"Turning Down Victoria Beckham Was One Of My Biggest Fails": Millie Kendall OBE | Ladies Who Launch

0:00Millie Kendall OBE has spent more than 30 years shaping the beauty industry from launching brands and co-founding Ruby and Millie to founding the British Beauty Council. Her career is proof that reinvention doesn't mean starting over. So today we're going to be talking about how to keep evolving without losing everything you've already built.

0:30A light bulb moment launches your business, but consistent habits power it every day after. Today's episode is powered by Starling. Whether you're side hustling or scaling, Starling believes that with the right mindset and tools, anybody can be good with money. It's not about complex number wrangling or losing days to admin. It's creating a smart system of financial habits that can give you active control and build your confidence so that you can focus on being a founder, not the finance team. Search Starling Business to find out more about their monthly fee-free business account. Well, thank you so much for coming.

1:04Thank you for having me. I'm so pleased to have you. This episode, we really sort of want to focus on how to build a career that keeps reinventing itself. Because when we were discussing you coming in today and the conversation we would have that's exactly what I think I want to ask and I want to open this way and I want to start by saying or asking how many times do you think throughout your career that you've had to completely reinvent yourself um god I would have to it's so funny that you say that because I was having this conversation with someone recently about the various different careers that I've had that feel like almost different lives like this it doesn't feel like it's sort of even though one segues into another it doesn't always feel like it was my life right it feels like it was a completely different story with someone completely different um so I would say probably goodness my six maybe five or six it's crazy it's crazy but I think sometimes life has a funny way of like I'm always a fan of someone that the idea of the pivot and being able to go okay I'm I've got to this point now and you know what this isn't me anymore and I'm ready to tackle the next thing and I think there's something there's an art in it it's it's scary and it's also very brave but I think when someone can do that incredibly well I'm always such a big fan yeah I think I would say more it's invention not reinvention because the the reason that I've kind of had various different careers is probably because I never found I could never find a career or job that I could just shoehorn into right there wasn't really a job position or a role there was a role I couldn't really work for anyone I had ideas that maybe were a bit outlandish um that people didn't really take very seriously so I thought I'll try this on my own so I don't know necessarily like I feel like the the one consistent strand is I've always been myself yes but the different parts of my career have always been a bit renegade so they've always been a bit new and sort of inventive um in that i wouldn't have been able to find a job like that no you know which is what keeps off the cuff you know you couldn't pick something out of a book and go oh i want to do that for a living because it didn't really exist yeah but and but you've made it you you know you sort of well you molded the perfect opportunity for you time and time again yeah yeah a little bit challenging but um but yeah yeah i mean it's difficult to find something straight off the peg you know it's like clothing isn't it you know it doesn't always fit you right you know you might need to have it tailored a little bit or have something made to fit you and sometimes the idea is just not conforming it's keep going until you find what suits you yeah at what moment did you first realize that you truly launched what like in these like sort of you know if we're not saying reinvention we're saying invention what if we if we're talking like there's six different chapters or phases or books all together um at what point did you think okay this is landing this has worked goodness I think um I probably think there's a couple of those one was um I worked for a Japanese makeup company called Shuomura and I was invited to Japan and I think I was 19 or 20 maybe 20 early 20s um around the age of 20 21 actually because i just got married and i um i was the only woman at a conference with all men most in japanese and the founder of the company mr shuomura made um a massive fuss of me in front of everyone and there were some products that he designed on the table and he asked me what i thought and those products went to production and so that's when I was like yes I've arrived so that was that was the first time I would have to say probably the MBE in 2006 I just that you know that was for Ruby and Millie so it was an MBE for services to the cosmetics industry that was kind of yeah the ripples the ripple effects for my family you know my dad was a hairdresser he probably never expected me to ever do anything other than I think he said at the time he knew I'd be called to her majesty's service but he didn't realize it would be that he thought I'd be imprisoned or something like that um and I think he said that in front of somebody that at the times when they were interviewing me the morning I got it um so so that yeah that was kind of that was oh I mean that would do it that was quite big well let's sort of go back to you growing up because you grew up around hairdressing and initially you thought that that could be your career well my dad actually um My dad's a hairdresser and he actually worked in a salon on Hampstead High Street many years ago.

6:00And it wasn't it wasn't so much that I I mean, I was never good at it, but I loved the environment. I loved sweeping floors, washing hair and very tidy to sort of the compulsive level. And I really liked the sort of the social aspect of it. I just really liked the fun stuff. so and it seemed like an obvious choice because I had left school at 15 and and it was something that was basically just a door that was open to me but I just didn't find myself um I just didn't I just wasn't good let's talk about your role at Shuramora and how sort of that came about what you were responsible for when you were sort of at the brand and it was it was them launching here is that correct yeah so I had so it became very obvious I was not going to be a hairdresser I'd seen a couple of makeup brands in New York that I really loved I kind of went back to my dad and said look I'm not going to be a hairdresser this is ridiculous I'm no good at it and he said well I've got a friend who's running a boutique um this is in LA because my dad had emigrated to America um she's running a beauty boutique it's called a beauty boutique why don't you go and work for marina so i went to go work for marina she was an ex-model and she'd worked as a receptionist for my dad many years ago so they were very friendly and so she hired me and it was shuamora and i loved it and then she quit her job um and uh we all she we all stormed out with her in solidarity as women do you know marina's gonna quit let's all walk you know this company's terrible and and we all got we went to see my dad and we all walked into a salon and my dad said what are you all doing here Marina said we've all walked out and my dad just looked at me and he said why don't you go back and take her job and I was like okay and so I went back and I spoke to the boss a lovely Japanese guy who's still very good friends with Michi and I said all right I'll do it and I had no idea what I was doing it was a management role running a shop so I hired all my friends who I knew were out of work and we just turned the music up opened the door and just sold makeup and it was like went from uh making a loss to turning a profit in three months yeah it was pretty that was pretty epic and do you think we talk a lot on this podcast about the idea of sort of vibe over skill and do you think something that's there's a lot to be said for that in that no i'm totally vibe over skill i don't think i'm particularly skilled at anything i would say i'm like such a jack of all trades master of none i can like do everything to a degree but i need someone to finish it off and do it really well.

