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How Leaders Lead with David Novak
#268: Gregg Renfrew, Founder and CEO of Counter – Step back to move forward
01:13:23
Listen to this leadership podcast with Gregg Renfrew, Founder and CEO of Counter, and discover why, sometimes, you need to let go to unlock new growth.
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- [00:00]
Host 1
Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of How Leaders Lead. Today we've got Greg Renfrew on the show. She's the founder and CEO of a clean beauty brand called Counter. And in this episode, she opens up about the emotional and strategic rollercoaster behind one of the most dramatic stories and recent business history. What I love about Greg is that she is a woman leader that leads with her emotions, but she also knows when to create that emotional distance between. Between her and what's going on in the business. And I know you're gonna learn a ton about how to lead well in difficult situations through this conversation with Greg. Hope you enjoy.
- [00:39]
Greg Renfrew
Was really, really hard. It was really humbling. It was really humiliating publicly. It was like we just made this huge announcement. I'm, like this unicorn entrepreneur, and it's a billion dollar valuation, and, like, I'm the next thing. And then I.
- [00:56]
David
You know, Greg, I can't. I got to ask you. I'm looking in the background, I see this sign that says, oh, baby. I mean, is there anything of significance about that, or is that just. Just your personality?
- [01:06]
Greg Renfrew
Well, it is actually my personality, but it's actually. This is actually not my house. I'm living in a rental property because I was in the Pacific Palisades, and unfortunately, we had a horrible fire, as you know, in January, so. But this house is filled with a lot of art and a lot of. It's really fun.
- [01:21]
David
I. I like.
- [01:25]
Fits your personality, you know? If we were toasting you right now, what would we be raising our glasses to?
- [01:31]
Greg Renfrew
Perseverance. I think that if you talk to anyone that I'm close with right now, they would say, like, that I'm totally crazy, that I've gone back at it a second time, and people are toasting to our future success and acknowledging, you know, sort of the grit and perseverance associated with starting the same company twice. Or a new company from an old, I should say.
- [01:52]
David
Yeah, well, we're going to get into that as we go through this conversation, but, you know, the. The cosmetic industry is hugely profitable. You know, almost every woman and some men, they'll go almost to any extent to look youthful. Everyone's going to be tuning into this episode and hoping they find, you know, get some sort of inside look on the next products that they should be using. So. So first, what does clean beauty mean and why is it so important?
- [02:21]
Greg Renfrew
Well, first of all, there is just to go back to what you just said. There is no great secret. So, you know, the best beauty secret I can give you is to drink a lot of water and get a lot of sleep. That's the truth. And some of it comes down to genetics. But for me, clean beauty is really important because there are chemicals of concern, toxic chemicals that are in certain of our products. And that doesn't matter whether it's a skincare product, a sunscreen product, lipstick. There are all these chemicals that have been introduced into commerce over the last 50, 60 years that have never been tested for safety and human health. And they're in all the products we put on our bodies every single day. And so to me, clean is about providing high performance products that are also significantly safer for your health. And I think, I don't know about you, but I think your health is your greatest asset. And so doing anything you can to take care of it is important.
- [03:13]
David
Now, you're absolutely right about it. I think that it's sort of a trite face, but if you don't have your health, you don't have anything. So what you're working on is extremely important. And you're in the business of making people feel great about how they look. What's something that you've done recently that's made you feel great? Great?
- [03:31]
Greg Renfrew
You know, I think the one thing that I've been doing for myself lately, in general, there are lots of things that have made me feel great. Letters of people supporting my efforts and telling me that they're behind us in counter our new company. But I also think, like, I've been incredib focused on exercise for the last year and a half and I feel physically so much better and it makes me so much more confident. So I would encourage everyone to get out there and get on the trampoline or get on the treadmill or get out and go for a hike. It really does matter.
- [04:00]
David
I echo that. I mean that exercise every day that builds your energy and keeps you going. You mentioned we'd be toasting you for your perseverance because you've had some high highs and you've had some low lows and, and I want to talk more about that. But what's the story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader you are today?
- [04:19]
Greg Renfrew
I came from a family where both of my parents had come from relatively well positioned families. And yet my father was first a Wall street banker and then he was entrepreneurial and did quite a few things that ended up not being successful. They were genuinely too far ahead of their time. One was like videotaping houses in our suburban community, wondering why anyone would want to spend a day driving around looking houses that they wouldn't have liked. It's sort of like what realtor.com, and you would never today look at houses unless you looked at them online. But it was too far ahead of the curve. And so, as such, we lost most of our family's money. And I think it really shaped me in terms of looking at, first and foremost, the importance of being focused on profitability or having reserves in the bank, which has really helped me lead from a place of understanding that profitability matters and that money does matter with respect to business, but also really trying to be ahead of the curve as a leader, but not so far ahead of the curve that.
- [05:28]
You'Re actually ahead of the consumer to the point where they can't understand what you're trying to do. And I think those two things have shape the way that I look at business. And so I try to lead from a place of being in service of consumers and our customers, and knowing where they are and trying to meet them where they are at that moment in time.
- [05:45]
David
Yeah, absolutely. And when did you first discover that you were really destined to be an entrepreneur?
- [05:52]
Greg Renfrew
You know, I've had a side gig going since I was, I don't know, 10 years old. I always wanted to have independence. From the earliest days, I liked having my own pocket money. And again, going back to the fact that we had some financial insecurity at my home. If I wanted. I remember there's a. I wanted Vidal. It was not Vidal Sassoon jeans, like, these jeans that I wanted so badly. My mother was like, well, you're gonna have to figure out how to make the money. And so when I was little, I would babysit, I would cater dinner parties. I would do the dishes at the end of dinner parties. And I think by the time I got to college, I knew I had it in me to see opportunity to earn money or to provide solutions for things that weren't working as well as they could. Or for me, it was like, how do I use my brain as a means to nan to get to what I want to do? And really, my first company I launched was in Nantucket Cleaning Houses when I was, like, 19 years old.
- [06:45]
So early on, really early on, I was always doing it.
- [06:48]
David
Another company you founded was the Wedding List, which was your first big sale as an entrepreneur. Tell us about that.
- [06:58]
Greg Renfrew
Well, prior to the Wedding List, I started a bridesmaid's dress company with a friend on the side. I just hated all the dresses I was being asked to wear. And it's sort of like an impossible conundrum because the bride wants the girls, you know, and guys do, they want all their bridesmaids and ushers to look a certain way. But you know, you don't have any money to buy these clothes. Cause you're going to weddings and you're just out of college and you don't have a lot of disposable income. So I saw this opportunity to sell bridesmaids dresses. Fast forward. I was transferred to London with my day job and I tried to sell this concept into a woman who had a company called the Wedding List, which was a registry concept in the uk. And she said, we don't use bridesmaids here in the way that you do in the us but let's keep in touch. She and I kept in touch and when we brought that concept to the States, it was one of the first true multi channel retail businesses in the world. I spent months going around Sandhill Road to all the venture capitalists trying to explain the convenience of online purchasing and going to a bunch of men saying people want to buy wedding presents online. These guys looked at me like I was totally crazy. But that whole experience of again being out there, putting myself out there, looking at how things were going to go and ultimately Martha Stewart took notice, which was incredibly flattering to me because she is one of the world's greatest marketers and the ability to sell my company to her was, was in many ways a dream. It was also really hard. Martha's really difficult, really, really difficult. I love her to pieces, but she's not an easy woman. And so I learned so much in selling my company to her and working with her.
