2 ★ † FINANCIAL TIMES Friday6 March 2020

Women in Business

E

ntrepreneur Marcia Kilgore

was strolling through Milan

train station five years ago,

carrying a backpack of free

skincare and make-up sam-

ples after a visit to an Italian cosmetics

manufacturer.

Walking into Sephora, the multi-

national chain of beauty stores, she

noticed that the same beauty products

as the samples in her bag were on sale

for many times what it cost to make

them.

“The system is broken when someone

has to pay this much to get something

decent and it’s 10 or 20 times produc-

tion costs,” Ms Kilgore says.She is

speaking at the London head office of

Beauty Pie her latest venture. Behind

her, a large wall calendar outlines the

cosmetics company’s new launches

stretching ahead for the year.

At the time the Canadian-born serial

entrepreneur had recently sold Soap and

Glory, a line of affordable bath, body and

cosmetic products, to Alliance Boots, the

health and beauty retailer. She was also

becoming disillusioned at the outlook

for retail. Smaller brands were finding it

tougher to negotiate with their retail

partners as the rise of Amazon and

ecommerce stole away store footfall.

“You’ve got the monopolies, with

these big beauty retailers like Sephora

and Boots Walgreens,” says Ms Kilgore.

“They own a lot of their own brands and

those are the ones that they really push

[because] it’s better margin for them.”

At the same time, US start-ups such as

online clothing retailer Everlane and

prescription glasses maker Warby

Parker had shown how brands could use

transparent pricing o cut out inter-t

mediaries and target the market

directly. On top of that, consumers were

becoming used to paying monthly

membership fees to access anything

from razors (Dollar Shave Club) to

music (Spotify) and movies (Netflix).

In December 2016 Ms Kilgore

launched Beauty Pie, a self-styled “fairy

tale” club for beauty junkies in the UK.

Memberspay a monthly membership

fee of between £10 and £50, which lets

them buy — at cost price — make-up

and a growing roster of products includ-

ing skincare, haircare and candles.

By sourcing these directly from the

manufacturers, cutting out the inter-

mediaries and avoiding expensive real

estate and advertising costs, the busi-

ness showed consumers the true cost of

cosmetics and turned the industry’s

traditional model on its head.

Ms Kilgore says: “Some people would

care that the industry would be very

upset with them, but I have always been

a bit of an outsider and did my own

thing.”

Warm in manner, and with glowing

skin, Ms Kilgore bursts with ideas.

Beauty Pie is her fifth start-up in less

than three decades nd follows Blissa

Spa, Soap and Glory, FitFlop footwear

and Soaper Duper, which makes natu-

rally-derived bath and body products.

She grew up in Saskatchewan in west-

ern Canada. Her father died when she

was 11 and she graduated second in her

class in high school while holding down

three part-time jobs. Aged 17, she

arrived in New York with $300 in her

pocket.Missing a student loan applica-

tion deadline led to working as a per-

sonal trainer and taking part-time eco-

nomics classes.

The idea for Bliss Spa, her first entre-

preneurial venture, came after a bad

facial treatment experience. “It was

supposed to be a treat,” she says. “But I

was totally skin shamed and talked into

buying a lot of products. I left thinking

that if I had a place like that I would

never make people feel so bad.”

She took a crash course in skincare

and opened Bliss Spa in 1993. The busi-

ness grew rapidly through word of

mouth and soon gathered a roster of

celebrity clients, including Oprah Win-

frey, Madonna and Uma Thurman.

Ms Kilgore was credited with revolu-

tionising the urban day spa industry

and at the age of 29 she appeared on the

cover of Canadian Time magazine as an

emblem of a new generation of gutsy

entrepreneurs.In 1999, she sold a

majority stake in Bliss Spa to luxury

group LVMH.

She recalls the surreal feeling of

returning to New York by Concorde

after LVMH had flown her to Paris. Tak-

ing the subway home, she “looked

around and wondered if anyone else

had come on the Concorde that day”.

The common thread that unites all

Ms Kilgore’s start-ups iscreating an

experience or the product that she

would want herself. “I just always make

stuff that I want to buy,” she says.

“That’s the easiest way. I don’t know if I

would be so successful selling things

that I either don’t want, don’t under-

stand or am not so interested in.”