8:34Which is better than the most, girl. It's better than the most. But in that sort of instance, like you say, you didn't have any idea what you were doing. No. You sort of invited your friends in. They're out of work. You put the music on, opened the doors and all of a sudden people were coming in. Exactly. Because the thing is, we had like these big studio lights in the window that were very kind of imposing. They had these massive glass doors that were very heavy and no one could open. And it would always frustrate me because she would always say, keep the doors closed, keep the door closed, you know, keep the air conditioning on.

9:01And I was like, open the doors let people in you know so I just changed literally a couple of things the environment slightly turned the music up and loads of people started coming in and at that time sort of getting consumers to understand you know the idea of a Japanese brand and teaching them I suppose something new yeah what was was that challenging and no one could say his name and no one knew he was a makeup artist because he was relatively unknown he'd sort of been discovered doing a film called my geisha it was called my geisha with shirley mclean and so he'd stood in he had he was a standing makeup artist for someone who got sick and ended up doing the film and then went back to japan and because he'd done a big hollywood film with shirley mclean all of a sudden he became very famous in his hometown he came from quite a wealthy family so they supported him to develop the range and it was huge in japan but nobody knew of it in la um and yeah i think it was it's the art of communication it's like explaining to people who he is we didn't really even need to say his name but we used to call him Mr.

10:04Shoe and so people would repeat that and that caught on because Waymura was a difficult name to pronounce so um but yeah you kind of have to tell the story behind somebody's brand and the minute you explain that and you do it quite succinctly people are like oh wow that's amazing everything's storytelling isn't it everything's so so important so after you have this I mean incredible I mean already I'm like gosh you've traveled girl but this is already yeah yeah at this point you have this sort of sit in LA and then in 1993 you start your own beauty PR business yeah tell me about that ride and that sort of chapter so I'd launched Shua Mora in London in 1990 so I was basically tasked with launching it outside of the US I'd met somebody in Japan who was a French guy who was saying well we you know who sort of said we're going to launch this all over europe can you come and do this we're going to start in london i know that's your hometown that's where you were born would you like to do that there so we did um and then how was that was it was it received the same way that it was states yeah yeah exactly the same i mean i remember the buyers in harvey nicks when we launched coming down going i don't know how you're doing this the turnover's crazy wow but it was again it was sort of like i became very good friends with makeup artists they would come in journalists would come in and help on a saturday help me sell you know it was again it's about creating a vibe an environment where people want to be so that's where i met ruby where i met my friend anna marie who was the one that i started the british beauty council with like everything was about creating relationships yeah um and i was um ruby actually was um uh was interested in bringing a vader over as a brand right her husband was a distributor and they wanted to bring Aveda over.

11:55My dad knew the owner of Aveda because he's a hairdresser. My dad's a hairdresser and they both lived in the States. And so Aveda, as an American brand, an Ayurvedic aromatherapy brand, wanted to come to the UK. And so they asked me to get involved. And I had set up my own agency to be able to still work for Shu Uemura. Right. My one true love, because Shu is always going to be my one true love. and be able to consult on Aveda as well. So it wasn't that I sort of had this idea of an agency. It wasn't particularly anything that I was... I didn't even know an agency existed. I didn't really know what it was.

12:34I just wanted to earn double the amount of money that I was earning and be able to do it without anyone telling me what to do. And so that was like, rather than leave Shua Moore and go and work for Aveda, I wasn't sure that was a secure move for me. And I felt that the security would be to retain the contract I had with Shu Amora but to change it a little bit right so go from an employee to a consultant and then add on Aveda and then all of a sudden it's an agency and then it's and then I took on Tweezerman because Dal La Mania I'd met through Shu Amora he was a windsurfer from Seattle I'd lived in LA so I met him he owned Tweezerman then I had met this gentleman called Kit Braden who was part of the team that um had bought L 'Occitane and so I went to work for them so it just sort of grew I mean yeah there were some brands that were an incredible roster isn't it for somebody that didn't really want an agency no I didn't really want an agency and then of course I you know I knew Mary Greenwell and Sam McKnight and then Ruby wanted me to be her publicist and so it kind of just developed from there it was it's a funny kind of again it didn't really exist in that format it sort of just yeah it developed just happened yeah i i mean they're all incredibly well what we know now is incredibly successful brands what did that moment of having that pr agency teach you about i suppose why some great products cut through the noise and others don't the story behind the brand the founders the story i mean i'm always going to be a big fan of founder-led brands because that to me is what the consumer buys into and um so yeah it was the story i could sell that story oftentimes you have to adapt that story for your local customer you can't always tell it in the way that the founder had had originally intended it because you have to adapt to a local market but i i think that's something i'm quite good at so and that's something i really enjoyed yeah i really enjoyed that the challenge of a different like telling that story in a different territory because that's something that overwhelms a lot of founders changing the whole strategy communicating perhaps a little bit differently yeah the stress of letting go like a lot of founders don't let go I was having a conversation this morning with someone about TikTok that TikTok's a weird platform because it's that one platform where you kind of need to let go and a lot of founders where they go wrong is they try to over control the narrative on TikTok and actually you're better off letting your staff post and do their thing and let people kind of go a little bit free a little bit rogue does that a lot yeah caroline hyrens her team come in and she's yeah yeah and it's like her thing now she's at her desk but it feels led by them which is and i think there's that sort of let them go a little bit rogue trust them a little bit to sort of do that and i think that that's sort of maybe a modern day version of what we did you know we're talking pre-internet so um you you they to some degree they allowed me to go a little bit rogue yes um which is good until they didn't like it yeah until they didn't like it and that was yeah until it started to become about me and then when I was starting to be quoted in magazines all of sudden the founders weren't that happy but that's so interesting ah okay okay yeah that's it was a ego it was a lesson learned yeah a lesson learned for sure and what and what did you learn from that lesson um uh goodness there's so many things I learned from that lesson because first of all I should have had shares in those businesses because they all went to sell went on to sell for hundreds of millions of pounds and I didn't get a penny from it so um I guess I learned to know your own value and to monetize that value because I guess you know I was um really a paid consultant and I didn't have any stake in the businesses I worked really hard I put myself in front of the brand but also what I said had some value because I got to um uh adapt what they were saying kind of add a little bit of what I wanted to say into it so I guess I learned the hard way that actually to value myself which is so hard if you know if ultimately you're leading with passion so you're just so excited about these brands and passionate about them and of course that but at the time I suppose in hindsight it's a wonderful thing yeah looking back that you you know you're you had value there and it should have been I didn't really know at the time what that financial value was and then you see that shuamora was sold to l 'oreal for hundreds of millions of pounds or you know um evaded to estee lauder and i'm thinking my god if i just had a little stake in that yeah that would have been that would have been nice yeah that would have been tasty exactly yeah um so you you touched on before meeting ruby and you know in that point that's when you'd met ruby so let's let's sort of really deep dive into building ruby and milly and how that then came into play.

