YouSaid · the spoken record

Nicola Kilner

lines on the record: 132
first: 2023-06-05
most recent: 2023-06-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Yeah and I mean well in the world today but I mean especially the beauty like I'm so proud of the diverse team we have, he would have been so accepted. But I mean, he was from Iran. think he maybe just had I don't know. I can't say the reasons But he clearly never felt like he could share with the world who he truly was. And I mean, that's a huge thing. to car”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I actually it's interesting because For how close I was to him when he became unwell, I actually learnt how much I didn't know about him. And I think You know, he 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 Dessian that we have now, we truly accept anyone and love anyone. It doesn't matter who you choose to love, where you're from, like you belong to us and we are grateful if you want to be part of the family, you are the family. 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 learnt more when he became unwell. He'd had this incredible life partner for ten years that I didn't even know about.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Instagram posts were obviously going to everyone so you're also living this out in public which I think also makes it a lot harder so in October he got removed as the CEO.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And obviously that was the point when 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 again, you think, look, maybe this is the kind of bottom point he needs to reach to actually understand he needs to get help. That's when the call order happened to remove Brendan 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,”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But it was just an awful situation to be in. And I think everyone just had such a huge desire to help him in this time period. I mean, even like Essay Lord Companies were behind the scenes, they were so supportive to us. But again, you have, you know, you go on Instagram and you see all these comments. Why is no one helping him? What are you all doing? And again, 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 October Brendan had done an instrument post basically saying he was shutting down the entire company and there would be no more Desium.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“he was like, and this is what I find so hard. He really was so kind and would do anything. And again, like, you know, when I talk about Dessie and being a family, in his estate, in his will, every single beneficiary is a Dessiem employee. Like 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 A very hard line. I mean, 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 a platform like people can post what they want. You know, some things would get removed, others wouldn't.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But secondly you're losing the love person, and thirdly you just feel like you can't help because again with so many other health issues you 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.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, 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 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 it was like, you know, we need to plan, like we need to get the business thing sorted again. It felt like a normalish conversation. I remember feeling like it may be maybe things can get better, and I remember the weekend Morocco just things were worse than ever, things had got even worse in that time I'd been away It's just is a helpless situation and I have so much empathy for anyone who want the people who struggle with mental health and addiction, but also for the people who You're being abused?”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was actually in London when he got sectioned for the first time, and then he was out five days later. And then that was the start of, you know, over that twenty eighteen. He got sectioned five times across London, across Canada, across America, and each time we'd just get released a short period after. And then that's what I started to do. 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. For them this would just happen again and it was almost like there wasn't even a connection between the countries and the medical systems and kind of like how that all works is confusing but he”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No soul's not rational. No good human being does that to someone. Go still in this situation of loving him so much, wanting to help him. Just not knowing what to do. Also having the company, like having everyone still coming to me asking me, 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 let help people in the background keep things going with the business trying to be in the early stages of pregnancy which now see the whole world knew and And it was just really, really hot. And I remember when he first got sectioned feeling such a sense of relief. He was finally going to get the treatment he needed to get better.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And um, he said But then at that point, things were spiraling with Brandon and abusive emails were being sent. targeting everyone he was firing so many people within the business, firing people and copying the whole company in, copying retailers in, press in, and it became clear like things were really unwell. And I remember I think being about six weeks”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 Brendan 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 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 zinus of Dessien because I wanted the time to enjoy being you know a mum of young children so we were like let's let's try and have a baby so I got pregnant in the march and”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really, realized how bad things were going to be, and part of you thinks like maybe it is me 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. Husband, who's like the most supportive person in the world but also very calm, takes such alike, relaxed approach to anything like nothing is a problem to him in his world in a very positive way.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I remember getting a call from the person who ran our HR at the time. and remembered saying, I know he wants to fire me. She said, yeah, and then And I remember just like crying my eyes that weren't actually at the time. from Essay Lord accompanies who was on the M and A team, whose base in New York He was in London at the time, and it went to me him. I'm just saying, like, I'm scared because I don't know what's happening and this is someone who's just entirely changed. Now don't know what to do to help him. I remember the confusion of someone's now acting, it doesn't matter what agreements are in place, this is now someone acting irrationally. 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”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So hurtful, because 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 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 the Brandon like we all knew and loved, so it was such a quick turnaround and changed.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I'd gone from being we were inseparable till I was suddenly pushed out of everything excluded from conversations, emails. He'd came to London. He was in London at the time when I got fired and again when he'd london London from the minute he landed to the minute he left we would be together. And I barely saw him.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think he's well, yeah, he was very curious and I think 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”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Then everyone's in again, like in the background. 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 that's the hardest thing about mental health and drug abuse, which then like circle together. But ultimately, when it's affecting someone's brain? They can't necessarily recognise 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 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 horrendous, like so emotionally difficult.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and then it cancelled like T John 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 that 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 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 no Russian rational actions at this time. So this just accelerated so quickly and then it's so difficult because then anyone who's trying to help gets pushed out.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are we taking things the wrong way? So I had a lot of confusion just around that how can something change so quickly? And again, this is someone who, you know, over the four or five years of being insanely close to him, you know, 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 mental health or anything changing, I suddenly have this drastic change. If someone you loved but someone sunny 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. So where everyone's very confused, very upset, and then there's business things that start to happen.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Looks like he didn't understand there is no understanding anymore between him and any of us. He spoke around things where you know we're too caught up now in the concept of time. So for example he said to me like the next day when you know we'd meet for coffee and you know our routine for the previous four years has been he text me like I'll pick you up at 7 a.m. 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 such a genius and a visionary and this has happened so quickly and I remember like ringing Sean and saying like does he have a point like Are we too caught up in time like is this just like”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 just this almost kind of zoned out cold person that suddenly almost felt like kind of just had this like”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This idea of 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 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 any rules in those senses. And I just had this awful feeling and I came back to Toronto and he summoned, you know, around ten 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.