The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

In this new episode Steven sits down with the CEO and Co-Founder of DECIEM and The Ordinary, Nicola Kilner. Nicola began her career as a business-management student at Nottingham Trent University, where her sponsored work program with the pharmacy chain Boots led to her becoming one of the company’s youngest buyers. In 2011, she met Brandon Truaxe who would found and launch DECIEM in 2013, with Nicola serving as brand director. DECIEM was a skin-care company made up of 10 different brands, the most popular was ‘The Ordinary’, which was launched in 2013. After Brandon’s struggles with mental health crises, Nicola became DECIEM’s Chief Executive in 2018. In this conversation Nicola and Steven discuss topics, such as: Managing an organisation through the Covid-19 pandemic Recovering from the death of a founder and honouring their memory Juggling pregnancy, motherhood and being a CEO Making a company feel more like a family than a business The skills she implements as a leader and CEO You can purchase all of DECIEM’s products here: https://bit.ly/3MOAjQh Follow Nicola: Instagram: https://bit.ly/3qmYSMY Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And

thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. Just a tragic story and a tragic ending. It's hard to say if it's regrets, but is there anything different we could have done? Nicola Kilner. Co-founder and CEO of Decium and The Ordinary. This is the unthinkable, inspirational, and tragic story of how she built a $2.2 billion empire. I always just had this feeling that the only way to achieve financial freedom is entrepreneurship and then i met brandon brandon truex founder of adesium and the ordinary one of the fastest growing skincare companies in the world a success story the minute it launched we couldn't keep it in stock producing 400 000 units every single day and valued at 2.2 billion

us dollars it truly happened what felt like overnight. And this is really where Brandon's behavior started to change. He'd gone from someone who there was just so much warmth to just this coldness in his eyes. I was suddenly pushed out of everything. And then I got fired. Use of emails were being sent, firing people and copying the whole company in. Everything was played out on Instagram, saying he was shutting down the entire company. The shareholders had to step in.

But then things just seemed to keep spiraling. And I don't know what to do to help him. We've got breaking news right now of the founder of Desium has died. Give me a hug. what would you do if the person closest to you your best friend your partner the person you've built your life with seemingly lost their sanity overnight and went from working with you to turning against you. This story is as profound as it is heartbreaking. It is as haunting as it is heroic. Of all the stories we've shared on this podcast, this is the most chilling. It is the most hard to believe. And right at the end of this conversation, there is a twist that I did not see coming. When you learn in the most tragic way that history is just repeating itself.

An incredible business story, an unthinkable tragedy, and a formidable entrepreneur that stood tall when most would fall, and a genius lost to the world too soon. So pause, take a deep breath, because what comes next is not ordinary. It is certainly extraordinary. Nicola, paint a picture for me. Paint a picture for me of where you have come from so I think quite a traditional um you know because mum stayed at home so she did do the cooking the cleaning and just a very caring uh you know I just Jesus with my my children today and it makes me so happy because

I know what kind of mum she was and just knowing that love that they're going to have. My father was very great sense of humour, always very playful, very inspiring, very charismatic, always had kind of big ideas, kind of high energy. My mum was much more reserved, more of an introvert. My dad was kind of always the people person, always kind of very busy socially. Mum was very calm. Dad would have a temper sometimes, but you know, nothing too much. And at that age, at that young age, sort of like around that 10, 11, 12 age, what were your

aspirations and hopes for your future, if I'd asked you? Where did you think you were going to end up? It's actually a combination of kind of almost two, well, I don't think these two extremes anymore, but kind of I think originally would have been seen as two. One was actually a stay-at-home mum because I think I'd seen my mum obviously just in that role and I've always been very maternal. I'd always dreamt of having children,

except I always wanted freedom. I never wanted to rely on anyone else. And I think I'd always kind of been interested in entrepreneurship, watched Dragon's Den from, you know, quite a young age. I always just had this feeling that actually the only way to really achieve financial freedom is probably through entrepreneurship in some way. So I always kind of had this dream of almost just doing something of my 20s, kind of making all

the sacrifices to build up enough freedom that then actually going on to have a family, I could make the choices to really spend my time where I wanted to. Is that why you went and studied management studies? Yeah, so it was actually interesting because I never knew if I wanted to go to university or not. Because, you know, I believe in university very much. If you want to become a doctor, you want to become a lawyer, you know, there are subjects that you really need to learn. Business is one of those where it's always hard, like, do you learn that at university or do you learn that in doing? So I came across this course, which was business management in company, which is quite a unique course, which was at Nottingham Trent University. So it's sponsored by different blue chip companies. So Rolls Royce, Boots,

Barclays, Tesco's, companies like that. They take on 40 people into this course. We would work four and a half days a week for whichever company are sponsoring us. And then the other half day was kind of our study time, although obviously there was much more than that. And actually we were then, we'd go, so I chose Boots. Well, we went through interviews. Boots was my first choice and I was lucky to get there. Boots, for anyone that doesn't know the store, if you're overseas in America or something, it's kind of like CVS or something, isn't it? Pretty much that's the equivalent.

What's your, so if we just pause there there then what's your opinion now on university when your children get to that age where they're about to make that decision you've got two young children when they get to 18 years old and if they said mommy i want to be entrepreneur like you what advice would you give them based on your experience so i actually would always probably recommend doing a few years in a corporate because I have to say at Boots I learned so much you know you learn the things that they do really well you learn the things that they do not necessarily wrong but just the drawbacks of being such a big organization so I think you know more than going to university like those two the two placement years I did at Boots I learned incredibly so much and depending on the kind of person you are, you know, if you go to a big corporate, it's so difficult to impact the culture there.

Because there's just so many people, there's so much history. And if you are someone who's kind of got this strong drive to make a change, then, you know, entrepreneurship, I think is just an incredible area. And even if it's not your idea but going to join a startup it's just incredible energy and it just would always be what I would recommend at that point if there was a key skill or a key set of skills that you took from your time working in a corporate at boots that then proved to be incredibly valuable as you went on what were those skills so when I was so so when I graduated I then stayed on and I was an assistant buyer to begin with and then I got promoted to be a buying manager for them which was really around relationships it was

about collaboration it was about looking around the world, seeing new technologies, finding the innovation, new brands, and then really hand-holding those which mainly were entrepreneurs to come into Boots to actually show them, look, this is how we could launch. You know, we had a stand, it was called Latest Finds. We would launch a new innovation for a period of three months as a trial to see if it would work, would boost consumers like this. If it did, they would get a listing with Boots kind of long term. And that just really suited my skill set because it was a very entrepreneurial role. Because actually, you know, I very much guided them with PR agencies and actually how to build the plan. And, you know, we used to

have the saying of like launch and love, because actually, it's one thing to get a listing of boots, it's another thing for your product to actually be picked and taken off the shelf. Like the listing is just the first thing, you know, you, you have to drive consumers, you have to have that entire plan. And I think it was just a really good way of actually learning from working with supply chain, working with finance, doing the checks with legal. Can we do this? What can we say? It was a really good sense of actually working with so many different departments and actually starting to understand, I think, consumer goods, learning demand, learning how to create it. And so I feel like that role was created, which really just suited my skill set incredibly well.

And I'm very fortunate for that. And then that's also how I met Brandon. So actually he had a huge impact and obviously my next stage too. And Brandon was a business you were maybe, he had a business you were maybe looking at? Yeah, so he was with his previous business, which was called Indeed Labs. And we launched a couple of their products through this program, Latest Finds. So I'd worked with him and I remember, you know, and actually when I, this sounds alien now so many years ago, but you couldn't check your emails when you left the office.

So often every morning I'd come in and I was dealing with a lot of international entrepreneurs. So I'd always come into like an inbox full of emails. I always remember like looking for his name because his email was always so full of energy. He always signed off, smiles, Brandon, you know, just someone whose positivity, his passion just kind of really shone through that I'd always go straight to his emails, kind of open it.

And you know, the launches that we did with Brandon and Indeed Labs were some of the most successful we did through the innovation program. And he was just, you know, when he used to come to the Boots head office in Nottingham, just it was bouncing off the walls with kind of this infectious energy. And I remember just from the day I met him thinking, gosh, I always want this person in my life because he just had this aura and just someone who you knew wanted to actually also make the world a better place and kind of really cared about doing good and doing things differently.

And at some point you start having a conversation with him privately about launching a business, your own business, and then he's launching his business, right? Yeah, so I remember he suddenly left Indeed Labs. Now, Indeed Labs, he founded it. It was a rocket ship. It was kind of doing super well.

I remember getting this message from him that he left and just being like shocked as in like, what has happened? So then when he was next in London, I met up with him. And obviously he told me about his reasons for leaving. He was going to do this next thing. And I'd always kind of had this viewpoint of wanting to do my own business. And ever since I worked in beauty, I found that, you know, I always had friends, family, everyone asking, what's the best mascara? What's the best foundation?