17:31So I met Ruby at seven o 'clock one morning at Shawamora. We were, there was a shoot for Elle magazine and it was a portrait of an artist, I think it was called. And it was when artists, hair and makeup artists started coming from behind the camera to the front. And I think I was probably part of that whole process. and they were featuring Ruby and there were only a few shops that she could go to and one of them was Shua Moore and she came in and I'd seen her shop at the boutique a few times and I was cleaning the shelves because I'm terribly OCD and she's also a complete... Don't look too close to my table.

18:15I'm just checking. She's a terrible clean freak as well and so I think we just fell in love with each other over the fact that we both could clean everything a thousand times over. And she just looked at me and she was like, there's a girl after my own heart. And then we just became very good friends. And then we did a Vader together. And so there was a lot of things that we were sort of working on throughout that period of time. And I think the thing is, is that with Ruby and I, we're very different. We look very different. We talk very differently. But we've got a very similar aesthetic. Right.

18:44And so, and a very similar standard in terms of what product, what product we wanted and how things performed. and if I said to her, oh, I found this amazing product, she would go, oh, my God, yes, that's amazing, or she would share something she'd done with me. We're both completely obsessed with products. And, you know, you just fall in love with someone. You just kind of think, like, you know, she's like... She's my girl. She's my girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's my person. It's an instant thing. And I was saying, actually, last night to somebody, I went to this dinner party and I was just saying, I've been married...

19:15I mean, essentially, I was married to Ruby longer than any of my husbands. So, you know, it's the longest relationship I've ever had. so um and you know so so it was so the ruby milly thing wasn't without its stresses you know for two years we were developing a range together and actually it wasn't we weren't stressed with each other like there was an amazing amount of support i don't think i would have ever done it i've never really done anything on my own i've always done it with other people um so um there was an amazing amount of support back and forth you know which i think which i think really helped so so going from sort of having the bond you know an instant connection you work together you have that bond you have that shared love for all things product both obsessed recommending each other before there was social media to be able to lean on you're giving you know each other your real tips etc in real time at what point do you say okay I think we do something together here I think this doesn't just become two friends that know each other through work and love the same things what what point does it become a business so so it's a weird story so so basically i was approached by uh a woman who was working at harvey nichols when i'd launched shua mora she'd gone to boots right as the head of beauty i think the head of beauty was a term and she's a lovely woman called ann berry and i think she's at avon now she's anyway she's fantastic and she um called me up and said to me we would like to um stock evader and so i obviously was involved with evader and she knew that and I said probably never going to happen he's already freaked out about department stores and the distribution model we've got here I just don't think Horst is going to go for it I said I'll come and see you anyway so I took Ruby's husband at the time George to Nottingham with me to meet Anne to talk about Evader even though we knew there was no chance we were ever going to do it and we just had a really good conversation and what they were saying was they they wanted to upgrade their beauty presence they didn't really have anything there were no estee lauder brands in there none of none of the premium brands were in there none of the sort of renegade brands no benefits nothing like that and they wanted something that would work and we came home on the train george and i he just went he just looked to me and you know when you can see someone's mind kind of going and i was like oh my god what now and it was really his idea and and then it took me ages to kind of agree to do it because i'd always thought that ruby would have a makeup brand so when we were up there talking to boots i was talking about how they should do a makeup brand with ruby because i thought she was a makeup artist she was on tv i'm just a back of house person you know i'm the publicist that's why you're a great wing woman yeah so i didn't really have any interest in that at all it then took about a year to convince me to do it with her during which time i felt pregnant what was hang on what was your reservations though what did you need convincing on I didn't really want to be I didn't want to be the front person I didn't feel like I was really happy to develop the line with her um and I I felt really confident because I developed products for Shurmura so I knew about the product development stuff I knew Ruby had excellent taste in in products and packaging and all that stuff and I had a really great vision but putting my name on it was quite tough right I'm quite weirdly for someone who's outgoing i'm quite private i don't really like that exposure and um so that took about a year of convincing and then i fell pregnant and then we did some uh boots said yes they really wanted to do it and they undertook some market research and they spent a lot of money on market research and no one showed me the market research because ruby um um researched really well because people knew her right but a lot of the research came back going we don't know who her friend is she's just a hang her on but nobody showed me because i was quite i was becoming quite heavily pregnant no one wanted to upset me and also you wasn't sure about doing this in the first place i wasn't sure about doing it in the first place so ruby actually hid that from me so and you know it was like you know who's she and ruby and millie they were they researched the name and somebody said it sounds like rosie and jim or rosie and tim or something which was like a kids tv show and does ruby really need her and all this stuff anyway.

23:29Glad I never looked at it. And then there were a couple of years of development and then we launched. Yeah. Gosh. It's kind of a mad journey. Really mad journey. Yeah, absolutely. But great to do it with someone else because doing that on your own, you've got to have broad shoulders. Yeah, absolutely. And like you say, when founder-led brands to be front-facing on your own. And running a business at the same time. I mean, I don't know. I've loads of friends of brands and I hats off to them because they are literally running a business, raising investment, looking after their team, you know, developing products on social media all the time.

