859 Dr. Mireille Vega: Founder & CEO of VGAM

0:00I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be.

0:09Kara Goldin:You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin Show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Managing risk for your business may be complicated, but your relationship with your insurance broker doesn't have to be. NFP, an Aon company, can help you navigate insurance markets and negotiate with carriers to build the right coverage for your business, helping you turn your risks into leverage.

0:58Kara Goldin:NFP's advisors are total business partners who help you protect your business and connect you with solutions to your toughest financial and workforce challenges. Whether your goal is to manage risk more effectively, attract top talent, empower your workforce, or grow your legacy, NFP is ready to help you succeed. Visit nfp.com slash Kara Golden to unlock your full potential. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale.

1:48Kara Goldin:And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing. Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical. Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job. Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates.

2:31Kara Goldin:Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings. Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week. With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kira Golden. Terms and conditions apply. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Kira Golden Show.

3:16Kara Goldin:Today, we have Dr. Muriel Vega, who is the founder and CEO of an incredible brand called VGAM. She actually goes by Mimi, and so we'll continue to call her Mimi along the way. But very, very incredible brand products based out of Montreal. Her story starts in a Montreal drugstore when she was a teenager standing in the skincare aisle trying to decode ingredient labels that made no sense. Years later, after becoming a PhD biochemist and biotech executive, she continued to think about developing her own line of products. Then personal health crisis in her own family changed the way she looked at ingredients.

4:08Kara Goldin:So fast forward to creating this incredible line called VGAM, a skincare company focused on the skin microbiome and what she calls Skin Science 3.0. I can't wait to hear more about the journey of building this incredible brand called VGAM. You can get it online, but very, very excited to meet you. Dr. Mimi V, as she goes by, welcome to the Cara Golden Show. Well, thank you, Cara. Thanks so much for the introduction. It's exciting to be here. Very, very excited. So talk to me about VGAM and what made you think that now is the time to go and develop this incredible company that you have. Yes, thank you.

5:01Well, why now is the time is because I think, honestly, I've been looking for a missing element all of my career. I knew early on, like you mentioned, that I wanted to develop a brand for the skin, but I wanted to be coherent and complete, and I wanted to be simple. And I felt even with all this training and research that something was missing. And honestly, younger, I thought, well, the big labs will do it, you know, because I can't, you know, figure it out. Right. And I do think that we were missing the information. And we have taken a tangent in skincare where we focus on symptoms. We have a dry patch, a breakout, eczema, whatever it is, right?

5:53Some symptoms, you know, like lead us to a diagnosis that is, you know, critical. But others are just a symptom of, you know, other things that are going on in our life, right? And we've been focusing on those for at least 50 years, if not more. and focusing also on cleansing the skin so, so much, like asepticizing it, sterilizing it, right? And even if I felt we were missing something, I couldn't put it together before the technology allowed us to analyze the microbiota, actually. Obviously, my journey started with the gut microbiota. I was in immunology, microbiology. I had moved from oncology because of, like you mentioned, life, personal life struggles.

6:48And we were talking so much about the gut microbiota and being so curious around the skin. I was, okay, what's going on with the skin? You know, what's the connection there? There are so many connections with the gut, but there's also a skin microbiota. And the more I started digging, and this was more than 10 years ago, right, where the computer capabilities, not only was able to decode our genome, but it was also able to decode the genome of everything that lives on us, right? Which is the human skin microbiome. And throughout this journey of research and connecting elements together, I realized, OMG, this is what was missing.

7:35This is the element that we were never considering in formulation. And when I started focusing on it and thinking at ingredients, at what we give it, what we do, like the cleansing part was the, you know, like the first thing that I decided, okay, we have to shift this. And at the same time, my daughter was becoming a teenager. Same reflexes we had. Look at the, you know, like the cabinet to figure out, okay, what am I going to do for my skin, right? And you want to cleanse, cleanse, cleanse. Don't cleanse too much because you cleanse the good guys too. We think cleansing is great, but maybe, you know, too much is not a good thing, right?

8:18So yeah, so this journey started really with the discovery of the skin microbiota as the single element to consider.

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12:39Kara Goldin:Whether your goal is to manage risk more effectively, attract top talent, empower your workforce, or grow your legacy, NFP is ready to help you succeed. Visit nfp.com slash Kara Golden to unlock your full potential. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale. And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing.

13:23Kara Goldin:Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical. Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job. Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates. Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings.

14:09Kara Goldin:Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week. With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. So what do you think when you define the microbiome. Obviously, you are educated in this. You have a PhD as a biochemist in biotech and immunology, but most people don't really understand what the microbiome is.

