Maria Hatzistefanis on building a beauty empire, the freedom to choose, and creating a life on her own terms

0:00Welcome to Six Degrees of Purpose, the series in which Olly and I explore the trends shaping our relationship with wealth, money and meaning. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, YouTube. This is Six.com and we'd love to hear your feedback, comments and thoughts. Our guest today built one of Britain's best known beauty brands from nothing. Maria Hatzistefanis started her career as a beauty editor, was fired from a banking job in her 20s and has since called that a starting point. In 1999, she launched Rodial and followed it in 2010 with Nip and Fab. And today, the two brands sell through 20 ,000 doors in 35 countries.

0:39These days, she's a dragon on Dragon's Den Greece and a best-selling author. Without further ado, let's dive into the conversation. Maria Hatzis-Stefanis, welcome to Six Degrees of Purpose.

0:53Maria Hatzistefanis:Thank you for having me. Two incredible brands, three best-selling books and one just released, full-time parent. Where does the drive come from? i have to say going back to when i was a little girl back in greece i was around eight years old coming back from school and all i wanted to do was go to the local news agent and grab all the international fashion magazines bizarre vogue l buy them once a month with my pocket money go back home, close the door, and then immerse myself into the exciting world of fashion and style. And I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, but I always knew the woman I wanted to be.

1:48Maria Hatzistefanis:What is driving me is to be the woman that I always wanted to be. And who is that woman? Who is that woman? It changes from day to day.

2:03Maria Hatzistefanis:I'm a CEO, a founder. Sometimes I'm a mom. Sometimes I'm a friend. Sometimes I'm an influencer. I wear a lot of hats. And it can be quite distracting at times. But I love all the different aspects of my life. And I like every day to wake up and lead an exciting life. And that's why I want to create opportunities and be out there and challenge myself all the time. you've talked about um your career journey a lot in the past and you know the fact you're a beauty editor and then went into banking for a certain amount of time but got fired what did that feel like and then how did you end up founding the business it was an interesting feeling because i was shocked that this happened to me when you're young you hear about people getting fired and you imagine they've done something really bad and I didn't do something really bad they were just probably not a very good employee and the initial shock was embarrassment and couldn't accept it in a way but then part of me knew that I didn't want to be in that position I didn't want to work for a bank anymore.

3:31And so the other feeling was, they're right, because I'm not

3:38Maria Hatzistefanis:built to do this job for a very long time. And it's a relief that I don't have to do it anymore. So I had very contradictory feelings when this happened. Yeah. Was it cathartic writing about it in your first book? it was because when i was actually fired i only told um my husband at the time and family very close family i did not tell my friends i said i resigned because i was very embarrassed when it's very raw and recent but then when i wrote my first book how to be an overnight success where i talk about all my story including how everything started from getting fired i just announced it to the world suddenly, and now everyone knows.

4:23Maria Hatzistefanis:And that was very cathartic.

4:29Imagine founding a business at different stages in life provokes different sorts of feelings. Did it feel like a risk founding Rodial?

4:38Maria Hatzistefanis:Back in the day, it didn't, because I was in my mid-twenties by that time. um i had a little bit of money saved from my days in banking i did not have any responsibilities i didn't have a mortgage i didn't have a family it was just me myself and i starting a business i was in a relationship with i remember if i was married to my husband by the time probably was. And I had nothing to lose. And it was probably one of the easiest times in my life that I could take that risk. Now, years later, I have mortgages, I have a family, I have kids that need to go to school. The responsibilities, the expenses have increased.

5:30Maria Hatzistefanis:So it would be a much bigger risk to do it at this point in my life. When I did it, it was nothing. It's like, okay, I'm going to do it. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, go and find another job. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because in a way, part of your entrepreneurial story, if you'll forgive me for this, but risk is very much embedded in the way that you have sort of taken decisions and you've been bold. And naming the early product, Snake Serum, was it sounds like at the time, it sounds like it felt like to other people maybe around you a risky decision, but you had the maybe gut feel or intuition that it would be a successful name and that's, it would create a stir.

6:14And it did. Did that feel risky to you?

6:19Maria Hatzistefanis:So the first five years of running Rodial, we were playing safe. The products were great. The packaging was clean and beautiful, but nothing interesting. And after five years, I realized I need to do something different. You know how they say, if you keep on doing the same things, you keep on getting the same results. So I thought nothing's happening. We're just coasting. We're doing fine. We're not doing great. So let's just start taking risks. And that was the first risk, naming an anti-aging serum, which could have been launched in a white bottle with the name Rodial Anti-Aging Serum. Who would have paid attention?