24:08I struggle to post once a month on social media, you know, just I'm not interested in a way. I find it quite difficult. But I think it's and also building a business and a brand in a different time where that wasn't a consideration. No, not at all. is kind of must have been a real freeing thing when you think now you know if you by comparison it's a very very difficult it is very difficult here in in a lot of ways it's easier because you get maximum impact and amplification really quickly and you can really kind of understand your audience like it's very difficult for us to understand what was working why it was working we would have to travel around the country and talk to customers i mean it was that close um and And then just that sort of ease of amplification.

24:52I mean, ours was all, you know, basic print media. You know, that was it, really. One thing that I want to ask you is, because on the outside it would seem that way, but at the time was inclusivity with Ruby Millie, the brand, something that you set out consciously to build? Or was it something that happened super organically because of the two of you and that you both founded the brand? Yeah, a bit of both, to be honest. First of all, Ruby's a makeup artist. So in my responsibility in developing a brand for my friend, as a makeup artist, she has to have access to all colours. Every shade. Every shade.

25:32So that was obviously part and parcel of developing a makeup range for a makeup artist. But because our brand was for the consumer, we also had an obligation to make sure that anyone across the country could use our products so it was intentional it was definitely intentional but it was intentional and that there were two strands to it so everything we developed um the formulation was developed for a makeup artist but the application um methodology was for a consumer so that's why all the products that we had were makeup artist formulations but with a tool attached that we could find it easy yeah that everyone could find easy so it was that combination of her and i yes like the payoff in the product but yeah simplifying it for the likes of but yeah no absolutely it was definitely intended I mean the sad thing of it was is that um uh when things don't sell as fast they become and we were talking about this before when you have discontinued products when things don't sell quickly they become they they're discontinued it's not always that um uh it's not always that it stays within the range yes because you have to have productivity in a range well obviously we weren't going to sell some of those products at the same rate as others this is england right so but but the but we fought vehemently yeah to make sure that that wasn't the case that those products weren't discontinued because they didn't sell at the same rate yeah yeah which is very hard because ultimately you're you're always going to push back on that as would i yeah but then equally it's a business so certain products aren't selling because of whatever reason and you're we know we're assuming that we're talking shade and colors and depth shade it's they're those they're those products that you really want to keep in yeah yeah you know because of the reason and because of why you're doing this and you want an inclusive range but equally if they're not selling yeah numbers and numbers and business is busy so that's a hard battle that i could imagine that you both and then there was like one particular product that i think was really brilliant which was called pre-base and it was a it was almost like this color pink and it was um a kaolin based under under makeup kind of product and it was mattifying but it also worked on all skin shades and it was in the ugliest pack and everything else we did was lovely looking but it was the most functional product for every single shade of skin and it was discontinued because people didn't really get it and they didn't understand it maybe the packaging wasn't as quirky and cute but to me it was the most important product we'd created because it was the one product that would keep your makeup on and it was it would just even out many many different skin tones yeah it was really ahead of its time because when you think now is i suppose it's essentially like a primer right yeah yeah now it's that's someone you buy a foundation someone is selling you a primer with it but it's interesting no one no one could get their head around it and they were like well sorry no one's buying it we're gonna have to discontinue it and i was like please tell me one person bought it just one person and it's so interesting because that's and we discuss this a lot on this podcast that sometimes you can be too early to something yeah and you know now it's exact it's nothing new it's exactly too soon but like you can be you can arrive too early to a category or to a you know however that looks so you began developing Ruby a Million in 1996 yeah in 1998 it launched in harvey nickels and self-jizz obviously two of the biggest names in british beauty retail and then within just three months the business changed again because it went into 24 boots yes so yes and no okay so we that was that was definitely how we did it but we knew we were going into boots anyway originally so the thing i'm most proud of with ruby millie which is so weird is the distribution model because people still do that today they're launching liberties and then they'll go and they'll go into a nationwide retailer and that was really innovative then because nobody else had ever done that so we actually boots had given us seven million pounds to develop brands so it was essentially a brand rewind yeah so so so we'd gone and sold the idea into boots yes just get said oh yeah we think this is great the ruby and Millie together and they basically said to us we will give you a big chunk of cash you get to develop it and there was a cut off it was like New Year's 1997 or something like that where they said if it doesn't add up cost wise we'll pull the plug on it but if it does we'll go for it so Ruby and I've been working on it for like two years and it went ahead which was great and then it launched but I wanted to launch it in Selfridges and Harvey Nichols first because I thought it would have a really nice halo effect.

30:22Yes. And boots, it took some convincing, but when they finally agreed to let us do that, they were actually quite chuffed with it, the idea of it. They thought it was quite clever. Yes. And so it made it look like it was our brand. It made it look like... Because you launched, because you didn't launch your boots first. Yes, smart. And so I guess it was... And people still do that today. So for me, that was the model. The model, yeah. So obviously they give you an incredible amount of money to get this business off the ground. Well, it's not like they handed us the cash, but they paid for it. But when you're starting...

31:02If they handed us the cash, I might have spent it somewhere else. I don't know if I... You better laugh in summer. I've had a really nice house. But they give you that cash to start the business, which you know when when founders are wanting to you know try something new this is like the dream right to be handed that money to be able to develop doesn't happen anymore the dream line of you know exactly um but how did that look on paper then so they give you the money to start this up did you have any ownership in that or was it was it a boot zone brand i mean funny enough even people at boots don't know it was a boots own brand because i i gave all of my archive to an archivist at boots to put in the boots archive and i don't think even they knew it was a boots brand so um it was weird because it was a sort of hybrid but i guess at the time um nothing like that had ever been done before so nobody really questioned it um there were lots of people that ended up having brands backed by boots after that particularly in the hair care category that's interesting um but um no it was a bit of a weird hybrid i mean there were times when you know marketing managers at boots would kind of try to override us or that's what i was gonna say how did the dynamic then work yeah that's that was the that was a difficult bit that was the thing where you do have to kind of flex a little bit and so i'm sorry my name is on that i don't want my name on that product and how was that received yeah not well yeah not well at times i mean though god i wish ruby was here she would i I mean, we had some really funny experiences where we really did have to flex.

