Inside CEW Innovators Awards 2025

0:00Hey guys, welcome to a very special episode of Skin Anarchy. In this episode we're going to be spotlighting the CEW 2025 Innovator Awards. These awards are incredibly meaningful because they are really celebrating the women that are behind the scenes and making beauty happen on every level. These are the scientists, the architects of what we consider to be true beauty innovation and so I cannot wait to dive in. And to begin the episode, please welcome back the president of CEW, Ilana Drill Seifer. And with her today is Andrea Nagel, who is a seasoned beauty industry content executive and currently serving as chief content officer at CEW.

0:36Welcome, Ilana Andrea. I'm so excited to dive into these awards and understand them because it is such an important celebration and I can't wait to learn more about it. Andrea, I would love to start and ask you a question because I really want our listeners to grasp the true meaning and the relevance of the Innovator Award. So let's start at the beginning. What was the gap in the industry that led to the creation of these awards?

1:02Elana Drell Szyfer:So it's so nice to see you and to speak to you. So thank you for having me. I think even before talking about the awards, we should take a step back and really talk about CEW's relationship with NYSEC, who is so instrumental in the awards really coming together. So for more than a decade, CEW has partnered with NYSEC really around the beauty awards and a specific award called the Ingredients and Formulation Award. So it's an honor that really recognizes true innovation in formulation science. science. So year after year, this category stands among the most highly submitted in the entire beauty awards program alongside facial moisturizer and Indie brand.

1:47Elana Drell Szyfer:So it was a real testament to the passion and ingenuity of the scientific community. So we kind of knew that something was bubbling up, right? There were so many submissions for this specific award. And then And in early 2025, CEW and NYCC, we saw an opportunity to really take that commitment even further. And they told us, they're like, we are very familiar with your awards platforms where you're honoring women in C-suite for Achiever Awards and you're honoring female founders with your Visionary Awards. There's really an opportunity for women in the science of beauty to be recognized. And we said, oh, that is amazing.

2:28Elana Drell Szyfer:So ultimately, we created this award, Innovators Awards, and we partnered with NYSEC to really identify what does that mean. So yes, there was a huge gap in the industry. We were the first to do it, and they held our hands the entire way, really from submissions, from helping to identify what the different categories were, and that's how we were able to really select and fine-tune who would ultimately be an innovator. So ultimately, we honored 31 women in five different categories. So across R &D and product development, formulation, sustainability, emerging innovators and packaging. And we really honored them by putting them in a report talking about their career journeys.

3:14Elana Drell Szyfer:And then we celebrated them at a cocktail party, complete with keynote speakers, the lipstick lesbians who are innovators themselves. That's wonderful. No, it's so interesting because, and Ilana, I want to kind of get your take on this because innovation is now such an important topic and it's such, I think it always has been, right? But now to see it come front and center is very inspiring, especially I think for a lot of women in medicine, women in science, especially. I mean, what is your take on that in terms of innovation being the focus rather than just the broader beauty category? Yeah, I mean, I can tell you because I attended the awards and it was before I officially joined CW.

3:55Elana Drell Szyfer:And I think what struck me was that this is an industry that's based a lot on newness and on how it's marketed and what the package looks like, etc. But we never pull back the curtain on how the product actually gets made. And yet, interestingly, consumers love that, right? Like they love to see like on the line, like people love when brands kind of post like, here's the lipstick getting filled or this is what it looks like on the line or whatever. And I think really what Andrea and CW did was it refocused people's attention on the fact that there are individuals at every step of the process and that not only are women the end consumer, but there's this group of women, obviously men also, but we put the spotlight on women, of who are behind the scenes, right?