And just how we'd go to TripAdvisor, you know, to look at kind of ratings and reviews for restaurants and hotels. I wanted to create the same thing for beauty that actually ranked the products. So I told Brandon my idea and said, I want to do this. Like, what do you think? Do you have any advice? And he told me he wanted to start something called Desiem, which is from the Latin word for the number 10. And it wasn't designed to be a beauty engine at that time. There was a beauty concept, but there was a technology concept. There was a a food concept so kind of just lots of different ideas generating but with this viewpoint of doing 10 things at once so we said why don't you come in help do desi in with me and I'll help do the the beauty we went on to call it beauty wise with you so then obviously I made the decision to leave boots which um obviously I was at the age of uh

24 23 24 and I remember telling mum and everyone's like, oh, like you're in a really good business. You've got a good, like you're already achieving things. But I just knew that I wasn't meant to be there forever. So I, yeah, I left 10 years ago and then it was the start of Deciem. I've got to say this idea of doing 10 brands at once seems like it's counterintuitive to to anything you might read in a business book that speaks to the importance of focus. Was there any sense in that, in your view? So in actually our office in Melbourne, we used to have on the wall, focus is overrated because everyone does tell you not to do 10 things at once. And actually, there were so many benefits to doing 10 things at once.

So first of all, it was this viewpoint of trying to create this ecosystem of, you know, how do we have our own manufacturing, do our own comms in-house? Because, and again, it takes funds to set up that ecosystem. But also, you know, so many entrepreneurs, which I understand why they're in this situation but so many entrepreneurs have to outsource everything they go to the PR agency they go to a lab they go to someone to do your R&D and then you're really just coordinating all of those efforts rather than I mean so it was a privilege we could build this this whole ecosystem because then at the table everyone sat there everyone's generating

ideas and again you know if I think around like doing comms in-house it's a lot for one brand to pay but if you've got 10 brands suddenly you can look at it as 10% of everyone's salary if I'm flying to Australia to meet a buyer well do I want to present one brand or do I present 10 brands and also just this you you know, area of, you don't know what's going to, until if you're in consumer brand, until it starts selling, you don't really know what's going to be.

You can do all the research and all the insights in the world. Until something gets traction, you don't really know what's going to work. So it also just set up this incredible structure that we could fail. We could keep trying things. We could fail relatively cheap keep trying things we could fail relatively cheaply quickly and kind of start the next thing what's the downside though of doing

10 brands so i'd say the downside in in the later years is because the ordinary has become such a huge success when the ordinary took off the other brands got pushed aside because it's very difficult if you have one brand that's really driving such a huge portion of your revenues when everyone is you know facing high workload that always gets prioritized so then you end up ignoring the other brands versus if they had a dedicated team and it's something now we want to actually restart our incubator engine and actually the only way we can do that is by having a dedicated team to that. So there are downsides. I think the other thing that made a huge difference for us, because we didn't have much money as a startup, and we obviously wanted to hire all of these people, we couldn't afford experience. So everyone who was hired was pretty much straight

out of university, straight out of college, just applied for their first job. And actually that meant no one really had preconditioned ideas about the beauty industry, about the way things should be. Everyone was approaching it just with a, almost a very practical viewpoint. And I think that made a big difference too, with actually this, how do we think differently? How do we do what others aren't doing it was almost never something that had to be discussed because people hadn't worked for the other conglomerates for all the years soon after you become co-ceos with brandon yeah um i always think about co-founder relationships and you know people being yin and yang and what the kind of right balance is for

for co-founders in your case you the way that you came together was quite unique it wasn't necessarily there wasn't an initial interest in being co-founders you were both going to do two separate things you then kind of got drawn towards each other if I put your personality on this side and Brandon's here what are the the differences how are they complementary but also uncomplimentary so brandon was eccentric yeah he was you know i'd say we both were both very passionate he was a lot more eccentric and i'm a lot more calm i think would be a big difference but i guess also from a skill set you know he was um he was so into this like he was a genius when it came to science.

He was a tech person originally. So he came from things with a very, he didn't understand grey. It was black and white. And actually, that was quite a good way to actually approach the science, I think, behind beauty products. He was at times short tempered. I'd be the kind of smoothing things out and he would kind of be a little bit more hot-headed but again I think it was you know a startup culture is not for everyone but for me those first few years were incredible but he also just had this amazing way of making things fun

uh you know like when we would plan trips to go on meetings he would be prioritizing which restaurants we were going to where's got the best ice cream what are we going to go and do here and actually the work was something that came alongside it he also had this you know he had this philosophy he wanted to build a family he'd had you know a troubled upbringing I think he'd always you know he'd he'd actually had this pattern I think of always leaving a business when it kind of just went on the verge of success um Desiem was his fourth business he had a tech business and he had two beauty businesses UOCA then Indeed before before Desiem and each time what hurt him was actually leaving the relationships and the people behind

so his viewpoint of Descian was actually how do we build a family like a work family but I think he it was never work and I think that's what so many of us felt weekends evenings like we wanted to be doing Decian because we were all friends we were all eating together we were going to Niagara Falls on the weekend we were going to a theme park in Toronto like we were just having fun whilst we were doing everything the part you said about he wanted to build a family because he had a sort of troubled upbringing I'm trying to understand how his upbringing you believe shaped his perspective on how you assemble a company it sounds there like he was building the family he might not have had or there's clearly some attachment challenges there if he wants to sell the brands but not the people

yeah and and again the heartbreak associated with leaving these companies was all about losing relationships a lot of that speaks to something that must have happened early yeah so i think it was around building a family of he never wanted anyone to leave him and he wanted Deciem to to be a place of belonging and actually even now we have belonging as our kind of North Star like the most important thing anyone in our team should feel is that they belong at Deciem whoever they are whatever they believe in like there is a place for them at Desiem and I think that really comes from this like sense of family and I think and you know again like I even look at my my husband's world I do think startups because you're working in a very intense

environment it does build relationships far deeper than well I ever experienced at Boots and that I think would exist in in corporates so this sense of family i think you know we would have taken a bullet for each other and i think even now like within within decimum you know we're 1500 people now but we still have so many of those early team members sounds like a cult it is but actually a very happy one this morning i did a talk and i said listen i'm gonna say something here which might get me in trouble i'm like you've got to scale from a cult i always have to disclaimer it and explain cults are really bad of course and you know they manipulate people but this is not what i mean it's that that sense of dedication we're all in

this together inspirational founder mission you all believe in and you believe you're right regardless of what the outside world says you're on a mission you're sleeping under the tent you know yeah well it's they always say that you know you can you can did like complain about your parents but if anyone else says a bad word about your parents like no like even if they're saying the same thing you've said and destine's like that you know like you can come play like internally like maybe there's not this process but if anyone says a bad word, you come straight to the defense. But I think it was just so much love and passion. And again, Brandon cared for all of us.

Like he had so much love that you gave it back. And that's where it was so difficult. You know, when we went through the unthinkable and things became so difficult because it wasn't a colleague, like you've just lived this incredible journey of us all traveling together, building something so special.

Like just this such a sense of we're all in this together. Like even when times are hard, like we've got each other's backs and things may not work out, but actually let's just have fun. Let's learn things and let's just keep trying. Like let's never be afraid to fail and let's just do it together.'s never be afraid to fail and let's just do it together

people hear that and they see the outcome so everything you've described there is the outcome you've got this great culture people are dedicated they're loyal they're on this mission what people will be thinking because they'll be sat in their offices now working somewhere or they'll be building a company of their own in fact this young lady came up to me this morning and asked me this question when i was um doing this talk she said i've got this small team and i'm trying to create exactly what you've described that kind of real dedicated kind of cult-like um company culture where everyone's in it how how how does one create it it's so it's actually quite difficult to explain how it comes together

because in many cases, from what I've observed, it's not necessarily intentional. I, there wasn't, it wasn't like a strategic drawn up plan to make people really care. It was quite a natural thing that resulted in that sort of deep sense of care

from the team members. I'll offer up one thing, which you said, which I thought was spot on, which people often overlook, which is fun. Yeah. People think of, you know, people think, well, we'll give perks and this and that.

But it's all the things that happen outside of the work that seem to do most of the work in creating that cult. And you come up with the best ideas when you're doing something on the weekend and you're not in that that kind of Monday to Friday nine till five zone that's when that creativity I think happens and I think you know people spend so long in the workplace and that's why it's so important that actually people enjoy coming in the one thing that I say like it's definitely been like a purposeful shift is I look back at early startup culture and I don't know if

it's always kind there's very high expectations and again if you're working you know I'm I'm calm Brandon is very high passion high expectations you know there's this people feel like they need to work on the weekends and the evenings and is that healthy even though actually it's trying to get that balance and I think it'd be interesting you know and again with my husband who's a different stage of startup I always just find interesting around like I think especially in today's world like we're so much more aware about mental health and burnout and actually how to be much more respectful of balance which I don't know if we necessarily had back then but equally I feel like again we were pretty much a bunch of

young 20 year olds with Brendan you know being a little bit older who were all just happy and loved what we were doing and when you start creating things and you start to see the the results of your work then that drives you even further and then that makes it even more exciting because you know you can see what you're achieving is actually meaning something do you think you could have achieved the success with deciem and the ordinary and the other brands if you didn't have that lack of balance and early cult like culture no and and again like i think you know in the in the early days everyone's around the same table you've got predby who's making formulations dion who's doing comms and brand like everyone's just there talking coming up with ideas and that's that collaboration is so special

and you know you're you're in whatsapp groups and you're like have you seen this let's do this and also i think you know the other thing in the early days, being agile is so important. And everyone was OK. You could work on something and the next day there'd be a change of decision or someone had a different view. Oh, actually, let's go in that direction now. That gets harder, I think, as you get bigger. And actually, there are many more teams and there's more people involved. So that's interesting

um i have to say i agree um with with um any business i've ever been in i i look back at those first sort of 10 20 people and the way they behaved and that's ultimately what we scaled but it's that energy enthusiasm that got us from like zero to one does that therefore mean that there's a certain type of person you should be looking to hire at that early phase that maybe can afford to have more of an unbalanced life i think it is you need someone who's prepared to wear every hat so in our early days we would say yes to it like we'd get an order from booze if we didn't think we could fulfill it we would say yes to it like we'd get an order from booze if we didn't think we could fulfill it we would say yes and we'd figure it out afterwards and that would often mean brandon myself like all of the whoever was working in the office at the time we'd go and work in the factory we would

pull all-nighters making the products and you know back then like i remember with hand chemistry we had like a hand crimping machine like we'd be in but it didn't seal that well and about one in ten actually exploded if you squeeze too hard so we'd be like there at night like making them squeezing them like okay they can pass so you have to have people that are prepared to get on production line to pack the boxes and again like you know my even later on like when it was you know times, times around November, Black Friday, which, you know, more recently we boycotted and we, well, we have Slowvember, our campaign. But those periods where it's busy, everyone gets into the warehouses and they help ship the products out. So I think the ability to wear whichever hat is needed for you at that moment is the most important skill set. What do you think of this concept of work-life balance? You know, I had

someone on the podcast the other day, and it's called Alex Amozy, and he was saying that he was like, people need to stop having a conversation around work-life balance, because it kind of assumes that there is such a thing as a universal balance that we should all be striking. Whereas, as you described it, you were happy you okay your life might have been slightly one-dimensional but but you were happy and surely that happiness is the most important thing and Alex Hamosi says listen I do two things I work and I play video games that's it I know I'm happy so stop telling me to do work-life balance I'm happy yeah 100% agree and I think you know it's it comes down to what's what's the right balance to you and it changes at different periods of your life so I was in my 20s I was fine on my maybe

sacrifice nights out and kind of doing other things but I was so happy being traveling all the time being in this kind of decim bubble creating all of these this magic and to me that's such a powerful concept around how do we achieve balance at different periods of your life we're all going to have periods where we can be working every hour and we love it and actually it's our it's our work but also it's our hobby it's our downtime because we just love it so much then you have another period of your life where you know maybe you have a an elderly parent that needs support. Maybe you're going through some challenges. You've got young children.

How do we step up and support each other to say, do you know what, I've got you here. You do this bit, I'll cover those bits for you because in another few years, maybe it switches around. And again, that's something that I think is so unique to when we say a family culture. That to me is an example of kindness that I think really actually demonstrates it there has been a debate hasn't there about the use of the word family

in the corporate world people think it means it kind of asserts that there's a lack of boundaries and these are not you know Netflix's whole culture document which is like we're not a family we're a high performance team um I think I have struggled to figure out where I sit on it, because there are many elements of the family culture that I always want in my businesses. That sort of care, that going above and beyond, the way, you know, a deeper sense of relationship that's non-transactional. And then also, on the other hand, you don't fire your family you know so what what is that balance between family and high performance team so for me family is about belonging and everyone just really feeling like they have a safe place to be and that they are loved I think kindness sometimes is mistaken for weakness and and also I think there think there's a conflict between the words

being kind and being nice. Being nice is kind but can be superficial. You know, you see a stranger on the street, you're like, hi, how are you? You know, you open the door. It's nice, but do you truly mean like, how are you? Or are you just kind of passing it? If someone's not performing at work, it's not necessarily a nice thing to have that conversation with them. But it is the kind thing because if your intention is to help them, and the help may be, this is maybe a different role that we see in the company, which we think you're more suited for. It may be that we think you need this coaching, this training to get to where you need to be and it may be that look

you're in this role but we're not seeing the delivery here we actually think the better option for you is is outside and now when we've done terminations you know we've done things around like how do we do counseling where actually it helps someone to look for another career depending on kind of what role it is and the reasons why we're leaving because to me then that's a kind of way we're actually trying to help that person and the other thing you know our business we we were like kind of this and we like had a rocket ship kind of boomed and then then we came to a dim just after after kind of covid it hit me when I realized if our numbers don't pick up again we're going to have to let people go because actually that is the

consequence of business like you're there to kind of do many things but ultimately like one factor of that is is to be a business and to make money and if you start to not hit your numbers ultimately like you can't lose money for long people will start to say you have to save money where does that come from headcount and I think that then hit me again that, okay, we have to perform. So to be kind to everyone, we have to be a performing team. So again, I think you can be high performing, but by being kind, I think you can make everyone feel safe and trusted that again, if you have to make the hard decision, you're going to do it in the way to be as kind as possible and actually you know have the action to try and help

i heard you say something which was that you um you're the least qualified ceo ever you don't sound like the least qualified ceo ever i guess you've been through some shit so I definitely am and again you know you have to I was there from the beginning and being someone who can you know play a leader for an organization of 10 people 20 people 100 people is a very different skill set so you know we are 1500 people we now have a majority ownership from SA Lord of Companies, who are a public company. Our whole world has changed. And rightly so, because being a much bigger organization, we have to be far more organized and planning. And I wouldn't say those are necessarily my skill sets and again when you know the the kind of dip I mentioned was a very difficult period

because we'd we'd just been on this rocket ship of you know even when things were difficult the one thing that always we were always ahead of budget targets whatever anyone set for us we always were just overachieving which feels incredible when you're in business like if you hit numbers then everything else just falls into place and I remember like you lose confidence and I remember actually saying to to Stefan who um is we were reporting to at ELC who's like an incredible person but each time when I used to say like you know this is not going right and I said like I'll resign like I'm not the person but dad was like I need help like I was like I can't do this like I'm not the person. But dad was like, I need help. Like, I was like, I can't do this. Like, I'm not the CEO who understands numbers in the right way, who plans. Like, I changed my mind. And again, like, you think about all the things as a on it you demotivate people you become chaos is fun in a startup in a large organization chaos can become demotivating

so then I was very fortunate that we did bring in um a very incredible general manager who joined us about a year ago and he has had such a transformation on the company because he can't believe just the basics we didn't have in place and because we'd grown so quickly and it's now to get that balance between you know there's there's areas we don't want any experience but decimals when it comes to like brand and innovation our values things that we are so passionate about. When it comes to supply chain and scaling and new markets, we need experience. So actually having the GM come in that actually could kind of take control of those and then actually allow me to focus on the areas which I'm much more passionate about, which is the brand area, our people, culture, belonging, social impact.

It's just made a huge difference to the business so two things there you offering up your uh essentially resignation from your your role when things were a little bit tricky it's giving me imposter syndrome i like to think more just like a realist of... Have you ever had imposter syndrome? Because, you know, saying this quote here about being the least qualified CEO ever, what is... From a traditional perspective. For example, if I went now to, you know, another company with revenues nearing a billion dollars a year with 1,500 employees, I wouldn't be a good CEO.

I think I could be a good people person. I think I could help on values on brand. Now, obviously there's an argument of like a modern CEO. And I think, especially for, there's no one more qualified for Deciems than me because of the history. But when I think about just the pure metrics and the size of the business, it needed someone with some more experience and again I'm a big believer on you know I'm anyone who thinks they're the expert at everything they're not and I think I'm a good person at relationships and hopefully bringing people on for the journey hopefully people feeling how appreciative and truly grateful I am that they choose to kind of be at Deciem and give

their all every day. But there are many areas that I'm not good at all. And actually having trusted people to support that is amazing. And I always do think myself more, you know, it's kind of like the conductor of an orchestra, like being aware, except I'm not very organised. So the bigger you get, then suddenly you do need someone that maybe has got more technical skills. It's's interesting because when I asked that question about the imposter syndrome thing I immediately reflected upon it and I thought it's funny how imposter syndrome and self-awareness can sound very very similar and and that's in fact from speaking to some of your team one of the things they repeatedly said to us was about your self-awareness and I even reflect going back early to your time at Boots where you were considering contemplating becoming a buyer and the first thing

you're doing there is saying does that suit my skill set and what makes me happy I mean your team said it they said your quote is that she isn't afraid to to tell you and she instinctively knows what her strengths and weaknesses are but I think it's the only way to be authentic. You know, trying to be something that you're not or something that doesn't make you happy is not really good for anyone. And I actually think like authenticity in today's world, I think is a value that is one of the most important because otherwise you get cooled out. It'd be crazy for me to say that I'm good at the finance piece. I'm not, it's not a strength, but we have an incredible VP of finance.