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Over that break in the holidays? I mean, the flight from Australia to Toronto, I think I was on the plane, you know, travelling for about 20 hours. I cried the entire way because I knew something really bad was happening. And I guess just kind of towards the end of 2017. And again, I have to say Brandon is someone who. He would have like one drink in the month. Like he barely drank. As far as I'm on, 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 twenty seventeen he'd become intrigued, I think, by magic mushrooms and just kind of”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 flight, turn your phone off, turn your emails he was just like, calm down, let's be relaxed, but you need to come immediately.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It truly happened what felt like overnight Su end of twenty seventeen So we close the investment in the summer and again the ordinary at the end of 2017, 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 ordering is like a community brand because it really was spread through word of mouth endorsements. And I remember my husband and I went to New Zealand and Australia for kind of the Christmas break. And then I remember getting this call from Brandon saying”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When acquisitions happen, I think companies go from zero to a hundred percent. They own 76% now of Decium and it will go to 100% next summer. And actually that process will have been seven years. which actually is one I think quite a forward I haven't seen many deals like that done I think between kind of a startup and you know a 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 So actually it's just been this really nice journey. And, you know, Desium, we're in our 10th year this year and six years of those we've had the partnership of Esto Lauder Companies.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“who have a huge amount of respect and admiration for And the deal was done within like thirty 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 the deal signed in June, they became a minority investor. They took 29% of the company. And actually, you know, with Jesse M today, we have had more time with ELC than without ELC.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh the ordinary was like three months old Desiem was four years old and again we'd 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 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 it was just this huge energy from the moment we became to Toronto the kind of M&A team then they were like we we need you to come to New York we want you to meet Leonard we want to meet you meet you Fabrizio Varcia we want you to kind of meet this team and I remember seeing Fabrizio”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“insisting 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 ensure our VPS 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 outer 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 in the”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We presented the concept of the ordinary to two significant retailers to have our 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 produced the first product. They said it was too confusing, white boxes will collect dust, you know, 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 this umbrella and we had different brands, it gave us the confidence to say no because we were doing okay for ourselves like we could cover everyone's payroll we kind of had traction with some of the other brands but we said no let's let's follow our gut which again is a privilege to be able to say that because i know for so many entrepreneurs cash flow is a killer and it can be so difficult to say no to”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 take this approach if people, because again, 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 new if you've actually found a solution that has incredible effects.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And 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, fifty peter three pounds. It's a very small window. No one can sell you parasitamal for a hundred 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 ten pounds being sold for a hundred pounds and actually not really understanding what's the difference. 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 hundred pound painkiller, are you going to trust it or are you just going to take the ingredient that's safe and effective and trusted?”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Maybe a company name change. With the ordinary, I don't think we ever thought we never dreamt it would become what is become today. We launched the ordinary affrustration that there wasn't enough transparency in the world of skincare.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The minute it launched we couldn't keep it in stock. It was and again from We'd come to the ordinary was the eleventh brand that we came up with a concert for.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 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.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know 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 Desium 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 organized. So the bigger you get, then suddenly you do need someone that maybe has got more technical skills.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“from a traditional perspective. For example, if I went now to another company with revenues nearing a billion dollars a year with fifteen hundred 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 Decium than me because of the history. But when I think about just the pure metrics and the size of the business. needed someone with some more experience, and again I'm a big believer on”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So then I was very fortunate that we did bring in 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 areas we don't want any experience but decoms 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 in 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 has just made a huge difference to the business.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I remember like you lose confidence, and I remember actually saying to Stefan, who is we report into it ELC, who's like an incredible person. But each time when I used to say, 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 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 as a startup you can do things quickly you can change if you change your mind on a decision when you now have many more people working on it you demotivate people you become chaos is fun in a startup in a large organization chaos can become demotivating”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 the kind of dip I mentioned was a very difficult period because 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 and everything else just falls into place”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I definitely am. 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. We are 1,500 people. We now have a majority ownership from SA Lauder companies who are a public company. Our whole world has changed.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Our business we were like kind of this and we were like at a rocket ship kind of boomed and then we came to a dim just after kind of COVID it hit me when I Because actually that is the consequence of business. Like you're there to kind of do many things, but ultimately one factor of that 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 there. 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.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 may be 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 outside. And now, when we done terminations, you know, we've done things right. How do we do? Counselling 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”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So for me family is about belonging, and 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 also I think there's a conflict between the words being kind and being nice. Being nice is It's kind, but can be superficial. You see a stranger on the street, you're like, Hi, how, 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”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“100% agree. And I think, you know, it comes down to what's the right balance to you? And it changes at different periods of your life. So I was in my twenties. I was fine and I may be sacrificed nights out and kind of doing other things, but I was so happy being travelling all the time, being in this kind of Dessian bubble, creating all of 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 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 an elderly parent that needs your support maybe you're going through some challenges you've got young children how do we step up and support each other to say you know what I've got you here you do this pit I'll cover those bits”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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.”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it is you need someone who is prepared to wear every hat. So in our early days we would say yes to like we'd get an order from booze if we didn't think we could fulfil 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 squeezed too hard so we'd be like Harry 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 around November Black Friday which you know more recently we boycotted and well we have November our campaign but those”
2023-06-05 · The Diary of a CEO · A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT