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Jo Malone CBE
Interview & Words Phadria Prendergast
She began Jo Malone London at the extraordinary age of 21-years-old. She ran a skincare clinic prior to starting her own business. She sold her own face cream at just 12-years-old and she made her very first face mask at the age of 7-year-old; one she had presented to her mother’s mentor at the time – skincare leader, Madame Lubatti. It’s clear to see that success was never very far from Jo Malone CBE. It was inevitable. Now, onto company number two, she speaks with WOTC about starting again, giving back and regret.
When we talk about having an entrepreneurial spirit, Jo Malone CBE is in a league of her own. She joked with WOTC that if someone was to ask her right now to make an omelette, she could do it, but she would struggle. However, if you asked her to make a face mask, she could do so with her hands tied behind her back.
It was a very different experience for Jo the second time around than the first. The only way she could describe it was that the first time, it was like looking through a telescope the usual way. For Jo, the second time was like flipping the telescope and everything flipped around the other way. It was a busy Monday afternoon for us both as Jo and I sat to talk over the phone as she detailed how hard it was during the first 2 years after leaving Jo Malone London. “That was a really, really hard time because I had a responsibility to Estée Lauder, who I have the utmost respect for as a corporation. They also saved my life, Leonard and Evans, so there’s utter respect. But I didn’t know who I was. I know who I wanted to be.
“I’ve got to be honest; sitting here, right at this moment in time, I have never felt more at peace, happier with the adventures of life. And I never would have experienced this if I hadn’t had the courage to carry on.”
“For me, the second time, the building of it, was harder work, because no one realised I’d left the brand, so there was a whole heap of stuff that needed to be done, that I presumed everybody knew, and everybody didn’t, so that was tough. Not having a distribution, not having a shop. It was all very, very different things. But the one that I loved more than anything, which I still love, is the creating of fragrance and the minute I started, within about a year of getting back into it, I found my pace and I started to realise that I was creating differently; I was creating with this very, very different head, and I was braver and stronger and my character was really coming through.”
Seeing her results now, you’d probably never think that Jo ever wanted to quit. “For the first 2 years, it was just horrific! It just would not click in; I couldn’t make it work.” Of course, true to being the fighter that she is and despite feeling the way she did, she would tell herself daily never to quit on a bad day. “Come on! The landscape will change,” she would say to herself. “I’ve got to be honest; sitting here, right at this moment in time, I have never felt more at peace, happier with the adventures of life. And I never would have experienced this if I hadn’t had the courage to carry on.”
Jo describes her time during her 5-year lockout after leaving Jo Malone London as being quite a miserable one. “I thought I would never return. I’d fought cancer. I’d come through that and I thought I’d never return to the cosmetic industry. But I realised from the day I turned the lock in the key in Sloane Street, I’d made a mistake in leaving, because I love what I do. It’s such a life enhancing gift I have.” Jo found it hard to simply relax. She didn’t want to sit on a beach. She was never one of those people. She soon found herself partnered with the BBC and making ‘High Street Dreams.’
It was during this time that Jo also carved out her plan to create an entrepreneurial programme which she wanted added to the national curriculum in the United Kingdom particularly for children who are like her – creatives and not academic. “Today, if we had implemented that entrepreneurial programme into a national curriculum, we would be looking at children from those generations that are slightly more equipped than they are right now. What I want to do is equip every child with a toolbox of life, like I was given, and taught how to build: what does a business mean? Why does Mathematics matter? Why English, why art? Let’s find a jewel in every child. Equip them with their toolbox. That is what we call levelling the playing field; not bringing everyone down, but bringing everyone up, and we could do this simply with very little money, just the initiative of entrepreneurs. So, we’re in the process of pushing that right now.”
“The worst thing for me? I was given an opportunity - I had no education, no doors, but I knew how to build something. So, when opportunity came and was given to me, I knew what to do with it. It’s all very well to say ‘opportunity needs to be on a level playing field’; well, if you don’t know what to do with it, it’s wasted. It makes you feel even worse. But if you knew what to do with that opportunity, that’s when life starts to change. That’s when we start to see people working together and opportunities coming to everybody on a level playing field. That’s the part that I want to give back. We owe this generation something – they all should have a golden ticket in their hand, and that golden ticket will give them an opportunity.”
As we spoke about her time during the global lockdown, Jo explained that it had been tough for her – like many others. “In order to be positive, you have to be realistic. So, I’m married to a man who is very high risk. We went into lockdown last week of February, the first week of March; we’ve been in lockdown almost since then. We managed to get the team in for an order. Everyone’s been working from home, shop, obviously, closed, so, everything changed, but it was funny because we all were going into lockdown at the same time, it was much easier. Coming out of it was so much more difficult, because everyone’s coming out at different times, everybody’s gotten used to lockdown and the safety of it, and now we’re in the insecurity of coming out of lockdown again, so, there are far many more challenges right now, and will be, for about a year,” she explained.
Jo believes that if we all adapt our mindsets to the fact that change is here to stay, we would find this change a little bit more palatable and comfortable. A philosophy I agree with. “If we realise that every day, you have to look and think to yourself ‘is that working?’. If it’s not, fix it. Don’t sit there and think to yourself ‘it’s not working today. It’s not working today.’ Change it! Think about doing something differently, and I think that’s what we learnt through lockdown. Me, personally, I’ve never worked so hard all my life, ever!”