32:37I mean, it was, yeah, it was challenging. A lot of it was really challenging. You know, I remember one of the, there was one product that we developed and it was like a three-part cap and it sort of was a metal cap with a beautiful Perspex overlay. And we were selling so many that they had to make more and the production run couldn't make them quick enough. Wow. caps were cracking and I had literally created this thing from scratch this beautiful piece of art but it was so quick and it was the way that production line production line works with with plastic is that it heats up and so it didn't have enough time to cool and it was right so they said we're gonna have to replace the the foundation packaging and I was like okay and I went for a meeting with about 15 packaging technologists and they put something in the middle of the table that was like someone else's packaging and I was just like and I literally I don't know what words came out of my mouth but they were not very pleasant and I just got up and I walked out and I just said to Ruby I think I'm having a miscarriage we need to leave and I was like that was it I mean it was like it was awful I was literally like you know having like the most awful moment of my life and these people had put this thing in front of me and I was like this is horrible i mean we went through some weird life experiences yeah wow that is a life experience one day i think we'll we need to write a book together about it it's like you need to it will be like quite cathartic to actually i think ruby might have gone in the room and said i'm apologizing for her but she's having a bit of a moment we need to take her to the hospital it was really like it was really so those kind of things kind of real life and you're so passionate about what you're doing but obviously real life does happen obviously when someone puts and like you say it just doesn't happen now like a retailer saying here here's seven million quid bring us the range like let's go for it did you have sort of any idea that when someone puts that kind of money behind your idea let's sort of balance the excitement of the scale of how big this is with what you could do but the actual reality that you might have to give up some control no I had no idea that I would have to give up control I was actually in constant fear that it wasn't going to work right and i'd given up everything else to do it so that was a constant fear i didn't really because nobody had ever done it before i mean since then i've had plenty of people come to me saying you know i'm doing this brand for boots what should i be wary of and i'm like oh god sit down you know fuck you through it but nowadays i think it's a it's a lot that they're they're much better at it boots because we were the first so it wasn't just us that learned They also know how better to collaborate with creative people.

35:26You know, imagine you came from like literally art and commerce, two completely different kind of viewpoints. You're both sort of building the plane as you're taking off. Exactly. And nowadays, yeah, there are always things to sort of think about and to be aware of. But those businesses are much better at having those relationships with people like us because they just they know how they know well they know the value yeah of course you know and also when you're the first at something you don't know your own value they don't see the value yeah um you know i mean when we eventually left ruby and i the brand couldn't survive without us and i think that's when they realize they do realize the value exactly we talk a lot on this show about the unfiltered reality of founder life.

36:19The late nights, wrong turns, obviously the shiny wins too. But we talk less about the unsexier day-to-day stuff that actually keeps the wheels turning. In other words, the endless financial admin that can end up disrupting the craft and the creativity that led you to actually launch in the first place. So today's episode is powered by Starling who believe that the right mindset and tools can change all that. They've built a powerful business account that can help you build confidence, boost in habits, create vital headspace and shed the dead weight so you can focus on your next move or with no monthly fees.

36:55We love that. There are some features founders are really loving, like spaces where you can separate all your different expenses from your main account. There's also bills manager, which keeps bills like tax or office rent in a protected space and pays them automatically on the same day. So that's one thing ticked off of the to do list. styling accounting is a bit of a game changer too it handles bookkeeping and making tax digital all from your bank just search styling business to find out more sort of when the story gets interesting because the idea of knowing when to leave which i think you know lots of people struggle with i mean just in life in general um ruby and millie obviously worked incredibly well it was incredibly successful um and i'm just reading these notes here at his peak um ruby has said the business was generating somewhere between 10 and 15 million a year and yet eventually you both chose to walk away so what what sort of made sense at that point to leave and how did you know that it was the right decision particularly when your name's on the tin yeah I mean I guess it's like any relationship that you know it takes a few years to kind of get to the point that point Ruby and I had always said that we wouldn't put anything to market if we didn't agree with each other right and that we would if one of us wanted to leave the other one was going to convince the other until we both wanted to do it at the same time it was just almost kismet that we both wanted it at the same time wow so um uh it was it was i don't really i think probably we were both frustrated with it for a while um there were products launching that had our name on it that we hadn't approved things had been sort of launching in you know i was a big fan of everything being cylindrical and there were like square pallets launching and i was like oh my god i can't bear this um and there's a payoff isn't there because you kind of have to shut your mouth to take the money when the money's coming in but you um uh but then there's a level of like how much can i shut my mouth and take the money because i'm i have no creative input into this I'm no creative outlet I'm really bored I was living in LA so I'd gone back to LA and I just yeah I felt like I needed it was time and weirdly I always say that like a marriage when two of you think it's the same the time at the same time it's the right time yeah how was it to then leave something but then still see it you know be you know exist whilst being on the outside i mean strangely and i swear this is true i didn't really go into boots to shop anyway so it wasn't necessarily a customer so i didn't see it um um when i used to have to go into store i would always clean everything up anyway um so it was actually a pleasure to do that again um i don't know if it was so much that it was just trying to like you said like reinvent that was the sort of reinventing myself like who am I I'm like I've been Millie of Ruby and Millie for almost 20 years you know now who am I yes you know I had two kids um and I found myself living back in London my mum wasn't very well and so I kind of focused a little bit more on my little one just started school and so I sort of became a mom your life you know I did as many verses the founder of or yeah it became a little bit about my life for about a year or two and you do get sort of like I mean it's like any anything when you leave there is and anyone that said oh it was really easy and it was you know just moved on to the next thing it's talking absolute nonsense I think because it was difficult was very difficult of course and I think like the idea of just knowing I spoke a lot to Jo Malone about this like it being your whole identity like yeah and particularly when your name is on something who is Jo Malone without being Jo Malone of London.

40:56You know, it's a very kind of... Yeah, I know, yeah, that's really challenging. It's a very sort of tricky... And you hear founders say this a lot, you know, when you hear Bobby Brown speak, it's a similar thing and it's really sort of getting your own identity back. The bonus for us was, and this is where I think we were quite clever, Boots had the right to use Ruby and Millie, but not Ruby Hammer and Millie Kendall. And there was one time that we walked in to Boots and it had said, Ruby Hammer likes this product or something. and I went, no, you take that down and you give us some money. Yes.

41:24You know, you can't just use our names. You don't own our names. So in that respect, that was quite good. No, do you know what the hard bit was? Is everyone saying to me, what happened? Yeah. Did it fail? Because it was such a big, loud part of you for so long. It's almost like it. Everyone asks you that. What happened? Yeah. And the thing is, is that, yeah, I mean, it was, at that point, I think we were turning over around 20 million a year. I mean, it was a lot of money. It was good. it was very difficult to walk away from some of that but it wasn't that it failed it was that we didn't we just didn't want to do it any i mean it was as simple as that we just didn't want to do it anymore i guess there's an element of failure in there because you do lose control and then you don't really like what the output is i guess that's sort of isn't that just a lesson yeah and then how successful was the brand after you both left well for a couple of years it was okay and then it just did what they all do you know I mean no not all of them yeah I mean some of them were it was too new for us to have left I think it was too soon really right I think for them to take it on on their own I think it was too soon because talking about that control even though they would have been happier if we didn't stump up and say we don't like that or can you you know ultimately that's probably what kept it going is that constant challenge that friction yeah that friction does help yeah yeah and it's healthy it's healthy for there to be pushed from poor in any business right but someone's like oh i don't know about that and then because you do it it does land and you do acknowledge it and you do think and perhaps change it and meet somewhere in the middle and i i really like that pushback because i like the fact that i see something and i want it to look like that and then they say that's not cost effective we can't do in that material it's too heavy we won't make any margin off it you can't have that and so i have to then go and think okay how can I make that in a different material so it still looks as good and so that was exciting for me it was and and so I didn't mind the friction bit it was when there was no friction and they just went off and stuck on yes on things yes well that's a completely different conversation because at that point you're then not involved yeah they they started to not involve us and that was that was difficult and that well then that's when it's time and that's and that's when you know exactly um i wanted to talk about perhaps your biggest reinvention yet um because instead of building another product you helped build something to represent the whole industry and i think you know that is for me the legacy piece and that's the bit where the bit that I suppose must be so fulfilling for you yeah as yeah it's a proper job it's really no I can it's a proper job but you know the why and the you know the reason and the purpose of yeah I suppose for you it must feel of course hard work but but super fulfilling you became the founding CEO of the British Beauty Council in 2018 um as I suppose and I'll let you sort of explain it further but a way to represent and advocate for the wider beauty industry so I'd always thought because my dad was a hairdresser I'd always thought and I'd grown up in the industry I felt that my friends and colleagues weren't really respected in the same way that people that I knew in fashion were.

44:50I'd also been on the sort of more fashion side of beauty. So I'd worked with a lot of the hairdressers and makeup artists with the work at shows and seen how, you know, TV and film, you can't do a lot of the things you do without hair and makeup. But yet no one really ever talked about that. I felt really frustrated with the fact that in the UK particularly, it was an unregulated industry where there was very little respect. it wasn't seen as a career where you could earn a lot of money I felt that there were just some things that I didn't you know I guess I guess the thing is is that when I would go to dinner with with a friend and there were other people there and there was a banker or somebody and he would say what do you do and I say I work in the beauty industry he'd sort of say oh can you give me a back massage or oh my god I'd go on dates and somebody would say oh I saw on whatever app that was back then uh you've got an mbe and i was like what did you and they'll say what did you get it for and i'll say oh services the cosmetics industry and they would just laugh you know it was seen as a bit of like fluffy stuff that girls do and not very serious and so i just had this bee in my bonnet and it was one night at the electric in notting hill and i was with a bunch of friends of mine all across the beauty industry from like makeup artist kay montano was there and um a friend of mine lorna who was a buyer at harrods and launched the liberty beauty hall and my friend Anna Marie, my friend Kate Chaplin.

46:16So we were all there talking about how we really wanted to start an organisation that truly represented the beauty industry like the British Fashion Council. And so we talked to Caroline Rush. Or in truth, six years went by and we did nothing. And then, because that's what happens. You have a great idea and then you wake up the next morning and you've registered a URL and tried to trademark something. And then life gets in the way. Yeah. and then um it was really brexit donald trump that really that really pissed me off my brother's a social worker and he had said to me don't be one of those people that posts about politics on facebook if you're really angry about it do something about it and you start to see on social media you kind of create this sort of like um this sort of microcosm of like you know everything mirrors what you say it's an echo chamber isn't it's all coming back at you and i was like my god this is ridiculous so I started to look outside my own network and I realized that there was a much wider beauty community that wasn't really represented at all and so went to Caroline Rush at the Fashion Council said I would like to do this but I want to mirror it and have the same level of credibility that Fashion Council have so she was like great idea I'll come on board and help you so she helped us with our articles of association and our rules and kind of what the structure would be I met an amazing woman called Jane Boardman through a friend of mine Anna Marie who was Anna Marie used to be at Vogue Jane was a publicist and Jane really helped me with the structure because she'd been involved in the fashion council as well and really I just copied what they did and and took some learnings really and thought what can I do better what can I do faster what can I fast track that they've been trying to do for years and they have so much history and legacy that they maybe can't get there as fast as we can um and that was it really and then the idea was to look at the sort of it's like a christmas tree to me you've got the beauty industry at the top and then it's broken down into three segments personal care so shower gels things you wash with personal enhancement which is makeup fragrance hairspray things like that and then professional services which is your local hairdresser and beauty therapist and nail technician and i just thought if we they're all in different camps and it doesn't feel like one sector but if we brought it all together it would have a bigger voice more economic power um and it would represent the full supply chain yeah so it's incredible yeah it was it but it wasn't it wasn't my idea i was just forced into the ceo role i'm just going to say that now oh that all to kate shapman and anna marie who said to me you have to do this you were forced you were forced yeah i was forced yeah well i just want to talk i mean because the numbers obviously make everything clear about you know beauty being recognized so when we look at this now the british beauty council's latest value of beauty analysis found that personal care contributed to 30 over 30 billion to uk gdp in 2024 the council's research has also found that 86 % of business owners in personal care are women.