- [08:29]
David
You know, Martha Stewart obviously is an icon. And what's the biggest lesson that she taught you if you could just pick one?
- [08:35]
Greg Renfrew
To lead from a place of humility and not to lead from a place of fear. I think that Martha, and again this, we all know that management and leadership changes over time. But I think it was a time where people, you know, the leader was in charge and they just told you what to do. And I believe in servant leadership where you're actually aiming to support those you serve rather than looking at like, everyone's there to serve you. I learned that lesson really early on. I don't think it instills confidence and making people lack confidence. I see this on the sports field all the time too. You see, there are different types of coaches. There are coaches that say, I know you can do this and I expect you to jump that high or you're an idiot. You Screwed that up. And I think I believe in the. I have expectations. I want to see you jump that high. Martha didn't lead from that place and I learned that from her.
- [09:23]
David
And you know, fast forwarding a bit, you pioneered the category of clean beauty which you just described to us. And you know, how did you muster up the courage, Greg, to go first, you know, to be that pioneer trying to sell something that people, you know, is foreign to everybody because nobody done it?
- [09:41]
Greg Renfrew
You know, I really going back to the question that you were asking me. You know, we were talking earlier a little bit about why clean matters. For me, I was.
- [09:51]
The idea of beauty counter. And the desire to create clean beauty was not something that happened overnight. It was a series of events that happened in my life over a several year period. Watching the film An Inconvenient Truth and becoming impassioned with the environmental health movement and then watching so many people I love get sick. I was in my 30s watching friends getting diagnosed with different types of cancer, Lost a friend to breast cancer. But it wasn't just women, women and men. I was watching so many people struggle with fertility or giving birth to kids with health issues. And so when I started to realize that there were all these toxic chemicals around me, I was able to make changes in my life. Switching from plastic to glass, taking my shoes off at the door, although lots of things you can do. But when it came to skincare and, and personal care and cosmetic products, there weren't any products on the market that met my needs. There were all the incumbent brands that we've all known and grown up with. You know, from sunscreen brands to deodorant brands to toothpaste. And they were filled with all these chemicals of concern. But then on the other end of the spectrum, you had these really eco friendly, earthy brands that I thought weren't that appealing. They didn't work very well, they didn't look very good. And so I didn't think about it so much as going first. I thought about it as like, I think I can lead by example and do better. And I think we can create a category within a saturated marketplace that proves that you can have great products that people are going to be excited to use that are significantly safer for your health. And to me, that was just an opportunity. It wasn't scary because you notice you led a massive company. You don't think about it as leading a massive company. It's just one day at a time starting something small that ultimately grows. And you hope that people who think you're Crazy will somehow buy into your vision. And people did.
- [11:31]
David
Yeah. Well, one of the things that's really interesting is that you went in and you innovated in an existing category. You know, you talked about how your father had ideas that were ahead of the time. You know, what insights about leadership can you share about? You know, how do you disrupt an existing category?
- [11:51]
Greg Renfrew
I think there are a lot of mistakes, in my opinion, that are made. So a long time ago, I read a book. There was a book called Blue Ocean Strategy, and it was talking about that brand Two Buck Chuck. And brands at a discount kind of come into a saturated market, and they carved out a space for themselves, and they kind of changed an industry or they caught everyone's attention. For me, let me backtrack. When I was younger, one of my very first jobs, my second job, was working for Xerox Corporation in sales, selling copiers and fax machines. Getting the door slammed in my face. And I'll never forget at Xerox, they always said, don't compare us to canon copiers. Speaks to the merits of Xerox. It's not. It's unbecoming. And it doesn't help you to speak detrimentally about your competitors. Don't worry about what they're doing. Worry about what we're doing. And I think when you go into a new category, going in without comparing, putting your blinders on and saying, what kind of company do I want to build? How do I want to serve my customer? And not worry about, like, I don't pay attention to what people are doing in the B and D industry. I know that sounds crazy, but I'm trying to focus on what we're doing, what I'm doing, and how we do something that is really appealing to our customer.
- [12:55]
David
And.
- [12:56]
Greg Renfrew
And while you can compare data and products and price points, at the end of the day, if you're a copycat brand, you're not doing something that's really disruptive and innovative. You're just furthering someone else's vision.
- [13:09]
David
Absolutely. And you were the pioneer, and you're still pioneering, trying to break new ground. What's the biggest challenge you face? Being that trailblazer and going first.
- [13:21]
Greg Renfrew
So many as, you know, so many challenges. I think that one, people are able to look at your successes, but also look at your mistakes and make sure they don't make them. There's a lot of people who are able to take something that you did that was really innovative at the time, but just slightly improve upon it. Maybe I'm making this up, but in our industry, maybe there's a scent that's trending or a style of componentry, some sort of packaging that's on trend. And so they can kind of take the base of what you did and build upon it. They also can take your words and your claims and your public facing statements and advertising and they do their own iterations of it. Like we created the first public facing never list, which was a list of ingredients that said we choose not to formulate with this. And then all of a sudden we saw the nada list, the no no list. I mean it was just like come up with your own terminology, guys. Why is everyone copying us? But you know, I guess it's a form of flattery. But it is hard to be the market leader because people are right behind you all day long. It's like someone who's winning the race and they're trying to look behind them, but they also need to look for because otherwise they're going to trip and fall. It's a hard position to be in.
- [14:26]
David
So you got these people, they're right behind you every time you come up with, so what do you do? What process do you have to stay ahead so that nobody ever catches you?
- [14:36]
Greg Renfrew
Well, I mean I'm trying. I don't sleep. No, I do sleep. You know, I think it's for me the way to stay ahead of the curve is first of all, all joking aside, I spend a lot of time listening to my children. My 16 year old daughter knows more about what's going on in the world than anyone. She could go head to head with anyone about any subject matter. So one, listen to the youth, listen to people who are younger than you, have curiosity, know that you don't know everything, like lead with a level of humility and constantly seek to learn from others and look at other industries outside of your own. I always look to completely different industries to see, wow, Patagonia did that, that's super innovative or this shoe company or whatever it is. Because I think that oftentimes leaders look within their own industry to innovate or for inspiration. But innovation doesn't come by comparing yourself to another company. Innovation comes from the sports field. Innovation comes from something in nature. Innovation comes from a conversation with a friend. And so to me, I'm a constant learner and I'm listening to everyone around me and trying to find the best people to help me come up with ideas that I haven't come up with myself or, or improve upon those that I have.
- [15:47]
David
It sounds like being a pattern thinker Looking at what's going on somewhere else and then saying, how could we do something like that within our category? That's one of your superpowers.
- [15:58]
Greg Renfrew
You say that in a much more succinct way than I did. But, yes, there is pattern recognition, and I think that's important. And I think knowing when to lean into something that's working, I also think with respect to leadership and innovation and being a leader as a company, you also need to know when to say no to things that seem sexy but are actually going to be a distraction and when to let go of the emotional. I used to. When I led Beauty Counter before I started this company, Counter before I went through what I went through, through the sale and all that ensued, I was way more emotionally connected to everything. And I took things personally in a way that now I think I'm a better CEO today because I have created a little bit of emotional distance. And I keep saying to the team, like, if that product's not performing, we need to be willing to let it go. You know, it's just. It's not serving us anymore. If something's not serving you well, move on. And as a leader, you have to be confident in those choices to move on from things that aren't working.
- [16:50]
David
Can you have a specific time when you took things personally and it kept you from moving on?