7:05Maria Hatzistefanis:You have the L 'Oreal's, the Estee Lauder's, all the big brands with advertising campaigns, big pockets, celebrities. How can you compete with those brands? So the only thing you can do to compete with them is create something that they won't do and take a risk. And for us, this was the first product that the name actually did the marketing for us. And suddenly we went from being this unknown brand in the UK, from getting calls from Japan, Australia, everyone wanted pallets of that snake serum, everyone was intrigued. And so that was the first success. And then after you've had so much success with one name, you can't go from snake serum to lavender oil, right?

7:49Maria Hatzistefanis:You have to keep it up. So So then we kept it up. And a few years later, you had the dragon's blood and then the bee venom and then recently the salmon sperm, which was going to be the original name of the range. But we got some pushback from the Middle East. They couldn't launch it. So we had to rename it salmon DNA. So I think in 2026, with the names, the risks that you can take are a little bit more measured. but still still taking risks and they've always the names of the products always did the marketing for us and it always worked having said that i have to say we did have some products that totally flopped and we took a risk i'm not going to name names right now but i don't want to give the message out to the world that take risks and every single risk will pay off probably 40 percent of the risks didn't pay off and were products that flopped and we had to very quickly sell through and hide them and I'm gonna leave it at that where does this come from this desire for excitement in life and also the risk obviously comes into that as well does that come from something in childhood or someone that you've seen or had influence in your life where does that come from it probably was a reaction to my childhood um i was born and raised in a very very um non-touristic island in greece um very plain my parents um are retired now but they were teachers um and i was raised in a very safe and very predictable household.

9:38Maria Hatzistefanis:And I wanted more for my life. My parents always said, oh, you would be an amazing teacher. And that's why I studied English literature. But I'd not see myself living in a small village and teaching. I did not see myself. And that was probably my journey in what I achieved was a reaction to what I didn't want to have in my life and I wanted more and I had to make it happen for myself because I didn't go to a great school at my island. I had to figure it all out myself and then I moved to New York and I discovered at Columbia Business School and I studied there and I worked for the Wall Street for a few years.

10:28Maria Hatzistefanis:And these are all exciting things that I wanted to achieve to create something of myself. So it's always something new and something that challenges me that drives me to do more. So it's not the money, it's always the excitement and it's always solving a challenge that makes me happy. I love that and it rarely is the money everyone that we speak to all entrepreneurs um it's not about the money it's about either a problem they want to solve for or something they've experienced or a passion and a love they have or a value that they want to put out there so it'd be interesting to hear how you feel your experiences in childhood have overlaid your feelings around excitement wealth your values yeah what you do today so some of the values that I was raised with were to always be independent okay since I was a very young child my parents would say to me you have to be independent you have to have your own job earn your own money and never depend on a husband, never.

11:41Maria Hatzistefanis:So I always had that. And I always had this, that I would always have my own job and support myself. And having a husband would be an additional thing, but I wouldn't depend on a husband to have a life. And then the other thing that my parents taught me is never take debt, always be able to pay your bills there and then. So these two principles have led into a lot of decisions in my life, being able to support myself and always work, but also the business and how I never took investment. And I think that probably goes back to my parents saying, never take that, just pay there and then. It's interesting how a lot of what we experience now goes back to our childhood, right?

12:27Yeah. And therefore how we pay that forward to our own children as well, because it'd be interesting to hear your children's reflections on that excitement and your values today and how they feel that you know it's hard to say um they are

12:41Maria Hatzistefanis:I have two boys they're at university right now and I just feel that um it was very different because I was raised um in in a very honest household very simple and I wanted to do bigger things with my life. My kids were born and raised in a more advanced place. They went to great schools. They had everything they wanted. They went on great trips. They live in beautiful homes. So it's very hard for me to see whether the hassle exists in them yet. I would have to wait and see well they're in the place that they start working and they're chasing a career or starting a business it's tbc but i think it's more it's not my kids it's a generational thing that our kids um are raised in a very different way than than we were plus they they are in the age of everything is digitally in front of them i mean for me the first trip i went to paris what an experience that was um it was a life-changing experience the first time i went to new york with them they're on their mobile phones and they can experience traveling through going on social media so there's not that excitement that hunger to do well and progress and have the money to go and visit those places because everything is in front of them so it's a very interesting generation.

14:20It's definitely one of the most common issues that we see amongst the families within we work. Entrepreneurs who are all self-made are by necessity bringing children up into a world of financial abundance usually and how you pass the values on because it's very hard to pass on the hunger and the drive when they have everything or at least more than you had. So it's a really challenging thing to unpick. But I'm interested in your value around independence because that does come clearly out of the story of Rodial. And also with NIP and FAB, where there's a slightly different dynamic. You have a managing director in charge of the day-to-day, it sounds like.