49:25Yeah. And here, here. Yeah. And more than 90 % of beauty businesses are SMEs. Here we are. Yeah, so I think there's something like 90 % of our businesses have under seven employees. 90 % of the businesses in the personal care industry have under seven employees. Goodness me. That's small. It really is. But does it feel like, I mean, it's so incredible what you do and it's sort of like, again, such a, it really sort of embodies everything. You know, and when we talk about your journey from start to now, it makes perfect sense why that person should be you. But is it quite a heavy crown to wear?

50:15I don't know. That's really difficult because I kind of don't think about it like that. So the thing is, is that I've had a lot of experiences from working in a hair salon to owning a brand, owning a PR agency. So I've done a lot of jobs in beauty. So, yes, it makes sense that I do this. I'm also very political. I like policy. I like politics. That's what I read about. That's my passion. That's what I'm into. And so, again, I kind of had to invent a job that didn't really exist or invent an organization that hadn't existed before. True to form. It is. Yeah. um um but but the thing is i guess um the vision's never really changed in the seven years i've been doing it um and the the purpose is really clear raise the reputation of the beauty industry um and i and i don't do it alone because where i had ruby or anna marie or somebody to work with over my career i now have this enormous network of advisors enormous i mean there's hundreds of them you know board members advisory board members committee members so there's so many people involved that i don't ever feel like i'm alone and and i've really learned that and that's how you like it this is what i'm you know i've learned about this conversation yeah you like someone to bounce off and you like yeah being part of a team and i like the friction you know i like to say in in to the team i don't know if i like that i don't know what can we do yes and i like it when they come back you know with a resolve oh my god totally or you know i had recently we were doing some policy work and our one of the guys that works for us is a policy executive and i had come up with this idea that i thought was really clever obviously not that clever because he came back and sent me a really nice very polite email and um that said i'm not 100 sure i can stand by this and i was like whoa love that but i love that yeah exactly that and i said go back and figure out another way we can do it yeah you know and then there was a result there was a result yeah but it's good it's it's like you say it's that positive challenge because it feels it feels like we're getting somewhere you know yeah um if someone's listening to this episode right now and they're sort of you know listening to your story and admiration and thinking i know that i'm ready for a change but you know perhaps i don't feel strong enough to do it or it feels like quite a brave thing and I know that I want to pivot into the next thing what would what would your advice be because for you I feel well it sounds as though it's always been crystal clear when the right time is to sort of you know take a journey down a new path what would your advice be for someone that wants to but isn't quite sure I mean I think that's really difficult because um it really depends whether they've worked for somebody or they've run their own business um I would say um you know financial security you would assume is like something you always worry about when you're doing your own thing but I find much more financial security me doing my own thing that's so interesting being entrepreneurial to a degree although I've always had businesses where it's been set up like a business and I'm an employee but I'm always an employee of myself yes but um I would because you feel safer knowing that you're going to go out there and get it is that is that why I feel more I feel quite confident in myself that I can make that business work right right that's so interesting yeah but I would never be able to be freelance I have to be an employee of my own business I would feel incredibly insecure if I was going to be freelance and um if I was going to be a consultant so when I first sat up my consultancy the shawamara veda story from my early 20s i had to have a limited company as a sort of um to me that sort of security yes yeah and from that i then became an employee of my own company um so so i think it depends what your personality is like because some people will want to work for someone else and they'll want to pivot in career and they want to find a new job some people want to go freelance be prepared that that is you have to have the personality to be able to handle that I personally don't um and some people will do what I've done where they set up a safety net of a limited company because they want to build something that's new maybe and they feel like they're the person that can drive it but there are different ways of doing it and I think it depends on what kind of personality you have and what feels right for you and what feels right everything's relative I think I think it's a sort of yeah it's like sort of survey yourself and go yeah would I feel comfortable if I didn't earn anything for a month would i have the reserve to be able to manage that i like a nice tidy salary paycheck every month it's almost like present yourself with the options before you just think okay like i always people ask me that i say well hang on don't ever it's never the right time to leave a job if you're not going to be able to pay your rent next month you know like don't yeah you leave yourself exposed exactly but it's yeah you're and women it depends also what age you are so there's a lot of talk at the moment of women of you know in their 50s not being able to find work or women in their late 40s 50s and how difficult it is to pivot your your career the wonderful thing about the beauty industry is it is an enormously welcoming industry to pivot to late in life so if you do work in a bank or if they even exist anymore or you work somewhere else you can train to work in our industry and come into it with relative ease yeah and so a lot of people when i talk to a lot of people that come from other industries they say i was very welcomed it's an industry full of empathy i can come to it from any age it's not easy to do that into going into other industries yes but to come into our industry i think it's pretty easy yeah and it and it feels like a very inclusive space it's a really inclusive very safe space i think for people yeah what's next for millie um british beauty week um which is 12th 25th of october and it is enormous this year so that's um what you're in the midst of preparing for that um what is next for millie i i don't know you know sometimes i think could i go and be a consultant maybe a non-exec board director for some brands things like that but every time i think about doing that and i think i should put myself forward for doing that i kind of think it's not really for me well why do you think it's not for you because i think it's too bitty all over the place and i don't have the control i like you like to sort of sort of get under the hood yeah yeah yeah i like to get my hands dirty i think that's too light touch for me i feel like i'd like to have you like to be in i'd like to be in it um i have no idea but i'm not going anywhere because i absolutely bloody love my job i love it i absolutely love it i have the best job it is really it's the most bizarre job in the world um and i really wish my dad understood what i did for a living because i keep trying to explain it to him but it is yeah it's a bizarre job but it's it's it's great and i there's so much more that we can do because a lot of the stuff that we want to do is quite legislative and to do with government it takes a really long time oh gosh i can make those changes yeah lots more to do at the british beauty council i would say it's very very exciting um i want to do a rocket round now now it's time for three two one some financial power questions from our friends at starling bank the bank on a mission to give founders confidence and control over their finances so rocket round is financially skewed So we're talking habits, financial habits, because we often say that we don't discuss finances as women enough as we should do.