- [16:56]
Greg Renfrew
Well, I think one of the things that I have really had to learn, like, it's a muscle that I've had to really strengthen over the years, is knowing when to let go of people that I love. Because you can really love a person personally and professionally, and they may have really served the company well for a period of time. But as companies grow and change, someone that was really capable of Getting you from 0 to 50 million may not be the same person that can get you from 50 to 250 million. Or maybe you have to have the confidence to say, I still want you here, but this is the role that you're now going to play if you're interested in that role. Not trying to be liked all the time, but being able to let go of things. I held onto people for too long that no longer served the needs of our customer, and I think it was detrimental to the business. And that's a really hard thing for me to do because I'm a fiercely loyal person. But I think it's really important as a CEO to be decisive. They always say to hire slowly and fire quickly. I think that's important because your entire business is built on people. It just is I don't care what business you're in.
- [18:03]
Host 1
I hope you're loving this interview with David and Greg. As always, be sure to stay tuned to the very end of the episode because David and I are going to break down some of the key themes of this conversation with the goal really being just to arm you with something practical that you can apply to your leadership, to your life and to your work. So stay tuned to the debrief and enjoy the rest of this conversation with David and Greg.
- [18:25]
David
You know, you ultimately grew up Beauty counted at $300 million in annual revenue. And when you look back, what do you think were the top two or three decisions you made strategically that helped you do that?
- [18:38]
Greg Renfrew
I focused on creating an emotional connection to our consumer. Beauty is an emotional purchase. And I think that people want to associate with brands that matter, that reflect their values and building an intimate relationship with those people by listening to and understanding their needs. Whether you're building that relationship digitally or through wholesale through people. I think that's something that I really, really focused on. And I think the other thing which sort of goes hand in hand with it is I wasn't afraid to speak the truth, to take risks and bring people along at times. The messy journey that came with some of the associated risks. I was fully present and transparent as a leader. Like for example, when we found so we used mica in our products. Mica is used in. Mica is used in so many things including electronics, but it's certainly used in personal care products and cosmetic products. It gives the eyeshadow a luster or whatever it is. We were the first company to physically audit our mines. No one had been there for 40 years. And when we got there, we found children in those mines, little children in India, like four year old children mining for mica in incredibly scary and dangerous situations. As a leader, I could have pushed that, like swept it under the rug or not told anyone about it or moved to synthetic mica. I didn't. I actually created a short documentary on that. We worked with a local nonprofit. We tried to create systemic change and we told the customer what we had learned and what we are doing about it. I think taking those risks and being authentic and transparent and really walking the walk really served us well.
- [20:15]
David
How did you think about your business model and selling and reaching your customers? Did you do anything unique there?
- [20:21]
Greg Renfrew
When we first started Beauty Counter, and even since we've started Counter, we really believed in the power of storytelling. We felt we had a story to tell and we needed to educate the consumer that There was a need to remove chemicals of concern when they could, from products that they were putting in and on their bodies every day. All of the products that were being sold, not all. Many of the beauty, cosmetic, personal care products that were being sold at the time I launched Beauty Counter were being sold on the shelves at department stores. And I was looking at that channel of distribution and I really felt it was waning, which it did. I was also trying to create an underground movement to catch all these incumbents by surprise. Because, look, they didn't want the story of safer ingredients out there. And I understand that they made a lot of choice about formulations decades ago, and maybe they didn't realize those formulations were.
- [21:15]
Toxic, but now what do they do? Now they got a whole PR nightmare and they've got the market. I mean, you understand this. The market demands certain things. So I really wanted to create an underground movement. And so I decided to sell predominantly through women to power up women to be educators for cosmetic reform on both the state and federal level, because I really felt that there was an opportunity to shift in a whole industry, but that we couldn't do that just through selling at Ulta Sephora or On Target or Amazon. We needed to get a community that really believed in the purpose of our brand. And yes, we had an E commerce platform, and yes, we had stores, and yes, we ultimately had a great relationship with Ulta. But it was the power of the people that changed the entire industry.
- [21:54]
David
And you had a very sophisticated message you had to get out there, so people had to be educated and trained to really deliver it. So do you spend a lot of time on that as a big strategic focus of your company with your sales force?
- [22:07]
Greg Renfrew
When we launched Beauty Counterback in the old company, we spent an inordinate amount of time teaching them as best we could about what we knew about what was in our products. I do feel like you don't want to overload people with information. I used to just say a couple of really basic things. There are tens of thousands of chemicals that have been introduced into commerce since World War II, of which less than 10% have assessed for safety and human health. And at the time that we had not updated major federal law since the Federal Food, Drugs and Cosmetics act, which was passed in 1938 by FDR. And so when you know that and you think about all the products that we're putting on our bodies every day, it was time for legislative reform. And so we really got everyone. Our sales force behind that advocacy work held thousands of meetings on the Hill sent hundreds of thousands of emails and texted members of Congress. They really wanted to participate in. In their democracy. And they did so through educating themselves and also the customers that they served.
- [23:04]
David
Yeah, you know, and you end up selling that business for a billion dollars. What's something most people would be surprised to know about that entire experience?
- [23:14]
Greg Renfrew
I think the thing that I anticipated is that I would feel differently afterwards, that I would feel something when I. Not to say that I wasn't emotional at the moment when that.
- [23:29]
Unfortunately for us at the time, usually do these things in person. But it was Covid. And so I videotaped that whole deal closing. And it was actually really. It was a sentimental day for me because it was my father's birthday. My dad died when I was 29 of cancer, and I thought it was kind of fitting that it was on his birthday. And I was really emotional at the moment we closed. But I think what people think when they look at success, however it's defined, they look at leaders, they look at people who are in the public eye, they think that they feel differently, their lives are any different. But you wake up the next morning, it's kind of like the day after you get married. It's the same guy. It's the same exact guy that was your boyfriend, like, three months ago. Now he's your husband. I think it's the same thing. Like, I felt like I was gonna feel different, but I just felt like myself again. Like, it didn't mean as much to me emotionally as I thought it would. It was just like, okay, we gotta get back to work tomorrow. And that's something that people don't think.
- [24:22]
David
That'S cool, you know. And if I have this right, you got fired as CEO only four months after selling the business. Tell us that story.
- [24:33]
Greg Renfrew
Yeah, that was a bit of a show. I mean, I think that, you know, I went into. We all went into it. Both the private equity firm to whom I sold the business and then myself and my team, we all went into it thinking that we were selling to a financial sponsor so that we could ultimately take the company public. I wanted to be a public CEO. Not sure I still want to be a public CEO, but whatever. @ the time, I really did, and I thought we were going to be the next generation leader in beauty. One of the things I felt that they were buying was me. I think they were really excited about working with me. But when we sold the company, it was concurrent with the world opening up from the pandemic, and consumers redirected their spend away from Personal care and cosmetics and to, to fashion or to travel or whatever. And for people for whom the decision to be able to buy a nice face serum or buy a new pair of jeans, like, not everyone. That's not a no brainer for everyone. Some people have to make a choice. Right. They don't have tons of disposable income. And so our business kind of faltered that summer. And four months later they said that they'd made the decision that they needed a new CEO. And that was a devastating blow to me because I really felt I had done an exceptional job. I'd gone from zero to just shy of 400 million in eight years. I went straight up and we were still growing, so I thought, well, can I have a little bit more time? But that was a decision that they made. It was.
