Author: Business Wire / Source: VentureBeat
The Prestige Beauty Retailer’s Corporate Social Impact Program Welcomes 13 New Members from Around the Globe for its Largest Initiative To-Date
SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–March 8, 2018–
Sephora, the leader in global prestige beauty omni-retail, remains dedicated to building the future of innovative female beauty entrepreneurs around the world.
This year, the retailer selected 13 new Sephora Accelerate Cohort members working across three categories: Merchandising, Technology and Sustainability. In its third year, the program has expanded to include the largest number of entrepreneurs to-date from a total of seven countries, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and now, France, Switzerland and China.This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180308006373/en/
A look at the SEPHORA STANDS Accelerate program. (Graphic: Business Wire)
As an Accelerate cohort in 2018, these female founders will receive months-long programming, allowing them to acquire the necessary skills to create and evolve into successful businesses. Specifically, they will receive in-depth instruction and feedback during a one-week bootcamp with expert guidance from Sephora and program partners. In addition, each entrepreneur will have the opportunity to tackle their business challenges through one-on-one mentoring from Sephora leaders and beauty industry experts, such as Pamela Baxter, former CEO and President of Christian Dior Couture and Nancy Twine, Founder and CEO of Briogeo Hair Care, as well as receive monetary grants to support their business endeavors.
To conclude the 2018 program later this fall, each member will participate in the Sephora Accelerate Demo Day, giving them a platform to present their companies to industry experts, venture partners and senior Sephora leaders with the goal of future business growth, programming and networking.“We’re thrilled to welcome these 13 diverse and inspirational female beauty business CEOs and founders into the 2018 Cohort. Each one of these women represent immense talent, intelligence and innovative thinking within their respective fields, and what better way to celebrate their induction into the Accelerate program than an introduction on International Women’s Day,” said Corrie Conrad, Head of Social Impact and Sustainability for Sephora. “We’re proud to offer these entrepreneurs a comprehensive ecosystem of support to help them achieve their beauty business objectives, not just with this year’s programming, but also by leveraging our alumni network that will continue to increase with each new Cohort.”
As part of SEPHORA STANDS, the company’s broad social impact strategy to inspire confidence and fearlessness among women, Sephora Accelerate was created based on the insight that even in an industry where beauty customers are predominantly female, beauty business women are still underrepresented. As the program continues to grow year over year, Sephora Accelerate is on track to support more than 50 women-led beauty businesses by 2020.
Meet the 2018 Sephora Accelerate Cohort:
TECHNOLOGY
- Cathy Han, CEO, 42 Technologies (U.S.)
42 Technologies is a B2B turn-key analytics and reporting solution built for omni-channel retailers, offering full-stack solution and visualization capabilities that do not require engineering experience from retailer clients.“A big part of building a startup is empowering others, both in and outside of your company. For me, social impact is important because I see technology as an enabler of people. I want the products we build to help make technology simple, intuitive, and accessible to everyone.”
- Ming Zhao, CEO, PROVEN (U.S.)
PROVEN is a new beauty startup that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to create personalized skin care products for consumers. Customers fill out a simple quiz and receive a unique skin profile based on findings from PROVEN’s skincare database. The database was built using bots to analyze over 8 million customer reviews, 100,000 skincare products, 20,000 ingredients and 2,000 scientific articles.“At PROVEN, we believe every woman is unique and extraordinary, and that her skincare should be too. Our mission is to build an inclusive beauty brand that uses cutting edge technology to improve women’s everyday lives.”
- Nelly Pitt, CEO, BeautyMix (France)
BeautyMix is a DIY multi-functional hardware appliance that creates homemade cosmetics. The appliance can be used as a standalone or connected to a mobile app where automated recipes are loaded and the products created are recorded for traceability. In addition, BeautyMix sells beauty and care boxes that include basic ingredients to use along with the appliance.“I left a successful career in the corporate world because I wanted to build a company that would fit my values: Caring for my customers, environment, employees, suppliers, and my community.”
SUSTAINABILITY
- Erika Milczek, CEO, Curie Co (U.S.)
Curie Co is a life science company that engineers biomaterials to replace chemicals banned by the FDA in consumer products. Our goal is to use biotechnology to democratize sustainability. We want to bring sustainable goods…
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