4:55Elana Drell Szyfer:Either doing the research, creating the ingredients, formulating the product, working on the product package fit, etc. And what I saw was in that room were a lot of women who felt like they were the intel inside, but they were the best kept secret out there, right? And so they were just so thrilled to kind of have this spotlight on them to say, A, thank you for doing this, but B, yes, like I raised my hand. I worked on the bench in this big company for 30 years. And now I started my own ingredient manufacturer, my own lab or my own whatever. And there was just an enormous amount of pride. And I would also say camaraderie among those people because they kind of looked at each other and they understood each other, right?

5:49Elana Drell Szyfer:Like they were like, we are part of this community. I feel like what happened was they, they came together like a cohort and they, they sort of wanted to create this sub community of innovators and creators. Yeah. That's really fascinating because I like what you said. I think these awards really, for me stand out so much because the recognition that's needed, I mean, you can spend your whole life, right? Like trying to create something magical and do it behind the bench, but then to not have anyone even know that you were behind that. That's hard for any scientist, for any innovator. And so this is huge that you guys have introduced these awards.

6:28Andrea, I want to go back to you and ask you about the actual evaluation process for the awards. I'm sure that's pretty difficult, right, to kind of understand, like, what are the two factors that stand out in any kind of innovation rather than something that's trend-driven novelty? So can you Give us a little bit of insight into that evaluation process for the awards.

6:48Elana Drell Szyfer:So we received more than 100, 150 submissions, and they were entered by category, not only by the innovators themselves, but also by their peers. So their peers called out, hey, you should know about this fantastic product development person or this amazing R &D person or an up-and-comer. And so a lot of them who were ultimately chosen didn't know that they were even in the running. So then we took all of these submissions who were then by category, and we all met in a room, and we had our NYSEC partners help us. And we really just took a long time to look at the companies they were from, researching what are some of the ingredients that are trending and that are really making headway in the market right now.

7:44Elana Drell Szyfer:What are the products that these ingredients are being seen in right now? And it was easier than you kind of alluded to in that these women and the ingredients that they are behind and the brands that they're behind are kind of the raw stars of what's going on in beauty right now. And I feel like we really hit the nail on the head at the right time. As you've seen in the market on TikTok, on social media, scientists and people who are on the bench are getting the spotlight. So we were kind of in tune and riding that wave of, all right, let's identify these women based on these very defined categories of emerging innovator and formulation and cosmetic chemistry on and on.

8:34Elana Drell Szyfer:And they really just kind of rose to the top. It was a natural process. And Ekta, I want to say we had an experience where one of the innovators, I think just to take a step back, I think this group of people is so used to not being credited, right? and not having attention put on them, that somebody, one of our innovators won the award, came alone, accepted it, and her company didn't know until afterwards. And like the company was sort of like, had we known, we would have been there to support you, whatever. But these innovators are so used to kind of being anonymous that they didn't even sort of like put it out there that that this was this was happening.

9:24Elana Drell Szyfer:And I like what you said about being a scientist and kind of being used to being behind the scenes. Like if you think about it, we put a brand name on the front of a product. We put all the ingredients on the back. Right. Yeah. We never say formulated by. Right. Yes. And often it's a group of people. Right. I'm not saying it's one. Like we all know, having worked in this industry a really long time, like even on a small brand, there are probably a hundred people between the packaging people, the project managers, the contract manufacturers, the ingredient people. There are probably a hundred people involved in the launch of a product.

10:02Elana Drell Szyfer:But the, I think for me, what struck me about the whole thing was the anonymity of the innovator themselves was completely blown up with the awards in a great way, right? Like it was really a reveal. Yeah. Just to piggyback on that, when we were creating the report and as we were reaching out to the innovators, my inbox was filled with messages saying, I cannot believe that I'm being recognized. They were so humbled and proud and probably even a little overwhelmed with this recognition. And I think it just kind of reinforced how we were really tapping into a white space. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is like so huge.