- [25:51]
David
Hard. Yeah. You know, they say that, you know, death, divorce, and getting Terminator are the three biggest impacts that they on your life. I mean, they all are so shocking. You know, how did you deal with the fact that you had built that business, you're still building the business, and people all of a sudden tell you you're not the.
- [26:12]
Greg Renfrew
Person? I mean, admittedly, I probably didn't handle it very well. I was extremely emotional and extremely angry. I fe. It wasn't fair and.
- [26:24]
I didn't. I couldn't get my head around it, to be completely honest. I think I felt like I kept saying, could you just give me a little more time? Like, this is the first time in a hundred years that we've had something occur like this pandemic. I think I can get it back. It was really, really hard. It was really humbling. It was really humiliating publicly. It was like, we just made this huge announcement. I'm like this unicorn entrepreneur and it's a billion dollar valuation and like, I'm the next thing and then I'm out. And I think that I could have handled myself better in retrospect, because I think that emotion, you know, I now like, have gotten better at like looking at the facts in general as a CEO and saying, okay, these are the facts. Like, then the rest of it's your own story around it. But it was hard. It was really, really hard. And I've learned to be better about not getting so emotional now. Not perfect, but.
- [27:14]
David
Better. And one of the things I learned, and it would really irritate the hell out of me. You actually had a meeting with the incoming CEO, has taken your job, and they, they cancel or didn't show up or, you know, what did that, what did that Teach you just that feeling, that sensation, whatever the hell it.
- [27:31]
Greg Renfrew
Was. Well, it taught me that there wasn't going to be room for both of us in the. In the company. But I think, you know, what I learned from him, and I really mean this is. At the end of the day, when I think about what went down, I hold him more responsible than the private equity firm. I think they were doing their best in trying to protect their investment and that of their LPs. Not that they didn't make. We all made bad decisions. But I think that what I learned from him is that arrogance has no place in the business world. Arrogance has no place in the world. I really feel that strongly. Now, if you're not respectful of those that have the institutional knowledge, if you don't want to listen to the founder, the founder may be past their ability to operate a business, that may be true. But to not understand their vision, to not understand the context around certain decisions that you're looking at that seem like really poor choices. But maybe you don't know what was going on at that moment in time and what the pressures to the business were. I think it really signaled to me that he was arrogant and that he didn't think that I had value anymore in the business. It was a very patronizing move, and as you can imagine, it didn't sit well with me. But it was a good learning. You know, I've learned a lot from.
- [28:41]
David
Him. I gotta ask you this, and I'm sure, I mean, I know how I would have been. Were you kind of happy? Happy to see the guy fail?
- [28:51]
You know, honestly, I wasn't that.
- [28:54]
Greg Renfrew
One. Well, okay, I'll answer it honestly. On one hand, of course, yes, it was a little bit of a. You thought you were better than me and you weren't. And on the other side, no, because with his failing came the failing of my company. It forced us into foreclosure. I lost a lot of credibility with a lot of people that had been sellers for the brand or purchasers of the product. And I lost a significant amount of my financial stake because I was asked, as many founders are, to roll a significant amount of my equity over. And with that came a significant financial loss to me. So on one hand, yeah, because I thought, you know, you were so cocky. He is cocky, and it's not just towards me. He just was arrogant. And I think that that's just not a good way to be. So, yes, I had a chuckle. He was French. I think I would refer to him as Le Baguette. I Probably shouldn't say that publicly, but whatever. But then on the other hand, I was like, what a huge loss for everyone. And that made me so unbelievably sad for all the people we had served along the way. All the associates that had worked so hard didn't deserve.
- [29:55]
David
That. And they came to their senses and they asked you to come back. And how'd they convince you to come back? I mean, was that something you wanted to do, or did you have to get your arm twisted or whatever that phrase is going back.
- [30:10]
Greg Renfrew
To? You know, how does it make you feel? I don't know. Have you ever gotten dumped by a woman in your life and, you know, you thought, like, you were in love with the person, they say, like, they're not in love with you anymore, and then they come crawling back, and you're like, huh? And just when you're getting over.
- [30:25]
David
Them. I actually wrote a country song about that. It's called Back Burner. You know, don't put me on the back burner because I'm tired of getting burnt by.
- [30:34]
Greg Renfrew
You. Okay, well, I literally say this to my kids. I'm like, just wait. If you play your cards right, I promise you, more times than not, they're coming back around again. If you freak out, they're not going to come. So I feel like I was just getting over it. It was like a great heartbreak for me. I mean, I was literally like, you know, I always say to him, selling the company, and then. And then that whole situation with the CEO. It was like, I'm totally in love with my husband, but he dumps me for, like, a younger, better model of me. And then I have to smile in front of the kids and the family at the wedding and pretend like it's all okay. And then I finally pull myself together, having cried for months and months and months and get on with my life. And then he's like, I want you back. And you're like, you've got to be kidding me. And that's kind of how I felt. It was like, wait, now you want me back? And so my first answer was, no. No, thank you. I appreciate. I'm flattered, but no, thank you. And then the board was really convincing, and I thought, look, I owe it to the community I served. I believe that clean is still worth fighting for. We have more work to be done, and I have a financial stake in the company. And I was really transparent about the reasons that I decided to go back in. And so I did. And I went back in as CEO in February of 2024, with a lot of hopes and dreams for the.
- [31:41]
David
Business. And you didn't just come back as CEO, you end up buying the company.
- [31:45]
Greg Renfrew
Back. Well, I started as CEO and then the company immediately went into foreclosure because we were within a couple of months in breach of the debt covenants. I think the company was, it was kind of a little too late. And I didn't realize that as much as once I got in there, I started to see, you know, I always said, like, I don't even think Bob Iger could have turned it around in that period of time. Like, it was just, we tried to find a home for the brand. It wasn't going to happen. We went into foreclosure. And then, yes, I made the crazy decision to buy the business. Like in 48 hours, I made the decision to buy the business out of.
- [32:17]
David
Foreclosure. As I understand it, you made that decision, you got your family involved in the purchase and how did you involve them in the.
- [32:27]
Greg Renfrew
Process? Well, I think that my family has always been. So first of all, I have a husband, Mark, and we've been together for 25 years. And so we work as a team. And you know this, you know, anyone that's been in a long term partnership knows that one person doesn't make a decision because it has repercussions for everyone, whether that's in business or personal or both. So first and foremost, my husband had been supportive and we needed to have a conversation about whether or not we wanted to dip into our savings and buy the business back. The second thing is that my children had watched me do this their whole life. And Beauty Counter was a huge part of my children's livelihood. They were always participating in product development and helping me with things. And I, you know, I don't know, use them for, I don't know, marketing things or whatever. And so they felt, you know, they just said, mom, you've worked so hard at this. Like you, you just can't let this die. Like, you've worked so, so hard. I think you should go for it. But I, I did have a family conversation because I knew when I went back into it, I was going to be insanely busy all over again. And they had just gotten used to me being around a little bit more. And that was a hard decision. But I think we made the right decision and I did need the support of my.
- [33:32]
David
Family. So, Greg, you got to help me understand this one, because this is kind of a complicated story here. You then buy the business back.
- [33:43]
Only to shut it down a few weeks later. Explain that.
- [33:46]
Greg Renfrew
One. So I bought the business in I think around April 20th of 2024. And we bought it myself and my husband with a small group of investors with a small amount of capital.