We've got an incredible general manager that truly understands it. So I think actually just playing to your strengths and allowing others to play to their strengths is actually what brings the authenticity. I should probably read this. Your team said she delegates a lot and very well. She very instinctively knows her strengths and her weaknesses she isn't afraid to bring on knowledge and talent for those

weaknesses her team says she's incredibly self-aware and also she is literally a ray of of sunshine how much did you pay jenny in marketing i'm joking 2017 um you launch the ordinary in 2016 yeah the end of 2016 at the end of 2016 and then 2017 is the ordinary's breakout year yeah breakout year how do you quantify that give us an idea the minute it launched we couldn't keep it in stock it was and again from we'd come so the ordinary was the 11th brand that we came up with a concept for wait that that violates the name it was meant to be 10 but we don't focus so we can change our mind wow so we kept going and what's the latin word for 11 i don't know maybe maybe a company name change with the ordinary i don't think we ever thought it would we never dreamt it would become what it's what it's become

today we launched the ordinary our frustration that there wasn't enough transparency in the world of skincare. And, you know, we took inspiration from the world of pharmacy. If you have a headache, you can go into a pharmacy, you buy paracetamol, you're going to be paying, you know, 50p to three pounds. It's a very small window. No one can sell you paracetamol for 100 pounds because you know the ingredient, you know the milligram. The trust is there because the transparency has been in that industry. That didn't exist in the world of skincare, which meant that if you walked into a beauty hall to pick a skincare product, you may see actually a relatively similar formula being sold for £10, being sold for £100 and actually

not really understanding what's the difference. You know, is it the marketing you're paying for? We kind of have this assumption, does like paying more mean more? But if you go into Boots and you see a new £100 painkiller, are you going to trust it? Or are you just going to take the ingredient that's safe and effective and trusted? And I think the reason we were feeling frustrated was because for Neod, we were really using brand new technologies that were very expensive and no one else was using these it was kind of true innovation so we said well actually let's let's take this approach of people because again the

some of the ingredients we use in the ordering they may have been around for decades that's not a bad thing if something's been around for a long time there's so much research done there's so much safety and again just like paracetamol aspirin we don't always need you if you've actually found a solution that has incredible effects we presented the concept of the ordinary to two significant retailers two of our you know big partners now who both said no to launching the brand. And this was when we were kind of still at concept stage before we'd even produce the first product. They said it was too confusing, white boxes will collect dust,

you need to just rename the products to be anti-aging serum, radian serum, effectively just what everyone else looked like in the industry and because we had these this umbrella and we had different brands it gave us the confidence to say no because you know we we were doing okay for ourselves like we could cover everyone's payroll we we kind of had traction with some of the other brands but we said no let's let's follow our gut which again it's a privilege to be able to say that because I know for so many entrepreneurs cash flow is is a killer and it can be so difficult to say no to a listing that you know could be worth significant money but we said actually no we really believe that actually this transparency is what's missing in the beauty industry

so you know we the ordinary launch and it just honestly was a rocket ship that even today, we, and for our VP of supply chain has, you know, we're producing 400,000 units every single day at the moment in our manufacturing in Toronto. We still have retailers, if you go into Boots, you'll still see lots of our stocks on the shelf. Like we still struggle to keep up with demand six years later since we launched the brand. And that has been, it's just been an incredible story. But I mean, we look back at 2017, we knew we needed kind of more money to scale. So we started looking for investment. Which is how many months after launch? Oh, the ordinary was like three months old. Deciem was four years old. And again, we were doing okay.

Like we had some success stories, not anywhere near the scale of kind of where the ordinary went to. We met with different private equity firms. There was like another huge conglomerate who we had lots of meetings with. And we ended up meeting with SA Lord of Companies in April. And it was eight weeks from our very first meeting to the deal being signed, which was due diligence, negotiations, everything. It was, especially for a corporate with a board, a public company, it was just this

huge energy. From the moment they came to Toronto, the kind of M&A team, then they were like, we need you to come to New York we want you to meet Leonard we want to meet you meet you Fabrizio our CEO we want you to kind of meet this team and I remember seeing Fabrizio the CEO who have a huge amount of respect and admiration for and the deal was done within like 30 minutes of meeting because they just saw this I think the energy particularly from Brandon like Brandon and I were in the room, like just this creativity, this passion. And the ordering was just starting to kind of create these kind of rumbles.

And I think they, you know, ultimately they believed in the concept. They believed in what we wanted to do. So they, the deal signed in June. They became a minority investor. They took 29% of the company. And I actually, you know, with Deciem today, we have had more time with ELC than without ELC. ELC? SA Lord of Companies. Okay. When acquisitions happen, I think companies go from zero to 100%. You know, we're at 70, they own 76% now of Deciem and it will go to

100% next summer. And actually that process will have been seven years, which actually is one I think quite forward. I haven't seen many deals like that done, I think, between kind of a startup and, you know, a larger larger company but actually it's just been this amazing different chapters of us both getting to know each other learning each other's strengths I think having a lot of respect for you know where where we need help and where we kind of need to be left alone and so actually it's just been this really nice journey and you know Desium we're in our 10th year this year um in six years of those we've had the partnership of estee lauder companies 29 they took and i it's rumored the

valuation was about 1.5 billion uh in so in the the last in the 2021 investment okay right yeah it was i think valued at 2.2 billion us dollars and at that early stage i'm trying to figure out for your four years into deciem estee lauder put some money in what was the valuation at that point when they took the 29 it had been about 160 million okay jesus okay super interesting i mean it's a it's a very quick um trajectory relative to most companies in that space to achieve those valuations in such a space of time. We move on then from 2017 to 2018. And this is really where Brandon's behavior started to change. It truly happened what felt like overnight.

So at the end of 2017, so we closed the investment in the summer. And again, the ordinary at the end of 2017 is we we close the investment in the summer and again the ordinary at the end of 2017 is it's a year old it's having this incredible just people are warming to it people are loving the concept you know I always think the ordinary is like a community brand because it really was spread through word of mouth endorsements and And I remember my husband and I, we went to New Zealand and Australia for kind of the Christmas break. And then I remember getting this call from Brandon saying, you know, you need to go straight to the airport with what it like, he was like, have you got your passport? I said, yes. He said, you go straight to the airport now, book a first class flight, come straight to Toronto on the next fly

turn your phone off turn your emails he was just like calm down let's let's be relaxed but you need to come immediately so he didn't tell you why no but I could just sense it was an entirely different person I was speaking to all of a sudden over that over that break in the holidays I mean the flight from Australia to Toronto I think I was on the plane you know traveling for about 20 hours I cried the entire way because I knew something really bad was happening and I guess so just kind of towards the end of 2017 and again I have to say Brandon is someone who he he would have like one drink in the month like he barely drank as far as I'm aware you know we spent so much time together like wouldn't do drugs was

just a he was high on energy and happy as just drinking diet coke and eating fries with ketchup type person towards the end of 2017 he'd, I think, by magic mushrooms and just kind of this idea of, you know, can you access different parts of your brain? And again, this was just something like in Amsterdam where it's legal and it's kind of just this, almost just this inquisitive, actually, how does the mind work? And I knew he'd planned to go to Amsterdam over New Year to kind of experiment with some of his learnings on kind of mushrooms and in different dosages and I'm someone who's quite anti-drugs like I've always been kind of I like to be well behaved I don't like to kind of break in break

any rules um in in those senses and I just had this awful feeling. And I came back to Toronto and he summoned, you know, around 10 of us to have this meeting in the distillery store, which was one of our desium stores in Toronto that we closed for the day. And everything had changed. And it was just like talking to a stranger. He had this like coldness in his eyes and he'd gone from someone who, you know, the second you see him, there'd be hugs. There was just so much warmth.

You know, all of his emails would have hearts on. It was just kind of all of this love in messages and kind of just being. It's just this almost kind of zoned out cold person that suddenly almost felt like, kind of just had this like it's like he didn't understand there was no understanding anymore between him and any of us he spoke around things where you know we've we're too caught up now in the concept of time so for example he said to me like the the next day when you know we'd meet for coffee and you know our routine for the

previous four years has been he'd text me he'd like I'll pick you up at 7am we'd go to a coffee shop we'd get you know breakfast and head to the office and he suddenly was like there's no time anymore I'm going to meet you in the coffee shop tomorrow but we don't need to tell each other a time we'll just be there when we're supposed to be there and I remember finding it really hard because he truly was is such a genius and a visionary and this has happened so quickly and I remember like ringing ringing Sean and saying like does he does he have a point like are we too caught up in time? Like, is this just like, are we taking things the wrong way? So I had a lot of confusion just around that. How could something change so quickly?

And again, this is someone who, you know, over the four or five years of being like insanely close to him, I was going to Toronto at this point for like three weeks out of the month and we'd have every dinner together breakfast together lunch together every weekend together and never seeing any episodes of of mental health or anything changing so suddenly you have this drastic change of someone you loved but someone suddenly who feels like he's completely closing the door to you and kind of pushing you out this was an indifferent person who was angry shouting crying scary it was suddenly very cold to everyone and then so everyone's very confused very upset and then there's business

things that start to happen that make no sense that are actually quite mean you know cancelling a brand on instagram a big partnership we had done with someone cancelling a retailer what so he went on instagram and told them said to your following on instagram that this brand's no longer going to exist before telling them yeah so we'd spent all of this time with dr esho uh building this brand i know dr yeah and then it cancelled like tijan found out on instagram with everyone else that this brand that he'd put all this passion and energy in was ended retailers were ended it became it was just horrible so i did challenge him and what happened when i challenged him was i got a meanest meanest response around how i just don't understand him of all the people i i should understand and just yeah and be like you look back and like nothing was making any sense and then i

got fired because again and he wasn't technically allowed to like you know you need board approval and all of these things but there was was there was no rational actions at this time. So this this just accelerated so quickly. And then it's so difficult because then anyone who's trying to help gets pushed out. So everyone's and again, like in the background, like I'm because it's all of these early team members, like everyone wants to help him and protect him. And everyone's like, what do we do? And, you know, that's the hardest thing about, you know, mental health and drug abuse, which then like circle together. But ultimately, when it's affecting someone's brain, they can't necessarily recognize that themselves. And someone said to me,

it's like you're speaking Polish to them you may think you're speaking English a common language there is no understanding in that conversation of what each other is saying and actually that that did start to make sense but it was just very difficult and I think you know again I got fired in February so like a month into this and it'd been the worst month of my life like truly like horrendous like so emotionally difficult what happened in that break do you know have you got any suspicions yeah I think he's well yeah he was very curious and I think he he took everything to an extreme and I think he'd been reading a lot around psychedelics and kind of how to access different parts of your brain.