10:44And I think that this is where I, for me, I think CEW really stands out because of reasons like this, because you guys are able to identify areas that I think the industry often overlooks. I've seen this time and time again. And I think that it's very much represented in these awards and the heart of it when I'm looking at it. Right. And I would love for you guys to speak on this, this idea of like finding the areas in beauty that are just maybe like becoming the exception of like what should be recognized what should we shine a spotlight on what are some of those things like outside of even just the innovator awards or that really fueled these awards when you were thinking about creating

11:23Elana Drell Szyfer:them well i'll let andrea talk about like things she thought about in creating the awards i i can take what I think are the areas for the future. If you look at the statistics around women's leadership in beauty and in fashion, the numbers for women at the top in the CEO roles are actually not getting better. They're getting worse. And when you peel back the rationale about why, What are the reasons that women are being told that they're not getting those top jobs? There are three specific areas people talk about. One is financial acumen, one is operational expertise, and the third is international experience.

12:12Elana Drell Szyfer:And so I think for the future, if you think about how as an organization, if part of our focus is on the advancement and development of women's careers at every stage, I think the women in this industry who are financially oriented, the women who work in operations, and the women who have international experience are an area of our three different areas of opportunity that we can look at for sure. But now I'll let Andrea kind of answer your question about like, how did we know this was a place to look? Well, I think we look to our mission statement and CW's overall vision, which is to really elevate women in the beauty industry.

12:59Elana Drell Szyfer:And this was just an untapped area in the beauty industry. As I said, we recognize manufacturers and retailers and C-suite as well as indie and founder companies. And we do have very good relationships with suppliers and contract manufacturers. So this was just the next obvious stuff. Makes sense. Yeah, no, I'm really glad you created these. It's very exciting. And we're in, I think we're in a moment right now where innovation is really becoming the baseline expectation, right? For a lot of different categories. I mean, obviously I talk a lot about skincare. I love skincare a lot and I see it all the time in that, but what are your thoughts?

13:39I mean, Andrea, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this in terms of where innovation is really taking that center role? And apart from just recognizing, like just people recognizing the role of innovation and how that's shaping careers in this space?

13:53Elana Drell Szyfer:Well, I think just the role of innovation is probably being fueled also by the consumer who is commanding and demanding ingredients that are working and that are worthy of their time. We deal with lots of data partners who track consumer search and who are seeing and reporting that consumers are searching about ingredients and looking for the most effective solutions now more than ever. And that's now even being seen on platforms like ChatGBT and Genesis and so on, where consumers are searching for solutions and in a multitude of ways. So who knows which came first, the chicken or the egg, But innovation has to be there in order for product to move, in order for there to be a reason to launch something.

14:45Elana Drell Szyfer:So that's really what is happening right now. And I think we're just seeing more and more women as there are more women in the back areas of science and in the science of beauty. They are also coming to the forefront. I mean, if you just look at some of the innovators and the brands that we recognized, all of them are women. One of them was Six Science founded by two Turkish doctors and just really amazing technology and innovation. And they're also being supported by people who have been in the industry for years and years at other brands. And I think we're just seeing a lot of support and partnership by everyone to put women forward who are innovating and who have the science background.

15:27Elana Drell Szyfer:Yeah, and I think if I take a step back, what I'm about to say is pure conjecture, but it's my own personal supposition. We, in our last conversation, we talked a little bit about sort of the history of beauty and like the categories, what people worked on, etc. I think one of the things I'm sure you'll agree over the past, let's call it 10 years, what I call the taboo topics, hair loss, zits, menopause, facial hair, excessive sweating, body dryness, keratosis pilaris, like all of these things that people never talked about have become A, areas that people talk about, and B, areas that brands have innovated and created solutions, right?

16:18Elana Drell Szyfer:And so I have to believe that women's involvement in science and in the conversation is part of that, right? I myself worked on projects around in skincare more than 20 years ago that were sort of related to solutions for menopause, but they were developed by men and people weren't ready to have that conversation. I feel like that's a conversation today that people can't get enough of, right? And there's from a product perspective, from a conversation on Reddit perspective, from an influencer perspective, like across the board. And I think that's where innovation is coming from now and sort of all of these taboo and unmet topics, they're kind of coming to the fore, but also with solutions.