58:02So the first one, it's supposed to be quick fire. It never works out that way. But the first one is three habits that you have daily or weekly, almost money rituals that you swear by. First of all, this is great because no one in our industry talks about money and it's really annoying everyone to talk about money. because it'd be nice to know what everyone got paid. And tell each other. Be vocal. And so I was, this is what I got for that. Especially in creative industries because I think hair and makeup artists really need to be talking about rates. Yes, yes. And how much they're getting paid.

58:36And you're not each other's competition. Exactly. So Friday, I do all of my bills. I pay all my bills, home and work. I also own a PR agency on the side. She didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. That's a sort of side project. I have an amazing managing director but I still do all of the bills. So I do everything on a Friday. So I get basically a spreadsheet every Thursday afternoon and I work from home on a Friday and I always pay all my bills on a Friday. So that's your consistent. That's one of my consistent things and I really like doing that. And I move money around, you know, and I do all that banking stuff.

59:13And what else do I do? I'm a big fan of checking my bank account on a daily basis. I'm just you know I have a um we have I have my private bank accounts but I have like a family like a family shopping bank account that that we have access to um so I always make sure that's topped up because I think that's really important but for you it it ultimately sounds like you want to check like you're look you're actively looking at your money and you're not running away from it you are no no I'm very looking I'm very my boyfriend will say that I go straight in he's and I've never met anybody that wants to talk about money as often as I do.

59:52And actually, you know, we've just moved in together. So there were things that I set up because I said, well, we're going to live together and this is how we're going to pay bills and this is the joint family account. This is how we're going to do our grocery shopping. And I set everything up in a way that I feel comfortable about because I like to have comfort in my finances. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I find it better to check it all the time so I know where I am. it kind of stems from my godmother and my mom my mom's older sister was my favorite aunt and she she passed away a couple of years ago and she every night she would come over to my grandmother's house and i lived with my grandparents and she would balance her her pocketbook whatever you called it at the time so she would tip out what was in her wallet she would have what she started with five pounds she had in her wallet and she would write down everything she spent and then And she'd count what was left on the table.

1:00:45Oh, my gosh. That is so, I love that. Like, literally every day. I love that. I'm not that tedious at it. You know, I don't do it to that degree. But she'd always say to me, you have to count your pennies. And I was like, okay. But the idea of having that organized brain when it comes to anything. And I feel like I'm gauging that from you. You like to be clean. You like to be organized. You like, you know, you like to know where you are. My filing is exceptional, I think. I feel like you could do those. Somebody on my team might say they can't find anything, but I know where it is. Yeah, I know exactly where it is.

1:01:16I'd like to see your like drawers. I bet they're really organized. You open someone's cupboards and everything's in like good glass jars. Yeah, I am quite organized like that. I always have a clean, tidy desk. I don't like a messy desk. I like that. What do you think are two wrong financial moves that ended up being a lesson for you? I mean, I guess the first one would be um not taking sort of some equity in some of the brands that i worked with when they sold obviously um that would have been incredible yeah um and so that that was um that was probably a bit of mistake i mean i did do something really stupid once when we launched ruby millie i turned down victoria beckham she wanted us to make a lipstick or a lip gloss for her and i said no stop that was a bit stupid because that could have made us quite a bit of money oh my gosh what like a victoria beckham ruby and millie collab yeah so it was like the the management her management a contacted us and said would you do a color for her would you do one for her she really likes what you've done and i was like oh it's got my name on it it's so stupid there's no room for any other name that was basically yeah one of my biggest fails ever but i sort of think things like that i'm i'm sort of i'm sort of half an opportunist and half i sort of say no quite quickly to things but that's good i think it's always about what you say no to i think sometimes they're your strongest decisions you're like maybe not the victoria maybe that was about something very stupid i've just admitted publicly but anyway and then last she's done very well on her own i mean she didn't need our help anyway doesn't she i know i was watching something the other day that she sells an eyeliner every 30 i'm not surprised it's absolutely brilliant it's brilliant her makeup is absolutely brilliant yeah the burgundy is my favorite yes same yeah it makes your eyes part isn't it it's the texture yeah they're so good um what is one piece of advice that you would give to ladies looking to look to launch a sort of financial piece of advice uh get a good accountant i mean i think that's sort of overlooked i think good lawyer and a good accountant and just everything to me and i have a lawyer for like different law you know an employment lawyer and i'm uh you know a property lawyer and so i have different lawyers that i tap into for different things but a really good accountant is great makes the biggest difference really does and to sort of know that early on is super important isn't it i think if you're going to do anything there are experts that you need by your side that can help you run your finances you don't need someone who's just going to do the bookkeeping you need someone who's got the experience to be able to tell you things that you wouldn't necessarily know yourself yes yeah exactly that if you're like if you if you could have done it like you say bookkeeping on it sounds like you're across yeah i do like that stuff but but equally i've got a fantastic accountant who gives really good advice and that's what you need it's the stuff that you really don't know exactly right exactly thank you so much it's been so so lovely to talk to you and find out about i mean i'm sure we could have done another hour because i'm sure there's a lot i mean i might I might never be able to get out of this chair because it's so comfortable.

1:04:27It's really good. We give you a bowl of tea. You do. You put me to sleep. And we trap you in. Thank you. I've loved it. Thank you. That was really lovely. Thank you so much. Don't forget to follow us on Apple and Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts to make sure that you don't miss out because next time I'm going to be talking to another incredible lady who launched. If like me, you're a watcher, then please follow us on YouTube and don't forget to like and subscribe.

1:04:54Thank you.