And I think he experimented a lot during that break. And do you think that triggered some kind of psychotic episode? Yeah. So on that point about being fired. Yeah. How were you fired? I knew it was coming. How? Why?

Because I'd gone from being, we were inseparable, to I was suddenly pushed out of everything, excluded from conversations, emails. He'd came to London. I was in London at the time when I got fired. And again, when he'd landed in London, from the minute he landed to the minute he left, we would be together.

And I barely saw him. How did that feel? So hurtful. Hurtful and confusing and just really hard. And I guess you have like a whole team who are like, what's happening? Everyone is scared because it's a very strong personality who now could take anything anyone in the team said the wrong way and kind of someone could be at the end of quite you know an explosion of anger which again was never there before

so it's just a very difficult situation of one where you just you don't even understand it which I think is what makes it so hard but I'd also I think at that point we didn't maybe know the extent of how how things were going to spiral from there or how mentally unwell he was because I mean six weeks earlier he'd been he'd been the Brandon like we all knew and loved so it was such a quick turnaround and change and I remember getting a call from from the the person who ran our HR at the time and I remember just saying like I know like he wants to fire me and obviously she said yeah and then um and I remember just like crying my eyes out. And actually at the time, the person from Estee Lauder Companies who was on the M&A team, who's based in New York. He was in London at the time. And I went to meet him.

And I remember just saying like, I'm scared because I don't know what's happening. And this is someone who's just entirely changed. And I don't know what to do to help him. And I remember the confusion of someone's now acting, it doesn't matter what agreements are in place, this is now someone acting irrationally. But we've got to act in a certain way because it's someone who is so unpredictable in the way and again I think at this point I hadn't

really realized how bad things were going to be and you know part of you thinks like maybe it is me like maybe I'm not the right person to be there anymore and maybe for whatever reason like he thinks I don't believe in the vision or things have just changed. My husband, who's like the most supportive person in the world, but also very calm, takes such a like relaxed approach to anything. Like nothing is a problem to him in his world in a very positive way. He like booked as a holiday he was like let's just get away and like you know it's been like a very hard month right now Brandon like doesn't want you we can't change that so let's just focus on just like taking a

moment just to kind of reflect and and obviously I'd always wanted children we'd be married for a few years at this time I'd never wanted them whilst I wasn't like the busyness of Decian because I wanted the time to enjoy being you know a mum of young children so we're like let's let's try and have a baby so I got pregnant in the March um a month later yeah and um but then at that point things were spiraling with brandon and you know abusive emails were being sent uh targeting everyone he was firing so many people within the business firing people and copying the whole company in copying retailers in in and it became clear like things were really unwell and I remember I think being about six weeks pregnant and I was being targeted on like some of these emails and I remember thinking if I tell him I'm pregnant because I know he's so kind

and maybe he'll like leave me alone or if I like post something and then he announced it on Instagram and I was like as sick as when he was pregnant and something like that happens you know someone's not rational like no good human being does that to someone and then it became really hard because Like, no good human being does that to someone. And then it became really hard because I was still in this situation of loving him so much, wanting to help him, feeling just not knowing what to do.

Also having, like, the company, like, having everyone still coming to me asking me like what should we do because you've got someone saying things that make no sense and being you know he was just very very unwell so I was still trying to like help people in the background keep things going with the business obviously you know trying to be in the early stages of pregnancy, which now obviously the whole world knew. And it was just really, really hard. And I remember when he first got sectioned, feeling such a sense of relief that he was finally going to get the treatment he needed to get better. And it was actually in London when he got sectioned for the first time and then he he was out five days later and then that was the start of you know over that 2018 he got sectioned five times across London across Canada across America and each time would just get released a short period after and then that's when I started to almost kind of,

you lose the hope of like, how can we help this person when he keeps getting into these terrible, like, you know, to get sectioned, you're in a terrible situation for authorities to actually come in and remove you for your own safety. But then this would just happen again and it's it's almost like there wasn't even a connection between like the countries and the medical systems and and kind of like how that all works is confusing but he he asked in the in the June you know he was sending me videos crying and just saying like I need you back I don't know what

I've done like I'm so sorry and I remember feeling like I could I can't help if I'm not there maybe if I'm with him maybe I can help him so I went back and the first week I went back we went to Morocco because he was like you know we need to, like we need to get the business thing sorted again. And actually, it felt like a normal-ish conversation. So I remember feeling like, you know, maybe things can get better. And I remember the week in Morocco, just things were worse than ever. Things had got even worse at that time. I'd been away.

And it's just, it's a helpless situation and I have so much empathy for anyone who or one the people who struggle with with mental health and addiction but also for the people surrounding them because it's a very toxic environment to be in one because you're you're you're being abused but secondly you're losing the loved person and thirdly you just feel like you can't help because again with so many other health issues when you're not battling with the brain there's more acceptance of treatment to get better but that just doesn't exist in the same way i can tell how much you loved him honestly he was like and this is what i find so hard he really was so kind and like would do anything and again like you know when

i talk about desi and being a family in his estate in his will every single beneficiary is a decim employee like that's that's this family bond that was just so strong so just to see that go and again like everything was played out on Instagram Brandon was doing all of these posts in terrible situations and it's a very hard line I mean we'd we talked to Instagram like this it's such a free it's such a difficult you have free speech you have someone like it's it's a platform like people can can post what they want you know some things would get removed others wouldn't but it was just an awful situation to be in and I think everyone just had such a huge desire to help him and like in this time period I mean even like SA Lord companies were behind the scenes they

were so supportive to us but again you have you know you go on Instagram you see all these comments why is no one helping him what are you all doing and again it's it's so hard because people don't see that situation of it is pretty much impossible to help and then you have people that say look someone has to reach rock bottom like they have to just reach rock bottom until they get better so then in in October Brandon had done an Instagram post basically saying he was shutting down the entire company and there would be no more Deciem and obviously that was the point when the the shareholders had to step in because suddenly you know there's I think at that point we had 800 employees like there was everyone's jobs on the line and and again you think look maybe maybe this is the

the kind of bottom point he needs to reach to actually understand he needs to get help. So that's when the call order happened to remove Brandon from the company, which again is an incredibly hard situation because no one wants to remove the founder who they care so much about. And, you know, a founder who is such a visionary and is the brand, like to feel like he is being forcibly removed from his own company is very difficult. But you've also got a situation where everything was public. So every email sent, had the whole company on CC, had all the journalists, had all of our retailers, had customers on. Instagram posts were obviously going to everyone so you're also living

this out in public which i think also makes it a little harder so in october he got removed as the ceo reflecting on what you said to me at this earlier in the conversation about him wanting to keep the family together and be part of the family based on his own early experiences maybe his own um family upbringing that must have been particularly painful for him seems like he designed designed this company to be a family and that's clearly one of the most important things for him so for him to be ousted from his quote-unquote family must have been tremendously painful did you ever learn about his early years did you ever learn about his early years? Did you ever learn about his own background, his family? Yeah, I actually, it's interesting because for how close I was to him, when he became unwell, I actually learned how much I didn't know about him. you know he just I think he had a lot of challenges of never feeling accepted for who he was which

makes me so sad because me as a person and especially like the destiny that we have now like we truly accept anyone and love anyone it doesn't matter like who you choose to love where you're from like you belong to us and like we are grateful if you want to be part of the family you are you are the family so I find it hard that he never felt that except he never felt like he could be his true self which I think I only learned more when he became unwell um like he'd had Riyadh he'd had this incredible life partner for 10 years that I didn't even know about. A romantic partner? Yeah.

A husband? A boyfriend? Pretty much, yeah. And again, like those things when, I mean, that's a big thing to hide from someone. Why was he hiding it? Well, I can only think that was him feeling like he wouldn't be accepted for it. And I mean... Because it's a man. Yeah.

And I mean, well, in the world today, but I mean, especially the beauty, like it's... I'm so proud of the, you know, the diverse team we have. He would have been so accepted. But I mean, he was from Iran. I think he maybe just had well I don't know I can't say the reasons yeah um but he clearly never felt like he could share with the world who he truly was and I mean that's that's a huge thing to carry what about his parents so his mother died when he was very young. And I think he had a challenged relationship with his father.