17:08Right, right. No, that's a really good point. And I think that I've had this conversation on the podcast where, like exactly what you said, Ilana, where it's like the topics in the industries that are so closely tied to like the medical side, right? Innovations that are really kind of bridging that gap between like, okay, this was just in medicine before. This was just in big pharma before. We never saw it come over into this space where there's so much accessibility. I mean, that's where I feel like awards like these matter so much because they spotlight how we can bridge that gap and we can really bring over things that are going to genuinely help people at the end of the day.

17:45And you're not going to be limited by any kind of blockade. So that's I mean, it's huge. And I completely agree with everything that you said. On that note, I want to ask, though, in terms of the future, Andrea, maybe you could tell us the future of the waiter of awards. Like what impact do you hope that this program has in the long run for the industry? Because right now, just to give you like my just opinion, I think we're in a time right now in beauty where we're seeing a lot of buzzwords come up. Although the science is there, the data is there, the consumers are still looking at them as like buzzy terms like biotech, all of the words in biotech.

18:19Where do you think the words are going to fit into that, into that narrative of like educating consumers and really getting them on board with the science of everything?

18:28Elana Drell Szyfer:I think, well, we're actually working on innovators for 2026 and what that event will look like. I think what we'll do is we will absolutely be looking into the categories that define what an innovator is, seeing how we might be able to expand on that and to include more people in science, more women behind the bench. And I think for the future, I mean, for now we're owning it and we're loving that. Really how we can just get more people involved, make sure that everyone within the scientific community knows about this opportunity for women in science. And hopefully to really spur more submissions and to not be shy about that.

19:16Elana Drell Szyfer:And I think we should really make a goal to have it so that these women are becoming a little bit more comfortable in the spotlight. Last year, it was very interesting. It was kind of a phenomenon to have and to see such humility in accepting these awards. I will even say that the reporters who wrote about these women, they found it so refreshing to talk with someone about the science behind the product and not the marketing. Because typically we're always reporting about marketing innovations and how they're cutting through the noise. So to talk to someone about how something was just a figment of someone's thought and to really talk about formulating that, they found that super refreshing.

20:10Elana Drell Szyfer:So I guess we should really be making sure that all of our innovators are really comfortable with the spotlight and are maybe talking about a little bit louder next time. Yeah, that makes sense. I know a lot of people in science can be very shy about accepting recognition. So that makes a lot of sense. Alana, I'd love to get your perspective as well on that and the future of the Innovator Awards. Yeah, I mean, listen, I think we have a little ways to go until innovators is the size and scale of achievers, right? But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be. And I also think that innovators for us in a way can be an incubator program for Achiever.

20:57Elana Drell Szyfer:There have been a few times along the way where we have recognized somebody in R &D as an Achiever. And but I do think that having Innovator be a place where if one of these individuals organizations has not put enough spotlight on them, if we can do that and it then propels them and makes them be seen in their companies in a new way. and puts them not only in a scientific role, but also in a leadership role to become a head of R &D, to be a head of research in an independent lab, to be somebody who's quoted as a scientific expert across the industry and is working with PCPC or whoever. I think that one of the missions of CEW is recognition.

21:54Elana Drell Szyfer:And I think the recognition, this for me is the start for a group of people who have been unrecognized. But once the genie's out of the bottle, you can't put them back in, right? For me, it's the beginning of the recognition for what the contributions have been. And I see it only getting bigger, whether that's we recognize them again because they've achieved more things or just they use this as an opportunity and a platform to elevate themselves and their own visibility in their companies, in the industry, et cetera, so that people begin to know what they're capable of and it opens doors for them so that they can continue to advance.