- [33:59]
Realized within, I mean within days is that it was going to cost us literally several million dollars a month just to run the technology. And the technology itself was broken. It required a team of something like 25 full time people and then a multimillion dollar monthly fee that in and of itself was a non starter for the business. Like there was no path forward. And that's just one of the examples that I can use. And so I couldn't see a path to bright. And so I made the incredibly difficult decision to shut it down because I felt that in order for the business to have a chance to live, it actually had to die first. I had to let go of what was reimagine everything and come out with new and improved more cost effective systems, et cetera. And it was a really, it was an excruciating decision because it meant that I had to let go of all of these people who had served the company and do so without warning and without severance. There just was no money. And it was a really tough decision. But it was ultimately, in my opinion, the only way we could move.
- [35:01]
David
Forward. You know, that unbelievably tough decision we've had to make. I mean, anytime you affect people's compensation and their jobs, I mean it is hard. You know, what was your big learning on that that you could share with others on how to do that as effectively as you can, knowing there's so much.
- [35:19]
Greg Renfrew
Pain? Well, first and foremost, to the best of your abilities, speak the truth. And when I say to the best of your abilities, I mean they're always, you know, you've always got your lawyers saying don't say this or don't say that. That's just corporate. That's the corporate world. But I think you have to try to put yourself in their shoes and try to try to lead and speak with compassion and understanding, allow for them to be angry and frustrated and to vent and you know, to speak disparagingly about you. Because they need to go through their process and, and do the best job that you possibly can to support them in finding something new. Like I always try in earnest to help people move to the next chapter in a way that feels comfortable for them. You know, it's different in a situation where you're in foreclosure and have to do a radical thing. Like we had to do. It's another thing when you're letting go of an associate. I try to do it in a way that gives them enough breathing room and enough notice. But I am decisive. And I think, like with anything in life, being really crystal clear in your communication. And don't waffle and don't lead with ambiguity. Just recognize how hard it is. Recognize how painful it is for them, but know that you're also helping them. Not in a situation where your company's gone out of business. That's a different situation. But oftentimes when somebody doesn't work, you're giving them the opportunity to find someplace where they can be successful. And when you're not succeeding in your job, you don't feel very good. And so I think it's like, where can we help you find a place where you're better suited, where your needs.
- [36:47]
Where your strengths and attributes will be recognized and you'll feel really good about what you're doing. And I think that's important as a leader to help people do.
- [36:54]
David
That. So you shut down Beauty Counter and you talked about, now you got a new chapter. Tell us about the new chapter. What was your.
- [37:04]
Greg Renfrew
Plan? Well, I had no plan. I mean, I literally had no plan. I mean, I went back in as CEO, so I had a plan, right, which was to turn this old company around, had lots of ideas. We then realized we couldn't do it. We shut it down. Then I thought, well, I mean, I have no idea what the plan is. This is not something that I was thinking about. So I had a good cry. I mean, I really did have a good cry. I remember sitting on the floor with one of my old partners, and I thought, oh, my gosh, what have I done? What am I gonna do? And then you sort of, I think as a leader, you start to breathe and take a deep breath and like, okay, all right, let's lay this out one step at a time. You can't have a plan overnight, but you can chip away at a plan. And I did give myself and told the team that I kept on, we kept a small team on, that I needed the summer to really think and that I welcomed their participation, but that I would have a plan. And I will be able to. To clearly articulate a plan. But I need a little bit of time. And if they want to leave, I understand that. But if not, if they can give me some space and they can co create this with me, I think that we have a shot at doing something really exceptional again. And so I took A couple of months, the summer of 24, to really think about, okay, what would Steve Jobs do in this moment? Like, if you had the opportunity to strike twice, what would you do? How would you innovate? I mean, I literally read books and looked at past leaders and good decisions that have been made. I looked at sports teams, I looked at, I did look at Apple, I looked at other companies and what had they done? Well, you know, and things like streamlining product assortment, like, okay, doing less products but do them better. Okay, what is our core messaging? What can we do that's innovative? Where has the market gone? I spent a lot of time thinking and then ultimately, you know, started to iterate on a plan that I think, you know, I'm still, I'm still iterating, but I feel like I have a pretty clear vision now of what we can.
- [38:52]
David
Do. And you've launched this brand as Counter. You know, what's the story behind the new.
- [38:57]
Greg Renfrew
Name? Well, first of all, I wanted to respectfully nod to the past because we've always gone counter to the industry and we are counter to industry norms and I like to kind of shake things up. I also, I was never completely in love with the name Beauty Counter. It served its purpose. But Counter was also limiting people like you who actually would like our products and be using our sunscreen or our body lotion. The minute the word beauty went in it, we lost half the audience right there. I wanted to give it a fresh started and I felt like the branding needed to be of the moment. The name needed to feel of the moment, but it also needed to reflect and respect the past. While looking into the Ford. I feel really good about the name. I think it's great. I'm super excited about.
- [39:37]
David
It. You kind of alluded to this a little earlier. You said you went through a process where you looked at your product line, eliminated things. I think it's, you know, it's a SKU rationalization exercise basically. And you know, what was the process you used to figure that.
- [39:52]
Greg Renfrew
Out? Well, first and foremost, I looked at two things. Number of units sold and revenue from those units. Well, actually three, those two things. And also what the margins were per product. And one thing I learned very quickly in looking at the numbers was that 91% of the revenue was coming from our top 50 SKUs and we had something like 253 SKUs or something. So it was very easy to look at what needed to go. And that's going back to being non emotional, being able to say, I know you really loved that, whatever, but like, it's just not, it's not selling. Like, we're not going to keep doing this. So I looked at that. I also looked at, okay, who do we think we can serve in today's company? And at counter, we're really leaning into an older demographic of 35 plus. So certain of the products just weren't really appropriate for that age group. I really wanted to give predominantly a woman, not exclusively a woman. I wanted them to feel seen by a brand. I think they're often largely ignored in the industry, yet they're loyal to brands and they're conscious of their health and their focus on longevity. And they have, they have the disposable income to spend on a premium price point product. And so, you know, we spent a lot of time and then I fought with the product development team who could not let go of certain products. And I was like, okay, are you willing to bet your job on this product? Like you care that much. And then now we have bets on who's going to win on certain things that I wanted to bring back versus what they wanted. We'll see. The jury's still out on who's going to win that bet. But I think that, you know, you gotta go through it, you gotta cut the fat and you've gotta, like, really focus on where can you do things well, not just well. Where are you exceptional and where are you mediocre? No, there's no room for mediocrity. There are too many products in the world as it.
- [41:27]
David
Is. You know, now that you're building this company again and you're doing it from the ground up again, what's something you're building into the culture that didn't.
- [41:36]
Greg Renfrew
Exist before in the old culture. I think I was way more emotional. And I think some people would say there was a bit of a culture of fear where I was demanding. But.
- [41:51]
I get really upset when things go wrong and there are times when I get upset. But I think one thing I'm trying to do is lead from a place of sort of a calm, rational place in a way that I didn't before. I always say, like, I am done with Monday morning quarterbacking. I want people to know that they need to speak their truth and have the confidence to speak their truth, even if they disagree with me or anyone else. And then once we get through that conversation, if you haven't spoken your truth, you need to disagree and commit and we need to move on. Because I think at the old company there was a lot of, like, trying to Be nice to each other. Trying to please Greg. Cause I'm a little bit scared of her. But then they leave the meeting, and they'd start going, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. And that's just not a good way to build a culture. So I think it is about leading with confidence, being decisive, listening to everyone's information, but knowing that I want them to have rigorous discussions with me, and it's okay to disagree with me, but just be really certain, you know, when you're taking a stand on something that you. That you feel really confident in, that choice. That goes for me too. So I'm trying to create a new type of culture. It's hard. I think building culture and leading people is the hardest job in the world. And I think that culture gets defined by all the things that are happening outside of the office.