But again, I only learned a lot when he became ill. And I also have a battle with, if he didn't want to tell me, he didn't want people to know. So there's kind of a balance of, you know, I have so many things that, gosh, I wish I could ask him. What are those things about his childhood about who he is about why he felt the need to keep things secret and then also just to understand because you know people say to me like him like did he have any signs of mental health challenges before and and again it depends what you consider traits of mental health but no I mean he was eccentric and he was you know high intensity and many things that I think are traits often

of founders I mean I would love to understand more like how do we support people with mental health because again I mean for someone to be sectioned five times. Why was he sectioned? He would just be in very bad situations. Police would come and get involved and then... Drugs? Drugs, mental health. And again, it's so hard to diagnose. Cause and effect. Because, yeah, they both kind of spiralled each other quite dramatically.

He was doing meth in the UK, I read as well, and then he got arrested for... Yeah. And again, my limited understanding of drugs but I think crystal meth is about as as bad as it gets I think in in many ways and so then in October he got removed and again I remember feeling like maybe maybe this will show him like be the push he needs to get help but it wasn't things just kept spiraling and again what's so difficult in these situations is at this point I think he's pushed pretty much everyone away who really loved him and he's now because you have to remember he also had funds he had you know resources which meant you know at at this point he was now flying private jets everywhere and he was

kind of surrounded by people that I had never met before and who I don't think were particularly good people for him to have around. But I mean, you don't have control over another human being. And I think that's the thing that I really struggled with was how much everyone wanted to help him and loved him. at some point you know so by October I mean we've had 10 months of so much hurt so much trying to help him so much you know you have moments when you think you're getting through and maybe like this is going to like be a change and then things just fall down again. So he then, when you've got sort of 700 employees, takes to Instagram and announces that he's shutting down the company.

And did he mean that? Yeah, I think he did. Again, I don't know if he meant it or if he was just wanting to be removed. And almost, you know, if that was the reason he was kind of doing some of these behaviours, there had been, things had been very extreme. And I sometimes don't know if he would have thought like, you know, what else do I need to do for someone to just take me out of this? So then obviously at that point,

you know, the board, the shareholders, there's no choice but to now remove Brandon from the company. Did they contact you after that? Yeah, they... Privately, I mean, before the lawsuit and all that started, they'd said, listen, Nicola, we're gonna have to do something here. Yeah. And I mean, throughout this process, there were many conversations because again, you you know every shareholder loved Brandon and cared for him and like everyone's a good person and it's like everyone wants to help someone that they've seen this brilliance in and kind of seen this quick quick downfall and I think the viewpoint was always how do we protect SEM so that Brandon can get better and come back?

So it was always just a temporary order. And obviously they rang me because it would name me as becoming sole CEO in kind of the interim period. And again, you know, I had this thought that maybe this is what is needed for him to actually get the help. Because sometimes they say, you know, you have to lose everything to hit rock bottom to then be accepting that you need help but that that didn't happen and I think when when it when the court order happened in October which is what three days after he announces he's shutting down the company or is it more it was a very quick period I can't remember exactly but yeah I think it was within days but then things just seemed to keep spiraling and obviously you know at that point in October I was uh seven months pregnant and so I remember I had like one last travel before I was at the kind of no no flying stage so I went to Toronto

and actually the first thing I did was bringing back a lot of the incredible team members that had gone during the period of 2018. So I need to pause there because that's pretty astounding you're seven months pregnant the founder has been ousted by a huge like multinational billion dollar conglomerate and you're thrust in as ceo of the company of 700 people who have just gone through chaos what do you do day one um so so assemble the team so you know the key people who were incredibly close to brend, who had also been fired and kind of pushed out in all of this chaos, they needed to come back to the company because they were also co-founders. They were also people who had been there from the beginning, understood the values and we desperately

needed. I remember going for dinner with Stephen and saying like, I need you to come back. So Stephen was our CFO at the time and then we came back as a COO. And again, like we just needed to get organization because I mean, in this period of 2018, you have to remember our demand for the products went through the roof because I mean, there was a lot of noise around what was happening. And-

Did it help sales? Massively, which is frustrating frustrating but you know because we had such good products that was also in the conversation but it was like have you seen what's happening have you seen this instagram have you seen this founder like it's you know i'll be honest with you the only time i'd heard because i'm i'm not a buyer of the products the ordinary products the only time i'd heard about the brand was i heard a story when i was in new york i think in 2017 2018 when i was living in new york about this founder that had like hijacked the instagram and was posting like a dead sheep he posted like a picture of a dead

sheep or something and i remember clicking on this is so funny actually i clicked onto the instagram to like see what was going on it's kind of like being nosy or whatever and I was like that branding's cool so for the last five years I've known it from that first moment but I remember thinking that branding is really on the money well in 2018 I mean the brand was only one a year old crazy so actually you know many people's first interaction with the brand was probably through you know being told have you seen this person on Instagram have you seen this breakdown that's happening in public so that was and I think that's one thing I find very hard is that Brandon was an incredible human being he was so kind he

was such a visionary he was so high energy he truly was a genius that I find it hard that people didn't really know him from before and actually so many people only learn about him through that period which is very sometimes difficult to accept but this is also the reality of just the the situation and social media and the appetite for controversy that I think kind of exists today. When the lawsuit was happening and he was being ousted, was there a point during that couple of days, that period where he called you? He became, you couldn't reach him.

He turned all his phones off. He didn't go to the court. He was obviously sort of in normal world, like would have a representation and would you know it was just just vanished so you come into the office you assemble the team you pull the people back yeah and and again so then for those next couple of months you know we we did hit like brandon would sometimes be parked outside the front of our office in toronto and again you have to remember this is people who love him but now there there's a character who is still acting at times, you know, frustrated, upset.

And it's just a very difficult environment to be in. You've got a responsibility now as CEO. You've got this guy parked outside the office. You're trying to focus the team there's a guy parked outside the office who's capable of causing chaos to the company to the team members the employees you know really not you know stable surely you've got a responsibility to call the police or something or get him out of there you know is that there's a conflict of intro it's it's such a hot because you try everything and actually you have to remember as well during this period

I was back in the UK so actually it was even harder because I mean at this point I'm like eight months pregnant nine months pregnant so hearing this but actually not being in Toronto to actually be there in head office with the team and again that's where Stephen and kind of other members were incredible and again it's difficult Stephen and kind of other members were incredible and again it's difficult because you know Stephen would like there to be a conversation with Brandon and then you'd get to the point where people would just be leaving out the back exit to kind of because it's such a horrible situation I mean he's he's not doing anything wrong sitting in his car on the road so it's kind of you couldn't even ring the police unless he was

actually acting abusive but sitting in the car alone like were you not worried everything was more just sadness of like how he would be feeling at that time and then you just get frustrated at yourself because you know i think we're we're so used to figuring out the answer, figuring out solutions. So then when you're in this heartbreaking situation of, you know, trying to be nice, trying to be there, trying to ask if he's okay, being away, being distant, nothing works. And actually that feels very hard, I think, to actually accept, especially as someone who, you know, I like to find solutions as a problem. Like we find the answer. So it was a hard period.

And then my daughter was born December 29th, just four days after Christmas. And then I remember in the January getting a message. So Dion, the press had got in touch with us to say, is it true Brandon's died? We had heard nothing at this point. And I remember thinking, surely not, like, we wouldn't be hearing from a reporter asking us the question. So I said to Dion, look, I'll ask Stephen to see if he can hear anything. So Stephen went to the police station who confirmed they'd found his body and he'd passed away I remember Stephen ringing me and I was breastfeeding my daughter at the time and just feeling this shock because you just never think that's actually the ending that's going to come like I think I always did just think at some point he would get

better and actually not within a year someone could go from like being the person you know and you love and who is normal and is in for them to a year later that this this such a fast downward spiral has happened that that's kind of had that ending and then you also I then realized that I don't think his partner knew I don't think any you know like any of our Dessian family like no one knew other than that reporter but if the press know that means quite quickly everyone's going to know it's then having to go through this process of ringing his partner, ringing like the people that I knew were incredibly close personally to him, ringing SA Lord of Companies, like telling the people I had to know,

and then quite quickly having the email drafted, because also, you know, this press inquiry has gone to our general media at Deciem inbox, which means the team are already knowing that this inquiry is out there. So suddenly it's like, okay, gosh, like, I need everyone to hear this in the right order. So trying to like make those phone calls, send those messages. Did you process it yourself? No, I think I went into into I remember just the shock of

I really didn't think it was going to end in that way or that soon and then I think it was just okay let's like go through the motions like who do we need to tell like how do we handle this from here and then I remember like then being like I need to get Mila a passport because we flew to Toronto five like five days later um and it yeah just go into like how do we because again it's not just a company that's left a founder it's a family it's a friend it's someone who's so close to all of us and it's not just a company that's left a founder, it's a family, it's a friend, it's someone who's so close to all of us. And it's also hard because it's just such a, just a tragic story and a tragic ending. And you know, and I think back to sometimes like our family bond and especially the bond

that we still have now. So many people who were there at the beginning, but I mean, we lived through this, like we had this year of all messaging each other around, has just happened what do you think we should do how do we handle this situation like we lived that pain together which I think is is probably why there is a bond that I think is still incredibly strong that wouldn't normally exist because it does strengthen when you go through those tough times together he was he was on his own when he passed away yeah he he posted instagram videos on on that night so you know we we know from various things that he was obviously still in this cycle of drug abuse

and then kind of mental health we don't know no one was there he he fell off the balcony I don't believe it was suicide with an intention to end his life because he'd have I believe he'd have left a note he'd have sent an email he was he was big on words like he always had something to say that I find it hard to think that he would and again you know even if it was videos like there was there was always kind of communication coming from him that I find it hard to believe he would purposefully end things without having a last kind of voice in the world. But again, you know, when you are in that situation,

I don't know if he was sat on the edge and kind of felt it was a high floor apartment. There was kind of huge storms and winds that night. But I mean, none of us were there. So we'll never truly know what happened. As well as your job of sort of communicating this to your team and dealing with the after effects of his passing, when do you process it? This is someone you love. This is your friend that you've just found out has died.

This is your co-founder, your former co-CEO, someone you've been on a incredible journey with when do you have a chance to stop and just really um work through the emotions I actually don't know if I ever have even to this day because it's just hard when you know work was this year was so busy because we've just gone through this year of turmoil where demand has gone through the roof. Yet behind the scenes, you know, people have done an amazing job at holding things together. But it also been a year of no leadership, kind of decisions being made in the wrong way. A lot of chaos there. So you suddenly have this situation

of like, there's a lot to fix, there's a lot to sort out. And I'm not talking even from like culture and emotions, but just actually from like business practicalities, because this is a brand that's exploding with this kind of soaring demand that's had this chaos that now needs stability in these kind of all of this love put back back into it and back into the team and people and then obviously I also have a newborn baby at this time so I feel like almost just that period since then like things have just been so busy and I'm just a big believer in like there are there are you pick the times in your life when you're ready to focus on something and I know there's a period in my life I want to sit

down with a psychologist and just go through everything that happened to have a better understanding of it but I feel like that's it needs to be at the right time when I'm ready and actually to really like I'm someone that when I put my energy into something it becomes such a big focus and you know I want to do it right and I know at the moment with everything going on I wouldn't have the right time to dedicate to it and also probably partly healing like it's still you know it'll be five years in January since he passed away it's coming to a time when I think it maybe gets easier, but it's also still very raw because I think it's hard to say if it's regrets,

but you always have those feelings of, is there anything different we could have done? Because you feel so helpless about how things just spiraled. That's what I was going to ask is upon getting that news, people often talk about this when they talk about the passing of a parent or something, they look back on the relationship from a new perspective now, because as you said in your own words, you didn't ever envisage it would end that way so when it does end that way your perspective on the situation can shift to what you as you said you know thoughts of regret or words unsaid or things that maybe we could have done and and that can be quite um that can consume one's thoughts

was there a lot of that during that time I think because you know the year 2018 I'd had a lot of reflections of maybe we weren't as close as I thought because you know if you could have this life partner and all of these things and not even feel comfortable to tell me then maybe I thought we were this closest that we actually weren't you start to kind of question those things and actually the the area which I then kind of got the comfort back that it was genuine and it was the love that I felt that he he felt was when we when we got a copy of of his if his estate of his will of his kind of last wishes when it said around the decision on what should happen with his body it first went to his partner of 10 years and then it said and in absence of

that person I want Nicola to decide what happens to my body and actually that was a very comforting thing because I mean there's nothing more personal than to trust someone with if something happens to me this person can decide what happens to like my remains so that then actually gave me the comfort that like it was genuine it was a true love like he did see me as that other than his his his partner like his kind of best friend his partner someone who was incredibly close who he would feel like that was the right person to make that decision so I'd I'd kind of gone on this cycle of feeling you know very pushed out very targeted very maybe maybe it wasn't all real maybe I was just a colleague and kind of it was just business,

to actually know it was family, it was love. So I kind of had that reflection and I think that gave me a lot of comfort. Do you miss Brandon? Incredibly much. You know, it's quite lonely because when you've gone from having someone where every decision you're you're texting you're together you're kind of you're doing it together gives you the confidence that you're going in the right way so it's very difficult to lose that and you know it's like you go from a two-parent to just one parent and you feel responsible for this incredible child but also a child that's growing very fast and you know you you want to do the best by everyone and it's and also like it's it's a huge change I mean the company we are today is very different and you know like with any any kind of fast growth business you have to try and

find a balance of you know never compromising on on our values and things that are so core to our purpose but then finding a way that you can can actually grow and scale and and actually you know when we you know early years we've never had a strategy and it was kind of never anything of that I thought we would do but then obviously you grow to a size that you start thinking about these things and it was interesting because the first time we did strategy i think it's worth pausing there and just highlighting what you've just said you had a philosophy early on where you didn't you didn't have a company strategy it was never planned never have a strategy that was your ethos yeah why uh we actually again we had all of these slogans in our offices and one with strategy is also overrated. And you need to be

agile as a startup. And again, I think, you know, a big thing, Brandon was a big believer in this. He always used to say, we've got to be the small rabbit running into the holes that the big elephants can't get to. And the big elephants obviously being the big conglomerates because they've got far more money than us, far more resources. There is no point as doing what they're doing, but with far less. Let's find the holes. And part of that is again, being agile. I mean, again, you think the ordinary was the 11th brand. And as much as we had like elements of success before then, you know, the ordinary, it took 11 attempts to really get it right. Now, a strategy can't plan for that because our strategy was to keep failing until we kind of got it right.

Now, as you get bigger, it changes because suddenly, you know, you need to articulate things in a different way. But it was interesting because when we did our first process of strategy, and obviously I'm still very, at this point was very on the fence of, I don't think we're a company that kind of needs a big document etc so it's quite nice after we kind of had all these conversations we came down to basically having our entire strategy

was build growth power good that was the strategy because almost it was and again I'm very proud that I feel like we're more than just a beauty company. We want to have a good impact on the world. We believe in making incredible products, but also having a good impact on the planet. You know, I believe the world of skincare is now a better place because there is more transparency. There's more awareness, ingredients like niacinamide. I think there's better price points. I think there is, you know know we talk about quality equality and actually within skincare I think that's something

that now is much more accessible to people so I I believe like we are having a good impact and I think that businesses can do that and you know I like if you ever get the chance to come to Toronto and you know I welcome anyone to come look around our offices our production facility because the warmth you find from people is unlike anywhere I've ever I think could exist if I was to ask you then again we're looking there at like the finished painting I want to know the colours that went into the painting so how and you were there the whole time so you got to see what what created that end product if i'm a startup founder listening to this now and i go okay nicola i'm at the very start and i want that end product i want to be 10 years in super successful and everyone's happy what are the most important things for them

to understand embody and sort of implement into their companies just maybe like top line so from a business perspective product quality is the only way to be successful and therefore i mean the only reason we're now in a position where i think we can invest so much in sustainability social impact in people is because if we started with science we made the very best product that people know they get results with which ultimately has allowed us to grow and again it comes back to this the more we build growth the more we can power good and this is a continuous circle that we're now in that I think is just the bigger we get the bigger impact we can have which

I think is very powerful and then I think think from a people perspective, I mean, any founder can now write the new rules. And again, for us, it's around like belonging. Everyone belongs at Deciem. Like that's our North Star. Like we have so much work on how we make people feel belong. Why does that matter? I'm playing devil's advocate here, obviously.

Why does that matter? Why does that help me be successful? Because you want humans to feel supported, to feel safe, to feel trusted, if you want to get the best from someone. And also, we have such a diverse workforce. I mean, even 50% of our team, 50% of our leadership is BIPOC and we continue to kind of strive to do more. But I think that diversity, like the more different viewpoints you have in a room, the more you're going to drive innovation. You're going to drive creativity. You're going to move things forward.

And actually a favorite quote I had of Brandon's was he said, which I always just find fascinating, like people are skeptical and then one day planes do fly. And again, if you think back to like there would have been a point where someone would say what we can fly in an airplane in the sky and it's you know like that would have been baffling and then it happens so actually incredible change and advances can happen and it starts with small changes it starts with some you know we always say like we started as a group of

just good people having fun wanting to do the right thing and then it's kind of led to where we are today what are your non-negotiables you know because you're now then you're the chief disciple of desium you're the one that knows exactly what a desium person is how they behave what a desium decision looks like what decim behavior looks like what are your non-negotiables definitely kindness and I also always say like you have to do the right thing even when no one is looking and for me that's like the authenticity piece and then that's also the difference I think between being nice and being kind is that actually even if someone's not, you're always just doing the right thing.