22:31Elana Drell Szyfer:I love that. Well, I'm a huge fan. And for all of our listeners, I hope there's someone in the audience that can apply for next year's awards. Very, very exciting. But thank you so much to both of you for telling us all about the awards and everything. Thanks, Ekta. Thank you. Please welcome Dr. Jamie Emmitsberger, who is a recipient of the Innovator Awards 2025 by CEW. Dr. Emmitsberger serves as the Director of Advanced Technologies at the SD-Lover Companies, where she is a fellow on the research and innovation team. She is also the lead scientist at Le Maire's Max Huber Research Labs. A molecular neuroscientist by training, Dr.

23:06Amitsberger's research primarily centers on neurocutaneous biology such as skin sensation, neurocutaneous signaling, cutaneous neuromodulation, and the impact of cellular senescence on skin aging. Welcome, Dr. Amitsberger. Thank you so much for having me today. Yeah, congratulations again on your CEW Innovator Award. I think it's so wonderful that you've been recognized. And I want to take this opportunity to actually ask you about innovation because it's such a important word, especially right now in the beauty industry. I think more than ever, could you kind of talk to us about what your view is in terms of the real meaning of innovation and why it's so important to recognize in our industry?

23:47Yeah, so I think obviously innovation comes down to a deep biological understanding, at least in my role. So if I can just give you just a little bit of background, I'm a trained molecular biologist and neuroscientist. So to me, having innovation is understanding the biology. So when it comes to skin, how do we approach affecting the skin in a beneficial way? But we won't have this type of understanding, right, without understanding the intricacies of these biological pathways. So how I position this is when we think of innovation, we can also incorporate and explore other possibilities. So like, for example, innovation can incorporate AI, for example, and this can explore additional possibilities like what ingredients, mixtures make sense in different skin types.

24:38This will allow us for like faster and opportunities with fewer experimentations. But to keep in mind, this will never replace scientific judgment or craftsmanship. It just enhances efficiency, insight, and precision. So when we think of innovation, it really is integrating rigorous science with also craftsmanship when it comes to cosmetics. And it's not only to—we don't want to chase trends, but instead gain a deeper understanding of how biology and nature already works, like what I was mentioning before. So you can translate this exceptional experience with real performance. So, to me, discovery matters when it becomes an experience, right?

25:24An exceptional performance reflects a brand's value. Yeah. No, that's really powerful, and I completely agree with you. I think that also one of the follow-up questions I have is like, what, in your view, really separates something brand new from innovation? Because I think right now we're in time where things are really coming out very rapidly, and there are a lot of new stuff coming out, especially in the beauty space. So where is that line? between, okay, this is just a new thing, right? Versus like truly it is going to make an impact in the scientific space. Yeah, and I think there is a balance there.

25:58Like you do have things that come out brand new and something that might be an exciting topic. But I think really what drives the innovation as mentioned before is understanding the complexity of what that brand new thing is doing, right? So for example, I presented at MCAS this year, 2026, and we presented on exosome technology. And I think, once again, it is an emerging trend in aesthetic field. But what's important is understanding that these are biological messengers. And diving deeper into what's brand new allows us to have a more targeted approach. So what I mean by this is, let's give exosomes as an example, right?

26:43that these are delivery messengers. But really what matters is the cargo inside exosomes or even other alternatives like these exosome-like vesicles coming from plants. So if we don't understand the cargo, we're not gonna understand the benefit that cargo can basically deliver on. So I think there is this fine line between what's new, what's trending, what's out there, But then understanding the biology behind of what we're truly studying will allow us to position it in the right way for the consumer and to elicit the proper benefit for that consumer. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think that's also something that we see a lot.

27:26I mean, I hear about this a lot from our listeners, too, where it's like there's this misunderstanding, I think, also around truly advanced biologics and these kind of technologies. because there's no, I mean, I think there needs to be this like education, like what you're explaining, like there needs to be that level of like very transparent education. And yeah, it's very interesting the way you explained it. We often talk about things like collagen and pigmentation and also like cutaneous neuromodulation. How much of visible skin aging is really a story of signaling dysregulation rather than just structural decline?