Jo Loves is currently taking off all around the world – Which is nothing less than what we would expect of the British perfumer after witnessing the success and innovation she delivered with her first global brand. “Different parts of the world were recovering faster, especially the far east. So, my sitting room became my studio; my dining room became my laboratory – she laughs. Every room has a function to do with the business and, of course, we had a global launch continuing with Zara.” Jo’s 19-year-old son added to her home-based departments as the Head of Tech. “Thank God,” she declared through laughter as she explained how little she knew about Zoom, let alone anything else. Though challenging, Jo is glad to have gotten through the period of lockdown in the United Kingdom. “You can feel the creativity wanting to bubble over again because of lockdown; that’s often what it does to creative people.”
I was curious to know what Jo’s thoughts were on her dyslexia and how she was able to overcome something that is usually seen as a barrier. I was pleasantly unsurprised by what she had to say. “Well, people call it a disability; I don’t believe it is. I just believe it’s the ability to think differently. I still struggle to tell my left from my right, I couldn’t tell the time until I was about 15 because my brain is just wired very differently. My brain is wired with smell and colour.” In the beginning, Jo knew she had to ask for help although when she was younger, it wasn’t that simple for her. It was only as she got older that she began caring less and less. “Colour is a big thing for me. So, in my team, I’m very much about the new product development, creatives, visuals. We all have different colours – I have a red dot, MPD [marketing and product development] has a green dot, operations have blue. When we have graphs together, they all have their planning system in a usual way. And for me, everything has a colour to it. So, I can look at the graph in a second and see why we haven’t got that product to market quicker. I can see by colour.” She continued, “So, sometimes with dyslexia, dyspraxia - these are some of the most intelligent minds in our world today, by the way, because they think differently – you just have to think differently and don’t be frightened of thinking differently, because ultimately, you’re trying to get the best.” Prior to lockdown, Jo would have kids who suffered from dyslexia, dyspraxias and other alternative ways of thinking, so she would do tapas in the store. “So, we would do something creative, and you could just see these children coming out of their shells. Sometimes with young people, instead of just looking at them and spouting words, do something creative, engage them. You’ll start to see them come out of their shell and really flourish.”
“If you have a dream, the only one that’s going to make it happen is you” Jo states after being asked what advice she would give to women wanting to start over. “Risk is a part of our lives now. In five months, we’ve gotten used to the whole risk in this world, so risk is here to stay. Realise that when you build businesses and you start again, there is a risk. But there’s also the possibility of a green shoot becoming a great forest – my mind chooses to think on the latter.”
Jo’s thoughts on overcoming regret are that if you carry on sitting in the pit of it, it’ll eat you alive, so you have to move on. You have to forgive; you have to let go and you have to learn. “Know that regret can either stand on your shoulders or you can let go of it, walk on and find a new adventure. I haven’t had many regrets in my life; I have had more regrets about things I’ve said to people or conversations in anger. But I don’t have regrets about my family, my background, where I came from, and I don’t have anger either.”
At Jo Loves, Jo’s core team are the creatives. Her husband is the CEO of the company. She explains that she currently has the strongest team she has ever had in her nearly 38 years of business because of her General Manager Catherine. She describes Catherine as one of the best team builders. “When you have a business, it’s like a boat. When you start out, sometimes it’s just a tiny, little silly boat or a little motorboat or even just with oars. But, as a founder, you’re always in the heart of the ship, you’re looking to see where you’re going to go. As you get bigger, your boat becomes bigger, your crew becomes bigger. Once you’ve got a brand, that’s a big boat. The founder needs to be the heartbeat, but the founder needs to stay at the front of the ship to see the opportunities and the adventures and to dream. You need to trust everybody else to take that boat into deep waters and keep everyone safe. That’s what Gary – her husband and Catherine do.
A key piece of advice that Jo has been given that always stuck with her was from Oprah Winfrey who told her many years ago to stamp her identity and personality on everything she did and that’s exactly what she has done all the way through her life.
Jo, who believes it’s everyone’s responsibility to give back, reminisced on the days when she had nothing and received help from others. “I’m very involved with three charities, but I don’t look at them as charities, I look at them very much as my family. One is Magic Breakfast. During this time, we have been supporting them, both emotionally and also financially.” Magic Breakfast are a charity which makes sure that no child goes to school hungry. A truly incredible initiative, especially during this time, Jo expressed how upset by the fact that children from less fortunate families couldn’t afford to provide breakfast for their children. “We deliver breakfast to 2,000 to 3,000 people – bagels, baked beans, milk, juice etc. and actually, during lockdown, the schools were absolutely incredible, and they would deliver a week’s breakfast to the house, for the children.”
“It’s appalling in this day and age that 5 minutes from where I live, probably the richest part of the country, children are hungry. It’s wrong.”
For Jo, the future of the industry is set to see collaborations with other industries and sectors. “Collaboration is about bringing the best of yourself to the table, with someone, and creating a third identity. When I look at my collaboration with Zara, it transformed my life in such a different way, in so many different ways. I could do a whole interview about collaboration. So, I think collaboration is going to be the key to huge amounts of success.”She also commented that she believes there will be a higher rate of unemployment. “I always start to build, and we have to build right now. Start encouraging businesses. If you start a business and employ one person, it’s a life that’s changed in a family. I think the moment for small businesses, SME’s, is right now. I think they have an important part to play in this whole recovery.” She continues,“I think challenges are here to stay, so we have to face that. As for the beauty industry, I think the beauty industry has really survived this quite well. People have gone back into wanting to feel good and look good, and we need to be respectful of that.”
Jo has spent the last 4-5 months really engaging in the sustainability and responsibility of packaging of Jo Loves. “I think a lot of other companies have used this time in a very responsible way as well,” she comments.
“We’re in this together. No man is an island. No man is on his own, we’re in this together. You see someone hungry? Don’t turn around and say to them ‘this is what you should do’; give them something to eat and then help them. It’s a real ‘roll your sleeves up and get on with it’ job now.”