- [43:00]
David
Too. Yeah, you know. You know, it's always a sign. I'm sure you'd agree that, you know, when you have a good leader, you know, your team members, they want to keep working with you. You know.
- [43:11]
How do you go about doing your best at that? You know, what do you do intentionally or unintentionally, you know, to really make sure that you can keep the best of the best? And you went through that period where people had to hang with you right. While you were figuring it out with them to, you know, to recreate the future, you know, what do you think kept your best people with.
- [43:34]
Greg Renfrew
You? Well, first of all, I think that my daughter Georgie said to me once, she said, what percentage of your team mom has come back? Whether they had previously left the company completely or they were employees at the time when the company closed down, how many people are back with you? How many people decided to join you? Again, I said at the time, and we've obviously grown the team, but at the time, I said, almost everyone came back. And she said, wow, mom, like, that's the greatest compliment of your life is the fact that all these people wanted to do it with you not once, but twice, that they believe in you. I think I would be interested to hear what other people would say. I know people would say that I'm an inspirational leader, and I really do lead from the heart. I would hope that they would say that I'm fair and I treat them with the respect that they deserve, that. I know no task is too small for me to do that. I try to really lean in and be in the trenches with the troops. I don't believe in leading from afar. I feel like if you Know, I always say, I always come out of the bathroom and the office yelling at everyone. I'm like, why am I the one changing the toilet paper again? Don't you guys know how to. You open the box, the thing drops down, you throw it away, you put the new toilet paper roll in. I say this all the time, but I think you've got to be there with your people. And I think that's, to me, what I would hope people would say I do. They would say I have really high expectations and that I'm really tough at times. But I hope that they also know that I'm doing my best job to make them better so that they can be successful in their lives and their.
- [45:00]
David
Career. That's a great leadership trait that I'm gonna have to figure out how to get at when I'm interviewing people. Will you change out the toilet.
- [45:11]
Greg Renfrew
Paper? You know what's crazy? You'd be surprised how many people won't. I mean, that's the thing, though. At the end of the day, someone has to change the toilet paper and someone needs to clean up the office, and someone needs to go return that package. And you know what? If you're not willing to do that, don't join my team. We're an all hands on deck kind of company. And it's not to say that every person's job is to do every single thing, but if you're not willing to lean in, there are a lot of people, especially younger people today, that don't really understand that to build a successful entity, it requires a whole lot of hard work. And a lot of that work isn't very sexy. It just.
- [45:44]
David
Isn'T. You know, you have an internal commitment, which is not creating problems that our products will.
- [45:51]
Greg Renfrew
Solve. Yeah, well, for example, as a woman who's getting a little bit older, I mean, a wrinkle's not a problem. It's just a thing, right? A wrinkle is just a thing. It's a thing that happens as your age get older. It's like, you know, a face with wrinkles is probably because you've smiled a lot and you've enjoyed life, or you've gone to the sun and you've squinted. And I think that our industry, the beauty industry, has been built on fixing problems that don't really exist. They just made them into problems to make money off of them. Like, if you have freckles, like, what's wrong with having a freckle? Or what's wrong with having some fine lines around your face? Like, I Think at the end of the day we're here to help you feel confident, to help your skin feel radiant and glowing and yeah, like if you wanna look sexy on Friday night, I'm gonna give you a red lipstick if that's what you want. But I don't think that these things are problems. They're just part of life. And especially for women, we're also this beauty secret thing. It's like pitting people against one another. It's like, oh, what is she wearing? What is she using that makes her look so good? Oh, not gonna tell you that's a secret. I just don't believe in that. I don't prescribe to that type of. I don't like it at all, to be totally honest. And it makes us feel as women, as we get older, that we have a.
- [46:58]
David
Wrinkle. Well, that's just life, you know, you're very high touch, obviously you're emotive, you're highly empathetic. You really try to put yourself in the customer's shoes.
- [47:11]
Then we have this thing, artificial intelligence now coming on and is that impacting your business or how do you think about it and how is it shaping your.
- [47:21]
Greg Renfrew
Leadership? You know, it's a really good question and it's a challenging. It's a bit of a conundrum for me because.
- [47:27]
Beautycounter was always a B corporation, which meant that we put into emphasis people planet profit. It was a triple bottom line business and a mission, truly a purpose driven organization. So fast forward to counter the new company. We still have that commitment to the health of the environment and to human health. It's interesting today because I look at AI as being so effective for things like customer support, like tracking orders and things that we used to use people to do that you can do so much more efficiently or even looking at advertising and marketing and the dollars being spent. But then there's the environmental impact right now in today's world where we're sucking so much energy to power up this AI and so we're trying to figure out what that balance is and where do we use it and when and why. And I think that I haven't quite figured it out. I know that it is part of where we're going. And so as a leader and a disruptor, as a company, you have to be utilizing it and using the power of it or you're going to be left behind. But how do we do so in a way that is also not out of sync with our mission? And I don't have all the answers we have incorporated into customer support, we have used it for things like when I go to. I mean, you can, like, my team would say, type in a speech that sounds like Greg Renfrer from Greg Renfrew from Beauty Counter and updated to the new business she's in. And all of a sudden you get something that sounds almost exactly like you, and you're like, wow, that just saved me, like, six hours. I can tweak this. I don't know. It's an interesting. It's an interesting time. I'm excited to see where it takes us, and I think in the world of creativity, it's going to be enormously.
- [48:54]
David
Impactful. And how do you, as a leader, how are you getting yourself up to speed so that you can lead in that.
- [49:00]
Greg Renfrew
Area? Slowly, My children. I mean, I'm on chatgpt all the time, and I'm starting to learn about that. I've been listening to, trying to listen to podcasts, asking other leaders. I went to that was for a new wearable last Sunday night with a group of unbelievably intelligent people. I realized how far behind I was. And so I'm trying to get up to speed as quickly as I can, but it's not easy to keep up with things. It's really hard. So I got a long way to go, to be.
- [49:26]
David
Honest.
- [49:28]
You're an entrepreneur, you build these businesses, and it happens on a relative scale fairly quickly. And so many times people look at the success that you have and almost describe it as this overnight success. You know what. What would you tell people about the challenges of really building a business? Because nothing happens.
- [49:49]
Greg Renfrew
Overnight. Well, first of all, my definition of overnight success is 10 years, 24, 7. That's overnight success as far as I'm concerned. But I think that people glorify entrepreneurs, and being a founder or being a business leader, and it's just a lot of hard work. And every single day, something goes wrong, like, terribly wrong. You know, in the last week, we've had. I mean, in the last couple weeks, for example, someone brought a ship in from China that was filled with our holiday packaging, and someone dropped it into the port, into the water. There goes our holiday packaging. Okay, well, that's not on the spreadsheet or, you know, someone that you really count on decides to go to another company or someone has a personal tragedy or something that you thought was gonna be a top seller for whatever reason just kind of misses or the manufacturing partner overshears the serum, and so you can't sell it like this. Stuff happens every single day. And so I think that if you want to be an entrepreneur or a business leader, you need to buckle up and you need to know that you've got to ride with all of the challenges that you're faced with every day and try to focus on the things you can control and not worry so much, not worry too, too much about the things you can't control. Because there are some things that are just genuinely out of your.