15:07But it sounds like as well that there's a bit more distance. And I wonder what the experiences of building a brand and deliberately distancing yourself from it and deciding on which child you're going to spend more time with in a way.

15:24Maria Hatzistefanis:Yeah. Nip and Fab is really interesting because it started as a joke. I'm saying joke in the nicest possible way because it is the bigger of the two brands right now, so there's no joke there. but what happened was I was approached by Boots and they wanted to launch Rodial and we had a meeting but it wouldn't make sense from having retailers like Selfridges and Harrods and Harvey Nichols you can't do that and then go to Boots that would ruin the relationship but any exclusivity that you have with the brand, with the retailer. So I had the meeting and I said, I don't think that Rodiel is right.

16:13Maria Hatzistefanis:And they said, why don't you create a brand for us? So I thought, okay, well, and that's where the joke bit fits in. So I went back to the office and we sat down and we put together an idea of a brand that initially it was a diffusion range to Rodiel. So it was like you have Prada and Miu Miu. So Rodial was the luxury brand and Nip and Fab was the baby of the brand. We created it, presented it to Boots, went to the lab. We put together some samples. The name Nip and Fab came up from this TV show back in the day called Nip and Tech. And then the word fabulous was very much on trend. So we put together the words and called it Nip and Fab, created the logo, went to Boots.

17:08Maria Hatzistefanis:They loved it. They wanted to launch it exclusively. So initially, it was a little project of Rodial. Started with Boots, and then both brands were managed by the same team. As Nip and Fab was growing, we started bringing more people who were specialized more on the must-ease market. And then slowly, the evolution of Nip and Fab went to a point that I started seeing some amazing people coming in and applying for the brand to the point that I felt they could do a better job than I could do. They understand the must-ease market more than I did. So it was a combination of me feeling that there wasn't a lot more I could offer the Mastige brand outside some branding, some ideas, but there's a lot more that an experienced team could do.

18:09Maria Hatzistefanis:And it's as you do with your kids. And I decided I have some great people who are now running the team. I can let go. And what I tell them all the time is I'm obviously involved more as an investor and I see the team every week, a lot of the decisions that you make, I don't agree, but I trust that you're making the right decisions for the brand and that's the right place to be. And that's why I trust you. So it kind of happened organically. It wasn't a big plan and it wasn't, oh, let's just create Nip and Fab and immediately get away from it. It just happened. I think it's fascinating because it's unusual.

18:51I think that's an unusual dynamic when you're a founder and you create something, but you're very happy to say, actually, this is my area. This is not a satellite, but a baby, as you say, and other people have more expertise than I do in this market. Most founders want to have control over it all. It takes huge self-awareness and strength to be able to say i'm better here and you are better there but it comes back to that

19:19Maria Hatzistefanis:value of independence you've given someone else yeah that independence yeah interestingly well the team are saying to me um we feel like we're running our own business without the financial risk and i'm happy to hear that that's exciting for me to hear yeah uh but also there is there's a lot that goes with running a brand in a very competitive industry. Marketing rules and playbooks change every day. So there's so much you can do. And I feel already with Rodial being our luxury brand, there's a lot I need to do. So I'm very happy and I'm relieved that I have the right team for Nibbun Fab. There's been moments you've touched already being fired that you've been through in your life that has driven you not least to write another book but also it sounds like driven you in the business.

20:18Those moments can be difficult. How do you find your way through difficult times as a sole founder it's uh yeah it's uh it's an interesting question because

20:34Maria Hatzistefanis:there's all sorts of different difficulties i've been through times that and this is on my second book um how to make it happen where i talk about we almost went bankrupt by investing in a range that my gut feeling was telling me this isn't right. We shouldn't do it. It was one of the few times I listened to a team and I shouldn't have. I should have gone with my own instinct. We almost went into 2 million in debt and we had to very quickly turn this around, pay the debt. It took me nine months, but I couldn't sleep at night for a very long time. um there are times where uh there's team restructuring that the challenge doesn't have to do with money but it has to do with team and all everything is great when the team is great when we're all aligned where we're all working for the same goal but sometimes when people leave and you get a new team and the team isn't aligned.

21:42Maria Hatzistefanis:And then it's a decision. What do we do? Do we continue with that team or do we need to make a change? And sometimes I would have to strip it all down, which means that I may lose a team rather than have the wrong team and then have to go back to basics, go to the detail, and then build it up again. um so for me those moments of making sure the right team is in place happen quite often and they come in cycles so i think every two years we go through a crisis like that when also the business needs to go to the next level so you need a different type of team um and i have a lot of people who grow with time.