15:00Kara Goldin:Maybe they think it's their stomach and it has something to do with that, but how does that relate to what people have on their skin? Okay. Well, that's a very good question. Absolutely. Well, it's very similar to what we have on our gut. So in our gut, we now know that we have these microorganisms that are essential for our health. They are the gateway to our immunology, a good, healthy gut microbiome or microbiota. microbiota, it's more or less the same thing. The microbiome is like the genes and the science of the microbiota. And the microbiota is actually the bacterias, right, that live in our gut and that help us in our digestion and, you know, send signals and, you know, communicate.

15:52So these, you know, really support the systemic immunity, our health, our global health. There is a connection to the signals it sends to the skin. But on the skin, you have also a community of microorganisms. There are bacterias, there are viruses, there, you know, like it's not everything bad. It's, you know, like a community. And those that have been living on us for generations, because it's passed down, right, are actually very good bugs and they protect the skin. They're like physically on your skin. They're not relating to the gut. Like in their composition, they're very different because on the skin, it's exposed to the air.

16:40It's a different environment. And, you know, like on your skin, you know, think of it as, you know, a symbiotic relationship. These microorganisms, you know, like they will feed on what is on your skin. That's how, you know, like they thrive too. but it's built that way. The skin is built that way. It's protected by these guys too. Actually, we know that even UV rays are, you know, like offer, the bacteria offer a certain protection against them, right? So a healthy skin microbiota is good for, yes, premature aging because it filters. It's not like a sunscreen, but it does filter what's going on in the air.

17:27And it acts also as a protector against acne, rosacea, dermatitis, a lot too, because we now know that when we wash these microorganisms too much, we actually pave the way for the not-so-great ones to take over. The more bacteria you have on your skin, the more they balance each other out. And it's this balance that keeps the skin healthy. And when there's not enough microorganisms because we washed too much, you know, like there's these double cleansing, there's these exfoliation, these twice a day and everything, you know, like if your skin isn't dirty, meaning if it's not contaminated by makeup or sunscreen or whatever you put on it, you don't need to cleanse it, right?

18:23You don't need to. because you're also cleansing the good guys that are protecting against all of these affections. So how did you come up with the name VGAM? Oh, well, I've been on this journey for more than 30 years, honestly, as a kid even, you know. So when I was in university, I did my PhD in biotech because I wanted to develop a line that was coherent, right? And at that time, my name, I studied at McGill University and my codename was Vega Miray, but they only used the first three letters. So it was V-E-G-M. So it stayed like that because a gam, a line in French, gam is like a line. It's like old gam.

19:16or, you know. So anyway, that's the name that was there. And when we actually launched the company, not the brand itself, but the company, we brainstormed as two names. And I was like, you know, we don't have to use this name, right? And it kind of stayed. We took out the E and yeah, we made it more like the GAM V for, yeah, so it comes from my name, but the GAM means like, it's really a GAM authentic and micro.

19:46Kara Goldin:Managing risk for your business may be complicated, but your relationship with your insurance broker doesn't have to be. NFP, an Aon company, can help you navigate insurance markets and negotiate with carriers to build the right coverage for your business, helping you turn your risk into leverage. NFP's advisors are total business partners who help you protect your business and connect you with solutions to your toughest financial and workforce challenges. Whether your goal is to manage risk more effectively, attract top talent, empower your workforce, or grow your legacy, NFP is ready to help you succeed.

20:27Kara Goldin:Visit nfp.com slash Kara Golden to unlock your full potential. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale. And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing. Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical.

21:16Kara Goldin:Luckily, LinkedIn Hiring Pro is built for that reality. It's your hiring partner designed to help you hire with confidence by surfacing only the right candidates without turning hiring into another full-time job. Posting a job isn't always the hard part. It's finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates. Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings. Their updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language, no recruiter jargon needed. Nearly 60 % of hires find a candidate to interview within a week.

21:59Kara Goldin:With Hiring Pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting with the right talent. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash Kara Golden. Terms and conditions apply. I love it. So VGAM is built for women. I've heard you talk about, especially in midlife. I've also heard you talk a lot about hormones and stress and inflammation, aging environment, and how VGAM really works to really help people deal with all of life that they're dealing with. When you thought about the first products that you're developing, what was the first product?

22:50Kara Goldin:And I guess, where have you gone from there? How many SKUs total do you have? And can you talk a little bit about that? Absolutely. Okay, this is a complete shift because I have a few skews and I'll explain, but I have two skews that are my duo. And I didn't set out to be a woman's brand. I set out to be a human brand. And I based my whole philosophy on the one human skin. What does the one human skin mean? It relates to science 3.0, but the one human skin is an organ. It's the human organ, and it works the same for everybody. It works exactly the same, and I focused on what was common to everybody, meaning the three barriers that we have.

23:47Skin science 3.0 is the three barriers, is the water hydration barrier, is the lipid protection barrier. It's the microbiota ecosystem barrier. It's these three barriers working together. But I wanted, really, what I wanted was one SKU, one product that could do it all. That was my goal when I started. But I had to reprogram myself because we've been conditioned to, oh, your skin breaks out. You put this ingredient on it, put some acids it's going to help do this do that or you know we are so conditioned that even when i was developing i knew everything about the microbiota i had mapped all the good ingredients the bad ingredients which are easy to find but the wasteful i call in between like the ones that we think are good we don't we're not sure but oh we're not going to risk it we're going to use it you know so I mapped all of those so I had all of that and I said okay I'm gonna put them all together and you know like we're gonna do it and then if my daughter because I was working to develop a product for my daughter but I wanted something that I had never found for myself at the same time if I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do this for me too right and it wasn't working it wasn't working for her or for me and certainly not all the time and it took a few iterations because at first I thought, okay, I'll have to add a corrector for her and a corrector for me.

25:22And, you know, and I was like, no, no, no. You know, like it took like quite a bit of time and thinking. And when I realized, oh my God, you got this wrong, you know, like you got to go back to the root function of the skin. Forget about the noise. Forget about the, you know, like the different corrections or, you know, focus on what the skin needs at the core and that's it and then you know clarity came and I made a product that's actually not just for women it also works for men and we do have quite a few men that use it because it's super simple it's complete and it's adaptable what does that mean is that I map the 35 ingredients that are core for the skin, for the skin hydration barrier, for the skin lipid barrier.

26:15It's a complex mix of salts and lipids, but there's also complex sugars that feed the microbiota. There's, you know, like these environment, ferment extracts that will provide the environment to the microbiota to thrive. So all of these are in now separated into two. The lipid phase is in the cream and the water elements, the salts are mostly in the serum with the minerals. And then you adapt. Because a woman, and this is what I realized, and I was going through perimenopause and, you know, like, and it stabilized the whole thing. Because we diagnose ourselves or, you know, like we say we have skin type.

27:02For me, it's probably the biggest myth, the myth of skin types. Because in a month, I had four skin types. I had the time where I was breaking out very oily. Another time I was dehydrated. Another time I was glowy. Oh, I love my skin. It's great now. Yeah, of course, your estrogens are there. And, you know, like, so it's moving all the time. For a woman, it's, you know, minimum four times a month. But then, you know, like there's stress levels, there's how much you slept, there's what you ate. There's all of these variables that affect how much oils and salts your skin produces. And then we try to make it, you know, give it one product or a few products that are always the same that layer on the skin, but that don't respond to what it needs on that particular day.

27:59so by separating and uh you know for those on you know like audio it's not getting you know by separating into two products that you mix together i developed the the approach i call like this two steps that are feel and mix which is you feel your skin you you know mix in your hand the proportions that your skin will need that day and then you adapt that's it feel and mix So yeah, this is the journey and how we develop this. It's the 35 ingredients that you don't need to rethink. And that was one thing that I really wanted for myself and for my friends and my daughter is not to have to always wonder, okay, do I need to be adding this or that?

28:50Or, you know, what am I missing? No, you're not missing anything. You're doing it all right. You just do it like one minute. That's it. And then you go on to do your other things and you stop focusing on the symptoms.

29:05Kara Goldin:That's it. Managing risk for your business may be complicated, but your relationship with your insurance broker doesn't have to be. NFP, an Aon company, can help you navigate insurance markets and negotiate with carriers to build the right coverage for your business, helping you turn your risk into leverage. NFP's advisors are total business partners who help you protect your business and connect you with solutions to your toughest financial and workforce challenges. Whether your goal is to manage risk more effectively, attract top talent, empower your workforce, or grow your legacy, NFP is ready to help you succeed.

29:46Kara Goldin:Visit nfp.com slash Kara Golden to unlock your full potential. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Hi, Kara here. For small businesses, every hire matters, but so does your time. I felt that pressure firsthand. You know, a bad hire isn't just frustrating, it's expensive in time, money, and team morale. And yet hiring the right person can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you're already doing. Sifting through applications, trying to spot the real standouts, second-guessing decisions, it can get overwhelming fast. That's why having a way to save time without sacrificing quality isn't just nice to have, it's critical.