Beauty Pie has grown to tens of thou-

sands of members and on March 12 it

will launch a pop-up at Harvey Nichols

in London. Now based in Switzerland,

Ms Kilgore declines to reveal revenues,

saying: “If you compared it to a retail

business, it would be about £150m, but

because we don’t charge a mark-up,

we’re about a 10th of that.”

Until now, Ms Kilgore has not taken

any external funding for any of her ven-

Beauty disrupter who

offers luxury for less

Entrepreneurship

Marcia Kilgore cut out

intermediaries to create

Beauty Pie, writes

Harriet Agnew

Late 1980s pens Let’s Face It!,O

a skincare treatment centre

1996 aunches Bliss SpaL

1999 ells majority stake in BlissS

Spa to LVMH

2004 tarwood buys Bliss SpaS

2006 aunches Soap and GloryL

2007 ounds FitFlop footwearF

2014 lliance Boots buys Soap andA

Glory

2016 aunches Soaper DuperL

2016 ounds Beauty PieF

Key dates

‘You shouldn’t have to spend a lot or be rich to take care of your skin’: Marcia Kilgore— Charlie Bibby for the FT

On a prominent wall in the Foreign

Office in London hang a series of por-

trait mirrors, each labelled with a senior

diplomatic role that has not yet been

held by a woman.

The Foreign and Commonwealth

Office installed the mirrors in 2018 to

encourage its female staff to stand in

front and “see themselves” in coveted

roles, such as ambassador in Paris or

permanent under-secretary of the

whole government department.

In a highly symbolic moment, the

mirror for ambassador to Washington,

one of the most coveted and most dem-

anding, will shortly be replaced with a

picture of Karen Pierce as she becomes

the first woman to take on the job.

Currently the UK’s permanent repre-

sentative to the UN, Dame Karen has

been posted to Tokyo, the Balkans and

Geneva since joining the FCO in 1981.

She was also the UK’s first female

ambassador to Afghanistan in 2015 and

2016.

While experience in countries with

warring factions is not essential to

securing a top FCO posting, the biparti-

san hostility between Democrats and

Republicans in the US leads one diplo-

matic official to observe that her “con-

flict zone experience could be useful”.

Dame Karen also takes over at a time

when the long standing “special rela-

tionship” between London and Wash-

ington is under strain.

The UK has been without an ambas-

sador to Washington since theembassy

was shaken by the resignation of Kim

Darroch last year, when he was forced

to quit after confidentialcriticism of US

president Donald Trump was heavily

leaked.

Former colleagues say the appoint-

ment of Dame Karen, whom they com-

mend for “gravitas” and “poise” as well

as a “top class brain”, could not come at

a more crucial time. Mr Trump

expressed hisfurylast month to UK

prime minister Boris Johnson after he

ignored US warningsand granted the

Chinese telecoms company Huawei

access to Britain’s future 5G mobile

phone networks.

“One of Karen’s best assets is that she

has presence and force,” says Alexandra

Hall Hall, former British ambassador to

Georgia and former Brexit counsellor at

the British embassy in Washington.

“What Karen brings is real policy heft

married with a compelling personal

style. She’s coming at an incredibly diffi-

cult time, so having some charm to

defuse awkward situations and person-

alise the relationship with warmth is

really important.”

Hinting at one challenge, Ms Hall Hall

adds: “I don’t doubt her ability to sell,

the question will be what the govern-

ment is selling.”

Dame Karen’s style also sets her apart:

she wore a feather boa at a meeting of

the UN Security Council and is known

for brightly coloured outfits. Just weeks

into the UN job, she made headlines

worldwide by trading barbs with Rus-

sia’s UN ambassador following the Salis-

bury poison attack.

As ambassador to Washington, there

is a public and a private role. The public

diplomacy requires making speeches

and an ability toengage the thousands

of guests hosted in the British embassy

every year. Dame Karen is known for

her socialising— “she likes a party”, says

a friend — and media profile. She is a fre-

quent interviewee on US cable news

channels including Fox News. “Ameri-

cans like her,” says one colleague.

But behind the scenes, any ambassa-

dor takes on a substantive policy role in

which they are expected to articulate

ideas and arguments persuasively and

in depth with leading policy experts.