22:30Maria Hatzistefanis:So I've had people who've been with me for 16 years. And what is good about them is every time the business grows, and it goes into a different direction, they also adjust, and they can be the person we want them to be. But there's others that you grow, and they're still doing what they were doing five years ago, and the business doesn't need that it needs more. So then it becomes a challenge. So I'm very much involved in team building. I am involved in every single interview in some capacity. Some of the senior hires, I would do all the interviews, but even if we're recruiting for an office manager, I'll just pop in for five minutes and say hello and just get the vibe.

23:18Maria Hatzistefanis:um but for me just having the the right team i know it's cliche but i really mean it because i know if i don't have the right team i'm gonna be the one rolling up my sleeves and packing the boxes and sometimes i have to do that too it's uh it keeps coming back to people yeah i think any business and uh and it's interesting that you're involved in every part of the recruitment process again, I think about entrepreneurs' vision and the fact you have a very clear, and have always, it sounded, had a very clear vision about what you want the brand to be and what you want that to become. But what I'm interested in is how that plays into your concept of what success looks like.

23:58Because we had Dr. Sol Rogers on our podcast last episode, and he was talking about the research he had done in that at the beginning of our lives, we tend to define success by money. At the end of our lives, we tend to define success by contentment. And in the middle, more and more people are defining success by time and agency. And I'd be interested in what your definition of success looks like and how that ties in with the business trajectory.

24:26Maria Hatzistefanis:I don't know if I have a very specific definition of success. It's definitely not money. I think, let's be real, money enables you to do exciting things. You know, you can go on a trip on the spur of the moment if you have the money. You can buy beautiful experiences. There's a lot that you can do when money is available. So let's not say money is not important. It is important. And if you have it, maybe you kind of don't want to talk about it, but it is important. I think for me, I'm really excited and talking about money, about real estate. and over the years i've built the business i haven't sold anything so i haven't monetized any of my businesses for the last 25 plus year plus years that i've been running them but i managed to have three amazing properties so we live in london we have a property at the Cotswolds and we just finished the house in Mykonos in Greece and yes it's it's not money that's sitting in a bank but it's something that I can go and enjoy and say I worked for a very long time and I've had hard times but on the weekend I'm at this beautiful place at the Cotswolds I'm looking at the green I'm taking my dog for a walk or I can't travel to Greece as often as I thought I would and spent as much as I thought I would spend.

26:01Maria Hatzistefanis:But I just like next week, I book a flight. I'm going to go for a few days with my husband. We'll go have a little break whenever I want. And so for me, it's having those moments of enjoyment that you can say, I've worked hard and this is what I can enjoy now. And for me, real estate and what I've built, because I'm also very into interior design and having beautiful homes and entertaining, I love that sort of a piece of me that's the other side of being a founder and a CEO. And I can do more of that and I can do it better and I can enjoy it. Whereas when I was starting the business and hustling to see if I would be around for another day, that wasn't possible.

26:55Maria Hatzistefanis:so now I still have my challenges but I still know that I've created some tangible great things that I can go and enjoy that give me pleasure and then they're they're properties so I can enjoy them they're not physical money but for me having lots of money in the bank and just having it for the sake of having it it doesn't make sense I want to enjoy my money it sounds like being creative is an enjoyment as well from the early days of gathering all the pictures from the magazines to the books and the writing to an incredible two brands where does that creativity come from it it's all coming together it's from reading those magazines when i was eight years old and cutting clips of how i loved esther lauder and i was obsessed with erin lauder and her we were the same age and she was building these beautiful homes and decorating was cutting off what she was doing and I actually met her last year and we sat down and and I posted the reel on my Instagram and I said I cannot believe a person that I've been admiring for 20 years now and was one of my biggest inspirations and I was sitting next to each other chatting about how we We both love black color.

28:15So, you know, for me, it's going back to the life that I wanted to live and the life where

28:22Maria Hatzistefanis:I wasn't cutting off boardrooms and board meetings, right? So I knew I wanted to be dynamic, but I also knew that I wanted to live a quality life with my friends, with beautiful things around me. So potentially that was motivating me, how to create that life that I can live after work on the weekends, on my holidays. How can I create that quality? So it wasn't the money in the bank, but it was the quality of what I could get to create that life that I always wanted to have. I think experiences as well, that's much more translatable to children, right? When it comes to showing your children what your definition of success might look like.

29:12It's much more tangible to talk about experiences and freedom and flexibility to travel at short notice and spend time with those you love. These are all tangible things. Whereas for most people, money in a bank account, it's cold. It's hard to put feelings around. And I think that's one of the trade-offs that many entrepreneurs make who go through an exit. And their expectations around an exit are not met when completion happens. Because there is a trade-off and they say goodbye to their baby and they're left with a bank balance.