- [50:59]
David
Control. What do you know now after 13 years and really going after it 247 that you wish you would have known back then? I mean, what's been that big lesson that you wish you would have known a lot earlier in your.
- [51:16]
Greg Renfrew
Career? I think that there are probably two consistent themes for me. One, being more ahead with respect to technology, because I think it's ever changing and so are the needs of consumers. It is hard to keep up. It's hard for everyone to keep up. But I think that being more ahead of it all along would have served me well. And I think the second thing is more. And I don't know if it's more because I'm a woman, but I think that I allowed for others to influence my decisions way too much. In the past. I would let people overshadow my gut instinct because they either had more experience with me or they came on really strongly in a meeting or I was trying to keep people happy. You know, as a woman, if you're strong, you can be considered to be tough for a bit. But the reality is you need to be decisive as a CEO. And if your gut is telling you that, for example, years ago I said we should be selling products bundled makeup products bundled as kits make it easy for women. They've got like five minutes. Women aren't spending hours and hours putting on makeup. Bundle it all together and sell to them in a package gift. My chief operating officer at the time said, no one's going to buy makeup bundled. I'm thinking now why am I listening to a 45 year old man, like, what does he know about what women want, right? And I listened to him and we didn't do it. And now it's like they're everywhere. They sell like hotcakes. And I think I should have listened to my gut. So I think that I'm way stronger today than I was as a younger woman. Whether that was at the beauty counter date or even, you know, 25 years ago. Have confidence in yourself. If your gut is telling you something, more times than not, you should follow.
- [52:44]
David
It. You know, this has been so much fun. I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. So are you ready for.
- [52:49]
Greg Renfrew
This? Here we.
- [52:50]
David
Go. The three words that best describe.
- [52:52]
Greg Renfrew
You. Gregarious, transparent.
- [52:55]
David
Authentic. If you could be one person for a day beside yourself, who would it.
- [52:59]
Greg Renfrew
Be? Tom Brady for.
- [53:01]
David
Sure. Who would it.
- [53:03]
Greg Renfrew
Be? Which I've told.
- [53:04]
David
Him. Come on, we're all in that big admiration society for him. What's your biggest pet.
- [53:12]
Greg Renfrew
Peeve? All the things my husband does. Like, oh my gosh, there's so many. Just like loading the dishwasher in a messy way and slamming the door in the morning when I'm trying to sleep. There are a lot of those little things that's a marriage thing, though, I think. Love them dearly, but lots of little peas that.
- [53:30]
David
Way. What's the counterproduct that you just couldn't live.
- [53:33]
Greg Renfrew
Without? Hands down, vitamin C.
- [53:35]
David
Serum. What's a piece of feedback you've never.
- [53:38]
Greg Renfrew
Forgotten? A VC that invested in my company. The wedding list. And. And she said to me, I need to look for a real CEO. You are not a real CEO. And fast forward many, many years when Mike Stone from TPG Growth, who was the largest investor in Beauty Counter, said, I want you to know that you are a formidable CEO. I would put you in front of. I would put you alongside the best of the best. It was the greatest compliment in my life because.
- [54:09]
That statement early on really made me feel that I wasn't confident that I wasn't really good at my.
- [54:14]
David
Job. What's something you've been curious about lately that has nothing to do with.
- [54:18]
Greg Renfrew
Work? Faith, really. Exploring faith and my relationship to it and trying to understand the intangible side of it is something that I've been on an exploratory path on over the last number of years. What does that mean for me in my life, My values, my spirituality, my religion, like all of that? It's something that I've been thinking about a lot over the last couple of.
- [54:41]
David
Years. What's the one thing you do just for.
- [54:43]
Greg Renfrew
You? Absolutely blast the tunes in my car. Unapologetically. No matter who's with me, I love to listen to loud music every single day of my life. It makes me happy, it calms me down, it gives me hope. I just love.
- [54:58]
David
It. Besides your family and friends, what's your most prized.
- [55:02]
Greg Renfrew
Possession? Probably the ring I purchased for myself when I sold Beauty Counter. I went and I splurged on this beautiful ring that it's just different and it's mine and I bought it with my own money, and I will hold onto it for the rest of my life. My daughters are already fighting over it, and I'm like, I'm not dead yet. I might just, like, bring it with me. I'm not sure I'm gonna give it to.
- [55:23]
David
Anybody. If I turned on the radio in your car, I know I'd hear loud music, but what would I.
- [55:29]
Greg Renfrew
Hear? Eminem's song, like, lose Yourself. Like, if you have one shot, one opportunity, like, that's a pump song for me. And also a really old song. Bittersweet Symphony by the verb. Like. There's a couple songs I just play over and over and over again. I just never get sick of.
- [55:44]
David
Them. What's something about you? Few people would.
- [55:47]
Greg Renfrew
Know. I'm an incredibly sensitive.
- [55:49]
David
Person. What's one of your daily rituals? Something that you never.
- [55:52]
Greg Renfrew
Miss. Taking a bath. Although right now I'm in a rental because of the fires, But I take a bath before bed every single night. It calms me.
- [56:00]
David
Down. All right, we're out of that lightning round. That was fun. Just a few more questions. We'll wrap it up.
- [56:07]
You've been deep in the beauty industry. What would you say to women about what beauty really.
- [56:13]
Greg Renfrew
Is? I think beauty is not what you think it is. I think beauty is. It's not about how you look. I think it goes well beyond that. And I think that everyone has been marketed to for years by an industry that is not putting them first. And so to me, beauty is about living a healthy lifestyle, having confidence in yourself, and yes, looking your best, doing the most with what you've been given, but it's not at face value. Just makeup and a red lip and a perfect blow dry. Like, that's just not.
- [56:47]
David
Beauty.
- [56:48]
Greg Renfrew
It's. It's the whole picture. It's your whole life. It's the sleep, it's the water, it's the exercise, it's the confidence, it's the friendships. It's your value, and it's not what people think it is. That's so surface.
- [57:01]
David
Level. What do you see as your unfinished business, Greg, both for Counter and you.
- [57:08]
Greg Renfrew
Personally? I think for Counter, it is really about taking a leadership position in beauty again to help create a definitive standard for clean to really. Because what's happened over the last number of years is since I stepped out of the market because I was no longer with the company and all these other brands emerged and the retailers knew that they had to deal with clean beauty, they all created their own standards of clean. If you go to Walmart or Target, Or Sephora or Ultra or grocery store. Everyone defines it differently. And so I think that we owe it to the consumer and to the brands to set a definitive standard. And so I think from a business standpoint, I think that's a really important one. I think for me, I know this sounds crazy because I'm now 57 years old, but I feel like I've barely scratched the potential of what I can do on this earth. And for me, the thing that I'm most passionate about is the emotional and economic empowerment of women. Powering up women. Not in any way, not side by side with men, because so many men have played such an important role in my success in business and in my life. But I really want there to be a more equal balance out there. And so I'm gonna dedicate the rest of my life to trying to power up more women and do it in partnership with men so that the world feels more even keeled than it does today. And I think I. Look, I think I've got a long way to go, and I think I have a lot more that I can achieve. I hope.
- [58:25]
David
So. Well, I know you will. And you know, you persevered through so much. You know, we were, you know, what would the toast be about? The perseverance. And now here you are with Counter, this brand. I gotta ask you, how's it going? I mean, are you.