“It requires an extraordinary level of

expertise and the ability to master briefs

on a whole host of issues,” says one

former ambassador.“When your coun-

try is advocating a policy or a decision

you know is going to be unwelcome by

your host government, that can be very

difficult. You may also challenge a host

country on their human rights record,

when at the same time working towards

building a relationship.”

Another part of the job involves

reporting back to London on the reac-

tion of the host country to a British pol-

icy, as well as being required to warn the

government if you believe the UK’s

stance could cause problems.

Dame Karen s the first woman to bei

appointed to any of the four top jobs in

the diplomatic service, a move that

would have been unimaginable less

than 50 years ago.

For a start, she is married. Until 1973,

a strict “marriage bar”— maintained

while dropped by other Whitehall

departments —meant Britain’s female

diplomatshad to choose between pro-

fessional ambition and a husband.

Today, 61 female ambassadors and

high commissioners represent Britain

abroad. The number has increased al-

most three-fold in 10 years, and repre-

sents 31 per cent of all heads of mission.

Barbara Woodward, ambassador to

China, is one of a number of high profile

women representing Britain overseas

in prominent roles. Half the UK’s

ambassadors in Africa are women,

including NneNne Iwuji-Eme, Britain’s

first black female high commissioner,

in Mozambique.

“Championing women and diverse

leadership is a priority for the FCO,” said

Sir Simon McDonald, the department’s

most senior civil servant, after Dame

Karen’s appointment. “Whether it’s a

young woman starting her first diplo-

matic placement, or a new ambassador

to Washington, we support our staff, so

they can best represent Britain’s inter-

ests around the world.”

He plans to be present when the mir-

ror for the Washington job is replaced

with Dame Karen’s photograph.

First female ambassador to US

mirrors change in UK diplomacy

Diplomatic service

Karen Pierce’s move to one

of the most coveted jobs for

an envoy is a breakthrough,

writesLaura Hughes

The Financial Times is launching its

eighth annual Women in Business

essay competition in partnership

with the 30% Club nd Henleya

Business School. The prize is a fully

funded place on Henley’s part-time

Executive MBA programme, with

the winner announced in the FT in

the autumn.

The competition is open to

women and men who have relevant

experience.Entrants should answer

this question in no more than 800

words: “How can organisations help

women succeed by involving more

men in their efforts? What

strategies and actions are most and

least helpful?”

Entries should be sent to

[email protected] by May 18 2020.

Terms and conditions can be found

at:hly.ac/WiLscholarship

Win a free EMBA

Essay competition

Sevdil Yildirim was in talks with the

owners of a Turkish furniture maker

two years ago when they made a confes-

sion. They wanted to appoint her as

chief executive but ere worried that aw

female boss would not be taken seri-

ously in the sector.

“I loved it because they were honest,”

says Ms Yildirim, who had erved on thes

company’s board. “Most people don’t

say these things openly, they make

excuses.”

Six months later, the owners of AGT

Industry and Trade took the plunge and

appointed her anyway. Under her lead-

ership, AGT has more than doubled pro-

duction capacity and greatly increased

the number of export destinations.

Ms Yildirim is helping to blaze a trail

in a country where female labour force

participation is steadily rising, albeit

from a low base. The rise includes sect-

ors that often struggle to attract women,

such as engineering and science.

But, as she points out, women remain

under-represented, especially at the

higher levels of business, politics and

government. “It’s hard to say that we

have equal chances to be the main deci-

sion makers.”

Turkey outperforms the European

average in terms of itsratio of female to

male cientists and engineers. But Ebrus

Ozdemir, chairwoman of Ankara-based

infrastructure company Limak Invest-

ments, wants to see more women work-

ing n the field.i

In 2015, Ms Ozdemir started a scheme

to sponsor and mentor 100 young

female engineering studentsa year from

across Turkey. Her aim is to help them

into male-dominated parts of the busi-

ness, especially energy and cement, and

on construction sites.

Ms Ozdemir is a civil engineering

graduate, aised in a family of engineers.r

In 2010, she was appointed to head the

board of the business, which her father

co-founded in 1976. Limakcompanies

employ around 60,000 people.

She has two children, now eight and

10 years old. Her son was born while

she was working on-site on the con-

struction of Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen

airport, and she returned to work a

week after his birth. “My mother was

joking that... we should have called

him Sabiha.”

Ms Ozdemir concedes she is lucky —

as a senior executive she can afford “a

lot of help”. For the young women on the

mentoring scheme without such resour-

ces, her “biggest fear” is that they will

drop out if they get married and have

children. “We have to make the utmost

effort for them not to leave,” she says.

Plans involvereviews of the company’s

gender pay gap and work-life balance.

Analysts blame a severe shortage of

affordable childcare as one of the main

reasons why Turkey consistently lags

behind the OECD average rate of female

participation inthe workforce. At 34 per

cent, it had the worst rate in the group of

mostly wealthy nations in 2018. It also

comes eighth from bottom in terms of

the female share of seats on boards of

the biggest publicly listed companies,

according to the OECD, although it per-

forms better than many emerging mar-

ket peers.

Yet Gunes Asik, an assistant professor

of economics at Ankara’s TOBB Univer-

sity of Economics and Technology, says

she is “positive” about the underlying

trend. Turkey’s headline statistics are

distorted by underemployment among

older women, she says. “Younger gener-

ations have more skills, they are more

open to [the idea of] work.”

PresidentRecep Tayyip Erdogan, who

came to power in 2002, regularly pro-

vokes criticism by women’s rights org-

anisations for his frequent appeals to

women to have at least three children

and for describing those who are not

mothers as “incomplete”.

Yet the presidenthas enabled greater

female employment by overseeing a big

expansion inuniversity places. e alsoH

lifted a banon wearing the headscarf at

university, which had acted as a barrier

to women from conservative families.

Attitudes among men, especially

from more traditional backgrounds, will

be crucial to further change.

That is why Nur Ger, the 63-year-old

founder of Istanbul-based fashion pro-

ducer Suteks Group, decided two years

ago to set upYanindayiz “we are at(

your side”). It aims to bring men into

the conversation on women’s rights. She

says the primary obstacle to greater

equality in Turkey is a “patriarchal

mindset” that harms not just women

but also men.

Ms Ger, who started Suteks in 1986,

has recruited a string of high-profile

male business leaders, journalists, law-

yers and other professionals to talk

about equality and women’s rights with

their peers. They give “barbershop”

talks to young people about patriarchy

and violence against women, and cam-

paign for regulatory and social change.

While she laments the scale of the

challenge, she also believes that atti-

tudes are rapidly changing.

She was stunned on a recent visit to an

outdoor café in a conservative district of

Istanbul, when one “macho-looking”

man was giving his baby a bottle while a

male friend played with his young

daughter. The mothers werenowhere to

be seen.

“You couldn’t see that 20 years ago —

not even 10 years ago,” Ms Ger says.

“The change is like the boiling of water.

Until the boiling point you don’t see it.

Then, suddenly, there is steam.”

Women

push for

influence

in Turkey

Country focus

From manufacturing to

fashion, pioneering female

business leaders are opening

up opportunities, writes

Laura Pitel

Ebru Ozdemir: supporting female engineering students— Bradley Secker for the FT

One ‘macho-looking’ man

was giving his baby a bottle,

while a male friend played

with his young daughter

On making mistakes:‘The

worse it is, the faster you learn’

On mentors:‘I try to have

everyone as a mentor. You

learn from how people deal

with others, and you learn from

all your interactions’

On networking:‘Show up. Just

go. The more people you know,

the more information you have

read... the faster your

opportunities open up’

In her own words

tures — because “I didn’t have to” — but

this time she is exploring teaming up

with an investor. This would help

address the difficulties she has encoun-

tered in hiring people with enough

experience working for “direct-to-con-

sumer” brands.

“It seems that if you don’t have a ven-

ture partner you don’t tap into this pool

of really great talent,” she says.

Beauty Pie now employs more than

50 people in London and plans to

expand in the US.

“I’ve always been about trying to give

women more confidence. You shouldn’t

have to spend a lot or be rich to take

care of your skin and treat yourself to

beauty products.”

MARCH 6 2020 Section:Reports Time: 3/3/2020- 18:37 User:harriet.arnold Page Name:WAB2, Part,Page,Edition:WAB, 2, 1