diversity, an overlooked, yet high potential for growth, sector in venture capital.

PART OF INFLUENTIAL WOMEN, INC.

Receive Amy's