The beauty CEO on leading consciously: Victoria Beckham Beauty’s CEO, Katia Beauchamp
CEO at Victoria Beckham Beauty, co-founder of Birchbox, and CEW board member, Katia Beauchamp, sat down with Ground's very own Kat Garcia to share her thoughts on…the future of consumer growth, how she instills a growth mindset at VBB, implementing AI and technology, and what keeps her grounded as a leader. 🌱
Meet Katia
“Humans are so magnificent. I am such a believer in the potential of humanity. Hence the inventors of AI. That is a human concept. It was born of human brains. ” - Katia Beauchamp, CEO (Victoria Beckham Beauty)
G: What are everyday things that you do at your company that fosters business growth and even personal growth?
K: That's such a great question. I mean, I think the everyday thing I do to foster growth on both of those dimensions is really try to be present and encourage presence from the team and from everybody around because I think we all experience such euphoria when we're in flow. And for me, one of the things I've noticed is that getting to flow is pretty much as simple as getting present. This means you have your whole 100 % self here to navigate the thing in front of you. That means you're not thinking about the last meeting or what happened earlier today. You're fully here. You're not thinking about what happens when you say the thing, like how did that get heard? How did it get interpreted? What does that mean about the future? You're really here. And obviously it sounds really great. It's hard, but it is absolutely something you can practice.
It’s something I learned throughout my experience at Birchbox. The most powerful tool in our kit is to be present. And it's something that I really try to bring with me. I try to role model it, but I also try to give people the tools.
Prefer to watch? Play the full sit down interview with Katia Beauchamp and Kat Garcia
G: Any emerging trends that have caught your eye? Technologies or strategies?
Watch the full interview
K: That is such a big question. I mean, I'm talking to someone who is in one of the biggest trends right now—AI, artificial intelligence. Everyone's trying to understand what is possible. For me, I'm trying to understand what we want to be possible because that is so much more important. There is something really beautiful about using technology to unlock human potential.
When you go down the path of what could be, I'm sure you're constantly faced with the question of what should be. It's important that we come together and ask: What is unlocking human potential versus what is potentially cutting off human potential? That's the trend on my mind—not just the potential of AI, but also how we come together to discuss how we want it to help us in our companies, in society, and in the world. That feels like a critical aspect of the conversation, rather than just focusing on the power of what machines can do.
G: You're thinking of AI more holistically - something to be more thoughtful and decisive around…
K: Absolutely. I think humans are so magnificent. There's so much beauty in human potential. I'm a strong believer in humanity's potential to achieve everything we want in this world. The inventors of AI were humans; it was born from human brains. If we continue to embrace the potential of humans and ask, "How can we unlock more from humanity by giving these tools to people so they can be their superhuman selves?" we can avoid the dystopian fears. We don't want a scenario like in the movie "WALL-E" from 10-15 years ago. Not that. Not that.
G: As a leader, how do you stay grounded?
On using self-talk
I think it's a lot of self-talk. I've gone through a lot of different experiences in my career and life in a short period of time. I started Birchbox and ran it for 12 years. During that time, I became a wife and a mother, and I guess more of an adult. I experienced the roller coaster of those things—the highs and the lows—and felt them very intensely.
One of the most powerful forms of self-talk I've employed in the last decade, or half a decade, is recognizing that nothing is as good as it seems and nothing is as bad as it seems. This isn't to say there aren't highs and lows, but it helps to feel a bit free from the notion that everything is exactly what you think it is. First, there's a lens through which you're seeing everything, and second, there's a confluence of what you've done and what's happening in the world that makes everything happen. So, you can't really take anything too personally. You can work really hard and try to create outsized outcomes, but at the end of the day, there's only so much that's really about you. It's not 100%.
We tend to think everything is 100% about good decisions, bad decisions, talent, lack of talent, insight, or lack of insight. But that's just not the case.
On there not being one single right answer
Another thing I've come to realize is that there's no single right answer. There are infinite right answers to questions, problems, strategies, or business plans. It's important to let go of the notion that there's one right way. This keeps you humble and helps you move quickly. What you have the capacity to see and understand right now is the best way you can do it. As you operate towards that, you can still adapt and create new ways. Agonizing over whether a decision is the right one, as if there's a binary outcome, is a waste of time and a bit egocentric.
There are many ways to be a CEO, to lead a company, and to be all the different things that we are. Letting go of the question of the "right" way is really freeing and a reminder of the value in the diverse approaches people come up with.
There's a beautiful poem that speaks to the idea of wishing we could do certain days over—like a Tuesday or a Wednesday. Every day we're learning new things and discovering new right ways. Celebrating that, rather than seeing ourselves as falling short, represents a significant mental shift.
On letting go out outcomes
It doesn't happen overnight, but you can change the lens through which you make everyday decisions by starting to talk to yourself differently. When you notice you're really attached to something being either very right or very wrong, recognize that attachment. Understand that it's just a story you're telling yourself, and sometimes you feel really certain about being right. Allowing yourself to entertain the idea that you might not be right is a very powerful way of sure of noticing and freeing yourself from the burden of the thousands of decisions you make every day. We can manage some of that stress by letting go of the binary thinking—wondering whether we did something well or not.
About Grounded Insights
All summer, we'll be featuring ground breaking innovators and their perspectives on the future of consumer growth. A space where leaders can inspire positivity, vision for the future of their industry, and what keeps them grounded.
Grounded Insights - the blog and video interview series - was born out of the need for more leadership and education on HOW to grow consumer-facing businesses in today's ever-evolving world. From rising CACs, privacy concerns, challenges in the venture capital markets, new technologies like ‘AI’, and the pressures of scaling profitably…The team behind Ground wanted to gather greater insights from the people behind some of the most successful companies in consumer.