Caring about the small things, because actually the small things become the big things over time. So I think really nurturing that and just thinking differently. It's something where if you're taking inspiration from the industry or category you're already in, there's no point because you're just going to end up doing what everyone else is doing. You need to take inspiration from everywhere but the industry and category you're playing in. Because, you know, as I said, like the ordinary, inspiration came from pharmacy, from healthcare. If we took inspiration from the world of beauty and skincare we'd have just done what everyone else is doing but with far less resources and kind of ability behind us so I think where you take inspiration from is very important I'm going to do a little

bit of a quick fire here I hate quick fires and interviews because it's so shitty and inauthentic but I just want to make sure my stats are correct how many staff do you have today uh just shy of 1500 how many stores have you got we've got 32 of our own stores how many of the positions in your company are held by women um we're over 50 percent the vast majority of your products are still under ten dollars um yes our best selling ones are okay um you're the most searched skincare brand on tiktok yes we're very proud of our tiktok virality you're the most popular skincare brand in boots as well yeah i think now maybe on on.com do you know how many products you sell a second i love stuff like that i lose track is it two a second i have no idea i don't have it in front of me i just thought you had it there no no no i think with niacinamide

it may be two a second um right yeah looking back at the career you've covered so far what's the advice that you wish someone had given you let's say let me say the day you met brandon if i could have just ring ring your phone goes and it's you at at 34 years old you're 34 now yes 34 years old and you you got to speak to Nicola back then on the phone 60 seconds you get to give us some advice stay calm always find the positive in everything because I think that positivity is what's infectious and actually makes other people believe in what you want to do and kind of can get you through the toughest times by just being calm being kind and just you know have belief in the end game like we're on this planet for such a small amount of time some things you can control

some things you can't life isn't fair you have your own situation and I think I've always found coming to things just with a an air of calmness has always been the best way okay I don't get stressed out and I think that's an important quality it's not easy don't get stressed out it takes a lot what do your um what does your mother think of everything that's happened in your career? Incredibly proud. And I'm incredibly close to my mum. I see her every week. And what's also been nice is she's travelled so much with me. She's so often my childcare, kind of looking after them when we travel.

And Sean's parents, they're very close to you. But yeah, I think she's just incredibly proud of how everything's turned out. Your father passed when you were? When I was 20 um and again it's it's it's very hard because probably see some similarities I think between kind of what happened back then and and I guess just the uncontrollability and the ability to help the situation because up until the age of, well, when I was 18, like two years before he passed away, I mean, he was healthy, he was well, he liked to drink, but not to the point of being an alcoholic.

And then very quickly things spiraled so he loved being a radio presenter and like that was his life but I think it is a hard industry where suddenly you're not current anymore and there's younger presenters coming through and and he'd you know he'd gone from presenting on on the the radio station for literally 25 years or something you know he started at 18 and he'd been very successful in kind of the in you know the big kind of South Yorkshire radio station and suddenly it was taken away from him and I think that created just a spiral, and he also, I think, had challenges with his upbringing, and alcohol just became a coping mechanism. And again, I think it just...

Both times, it surprised me how quickly it can happen. And again, with two years, my father had gone. Give me a hug. I'm going to give you a picture. I wouldn't be a guest if I wasn't crying. My grandma died on Monday as well. It's just an extra one with all the emotions. You okay?

Yeah. We're going to get you some tissues. Jack, have you got some tissues there? Thank you. the conversation around around addiction we don't um it's taken us some time to understand its relationship with mental health right and in that situation what you describe is that like the loss of your father's purpose and how that um turned him to alcohol and then within a short period of time i'm guessing there was an alcohol related death yeah when you were 20 the world wasn't in it certainly wasn't in a place that's sort of 14 15 years ago wasn't in a place where it would have understood alcoholism in the same way

were you were you able to understand the causes of your father's behavior at that time i was i felt like i could understand it as in in the way of i remember one of the doctors saying to us because he was in hospital quite a few times like you have to treat this as a terminal illness because even if he gets better it's there and it can come back within the brain at any time when it's a severe addiction so I think I kind of understood what was happening again found it incredibly difficult of being helpless in terms of, again, you go from someone who you love and who loves you and who would do anything for you and for their family to suddenly,

again, this not talking the same language. And again, it's very hard, I think, with addiction and alcohol abuse, because you find it hard, like like why can't they just stop like they love us like why why do they want to be in this situation and again it takes like the rethinking around like they can't help it like this is an illness just like cancer like other diseases like their brain is ill and they can't think of anything other than how they can get the next drink. And I think it's just a hard thing to accept, feeling helpless, when there isn't a medication. You know, again, in the UK, you can't put someone into rehab

unless they want to go, but they've got their brain battling with them. That won't allow them to make that decision. And when everything happened with Brandon, it was like history repeating itself again. You watch someone you love slowly slip away into... Yeah, it was... I guess one of the differences with my dad, he never became... He was still very loving and kind even though you

know he couldn't stop was I think with Brandon it was things were much more it was more anger and it was kind of more yeah my dad always still had the love and the kindness coming through even when he was ill were you were you able to process that your father passing did you did you take the time did you get the support did you have any anyone there to speak to about that probably not really I think I've always just I just keep busy and actually I'm a very I'm generally a very like positive calm happy like I truly have a high level of happiness in my life despite all that tragedy that has happened and I get so much joy and so much love and like I have so much support from my husband and my mum and my sister and you know some of the best friends in the world who've been my best friends since we were in school that I've

just it's strange to go through everything that's happened, but actually still feel very just secure and loved. I think, you know, I often say this, like, despite what happened, I mean, I had 18 years of probably a very boring, but very stable, loving, happy childhood that I think really does set the foundations for later life. And now we're here and you've got a wonderful husband, you've got two gorgeous, wonderful, beautiful children, they're happy and healthy and then you've got 1,500 children at Dessium who are doing just great as well how are you feeling um honestly very privileged

very lucky i mean to be like 34 and i feel like actually i've accomplished so many of my dreams like having my children having an incredible husband having an amazing home and amazing life together and then also like I mean how lucky that at 24 Desium came into my life and I've met the most incredible people I have best friends now from the company I get I live in such an exciting world like you, I get to work with one of the best brands and companies in the world. And also actually, I like to think influence and set the footprint for actually what business can be like.

It can be a place where leaders can be kind. They don't, you know, again, if you think around business from 20, 30 years ago, I'm probably the polar opposite to what would be expected to be a leader you don't have a big glass box you don't sit in your own big glass office above everybody else I heard you hot desk your team your team told me you hot desk with them I've never had my own desk in any office at SEM probably the only person to never have my own desk and actually I love it

first of all because I'm traveling and you know whenever I'm somewhere I always want to spend time with people so normally I'm in meetings that I want to be in just getting to know everyone and if I do have time on my desk hot desking is far better like who's not in today I'll go sit in their desk because then you get to talk to another team you get to be around people and so I've always kind of just enjoyed the the floating piece of just getting to know everyone in the team we have a closing tradition on this podcast as you know because clearly you just said you'd watched an episode before so this is um this will not be a surprise we have a closing tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest this is a bit of a long one um

the question is ah okay i've been trying to figure out what this word is that's why i was mumbling around because i was like i can't okay stasis is a lie in every moment we are either progressing towards the better self within or regressing so the question, who are you becoming? I think I'm becoming someone who is just accepting of who they are and actually just being very content and being happy with who I am. And I think, you know, like people always ask me like, and I have no plans to leave Dessy, but people always say like, after Dessy, what do you want to do? And they always don't believe when I say like, I just want to be a mum.

Like, that's so important to me. Like, and again, I talk about chapters in life. Like, if that's that period that I get one chance at life to do, then I want to prioritize that and I think you know sometimes people associate well because you've been like business and you've been driven that becomes a conflict and that but it doesn't because also I think the qualities that make me want to dedicate so much to my children and being a good mum I probably also would actually mix the culture what it is at Desi M today so I think just accepting that actually we're all unique and I am very content at this moment in life I feel

I don't particularly have any regrets I want to know more about if things could have been differently in this, you know, the bad situations that have happened. But I think because I've always feel like I've approached things with kindness, that I've been true to myself, that actually that's something that I kind of want to continue to be. Well, you certainly do embody kindness. And, you you know your team described you as being a ray of sunshine that is my experience of you that is also my experience of your husband who i met a year ago um who's also a wonderful human being um thank you thank you for so much thank you for the inspiration you really are an example that in order to be a successful leader in business you don't need to be what we used to see in movies which is like screaming and shouting at people and throwing things from the glass box and being cruel and being selfish and and being a leech on society

or the earth or whatever it might be you you you are one of those shining examples that that success and kind aren't mutually exclusive in In fact, and clearly in your case, from speaking to your team and seeing how much they adore you, it's additive to the outcome of success. It doesn't deduct from it. But your story as well, it should be a movie.

And I'm sure you're gonna, I'm sure it will be a movie someday or at least an incredible, incredible series of books is one that is so incredible so inspiring so um you know unthinkable at times and the way that you share it with such wisdom and vulnerability is going to induce so much light and inspiration and um liberation in everyone that's listened today so sometimes when i do this podcast i realize that I have to thank you on behalf of the listener

because I realized the listener is at home and they are going to DM you and all that stuff because they do that a lot, which is fantastic. But I would really like to thank you on behalf of everyone that listened to this conversation because I know how many of them in so many ways that you'll never understand. You'll see maybe 1% of it.

You'll never understand how much you've helped. And you don't have to. You don't have to come and do these things and share the way you do and open yourself up like this. You do have a choice in that. And you've chosen to do that. And I know why you've chosen to do that. And it's because of the value that you've shared today.

So thank you, Nicola. It's been a pleasure to meet you. You're very much the reason why I do what I do here is to find the stories like this and to share them with the world. And you'll continue to inspire me for many years to come through all those chapters of your life that you described amazing thank you for having me thank you for listening Thank you.