- [58:39]
Greg Renfrew
Happy? Sometimes I'm happy. Some days I think, what the hell was I thinking? You know, I had a pretty good life. I didn't have to do this. I think that it's going well. I think it's been harder than I thought it would be. It's been much harder than I thought it would be. And I think that's because one of my kids said that the other day, like, you are back to being a startup. It's a new company, Mom. You just think that you thought you would turn it on and it was just gonna do, you know, a million dollars of sales a day right out of the gate, and it hasn't. It's going well and we're profitable and we're building on it, but I think it's been so much harder than I thought it would be. And so I think that part has been challenging at times. And, you know, honestly, it's made me scared. Like, sometimes I doubt myself. Like, can I do it again? On the other side of things, I think about the opportunity I've been given and, like, having a clean white piece of paper upon which to build, taking the core attributes and tenets of an old company and then getting to chart a new course, like, that's a once in a lifetime. And so I'm really invigorated, encouraged, and excited about it. I know it's not going to be easy, but I do now have the confidence that we can do it, and I'm excited about.
- [59:43]
David
It. Fantastic. Last question here. What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better.
- [59:49]
Greg Renfrew
Leader? Listen more. Leaders like to hear themselves talk. I mean, I do, too. But if you're not listening to your team, to the people on the front lines, to your customers. So if you're head of a retail brand and you're not talking to the people that are at point of sale, that are busing the tables, that are serving the clients in the stores, if you're not listening to customer support lines, if you're not understanding what your customer wants from you and you're not listening to your team members, you're not going to be a very effective leader in today's world. You just aren't listening is a powerful.
- [60:21]
David
Tool. And, Greg, I have to tell you, I've enjoyed this conversation so much. You're an incredible leader, so talented. You have so much energy, and, you know, you've got a real mission to make a difference in this world in terms of your unfinished business and what you can do with your company and also with yourself. And I've got a daughter and two granddaughters and, you know, let's power up those women. Let's.
- [60:45]
Greg Renfrew
Go.
- [60:45]
David
Absolutely. And it's great to have a great leader like you on this.
- [60:48]
Greg Renfrew
Show. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor to be here, and I'm super. I'm glad we had the time to sit down and.
- [60:53]
Host 1
Talk.
- [60:59]
David, what a woman, as the kids would say, Greg is a real.
- [61:02]
David
One.
- [61:05]
Well, she's definitely a great leader and definitely making big things happen and, and definitely has a lot of courage. It's, it's, it's one thing to. To build a company, it's another to, you know, sell the company. It's another to buy the company back and then no longer run the company and then refound the company under a new brand name, which was close to beauty counter, but is now counter, which is to, I agree, much simpler and better name than beauty counter, because if you go to the beauty aisle, you know, you're in the beauty aisle, so counter kind of stands out and the packaging's better. So I think she's got it figured.
- [61:45]
Host 1
Out. She is so open, too, about how humiliating that whole process was for her. And I just love how clear it is that she is a woman and a leader who is super in touch with her emotions. And it's obvious that transparency is a huge part of how she leads and what is one of her guiding sort of principles in restarting Counter. But she also recognizes when it's time for some emotional distance between you and the company or you and the people that you're leading or you and the mission. And I love that while she is so in tune with how she's feeling about things, she also knows when to kind of detach. And I want to know, David, how do you know when to lean in emotionally to something and when to separate yourself from what you're.
- [62:34]
David
Feeling? Well, that's a really challenging question, Kula, but I want to, first of all, talk about her humiliating experience. You know, the humiliating experience that she talks about is that after basically four months of being the CEO of this company that was acquired by a private equity firm, they come in and tell her that she's not the CEO and this is her company. This is a company she built, and she thought it was doing well, so she was totally shocked by it. And then they put in another person as the CEO, and she has a meeting with this person as the founder, and he cancels it on her. And now she's, like, really humiliated, really torn up. She's not even being listened to as a founder. The person doesn't even want her advice. I mean, that is, like, unbelievably challenging. And she was quite open in explaining that it led to a lot of tears. And she's a very emotional person. And she. She. She talked very openly about the fact that she had a lot of tears in this whole process, and she learned that maybe have a little bit more emotional distance and not get so. Not get so tied up in. In some of these things. But you asked me the question, you know, when do you lean in on being emotionally involved? You know.
- [64:01]
My view is always this. Just follow your heart.
- [64:06]
Follow your gut. You know, I mean, I'm a guy that cries at the Waltons, okay, When they say, good night, John boy. You know what? No. I mean, I cry at a lot of things, okay? But I don't mind crying. You know, if I cry, it's because I feel it. And now, I don't think you want to be overly gushy or anything like that, but there'd be times when I give a speech where my eyes would moisten and people know I'd be on the verge of. But they felt the emotion. But I think when you're so emotional, it gets in the way of the product, it gets in the way of the work, it gets in the way of your leadership. That's when you got to step back and say, hey, I got to figure out how to handle this better. And I think that's what she learned. I think she's very open about the fact she was too emotional, and she's learned how to moderate it, but forget all that. This is a person that has created, can create a brand, build a brand, and has the courage to rebuild a brand. I mean.
- [65:13]
You strip all the emotion away. This is a high talent leader who knows how to make things happen. And, yeah, we all learn a lot of things along the way, but I think we can learn more from what she did in terms of how she runs her company, how she rethinks her business, and why. Why she had the courage to restart.
- [65:31]
Host 1
It. I read something the other day that was talking about, you know, how to sort of let your emotions inform things, but don't let them be the thing you make decisions on. And it said, emotions are not facts. So I think, you know, for me, I'm also a very passionate emotional person as well. I, too, cry all the time. And I think that that little paradigm shift was so helpful for me because a lot of times we feel sad or angry about something, then that becomes the fact of the situation, and it's just not true. So we can let our emotions kind of come and go while also staying tethered to the reality of what's actually.
- [66:09]
David
Happening. Yeah. I think you have to have the emotional detachment at the right times. Okay. When it's time to make a really key decision, you got to get the emotions out of it. You know, you want to listen to your gut, but you want to make sure you get all the data, get everybody's opinions, and then you try to approach it, the decision, with a fresh view of the reality that you face. And I think that's really important. And one of the other things is that people talk about emotional detachment being something you have to have with the people you lead. I've always thought that was a bunch of bunk. I mean, I always felt that, you know, I wanted to be emotionally involved with my people. I wanted them to know me. I wanted to know them. I wanted to be close to them. I wanted them to be able to share with me. I wanted to share with them, you know, and that means you have to make yourself Vulnerable. And that means that, you know, having an emotional detachment with your people just never really fit the bill for me, you know, because I wanted that two way street. I wanted that relationship. And you know, one person can't be detached and the other.
- [67:26]
Greg Renfrew
Isn'T.
- [67:27]
David
Right. That's my view. And you know, I know a lot of people feel differently than.
- [67:31]
Host 1
Me. It's also part of your superpower. So I think there's a high level of self awareness too, that, you know, that that's how you really can build trust and motivate.
- [67:38]
David
People. Maybe so, but that works for me. And I think the most important thing is that you find something that works for you and that that authenticity is what will build the trust. But I do believe that, you know, building a powerful relationship requires a vulnerability and an emotional connection that you can't have by thinking, hey, I'm the president, I'm the CEO, I got to be detached so I could make the tough decision.
- [68:07]
I think you get detached when you make the decision, but not necessarily in the.
- [68:12]
Host 1
Process. Speaking of being vulnerable, David, you know, obviously this whole story about beauty counter to counter, and Greg left and then she come back. It's crazy, but at one point in the episode, Greg buys back the business only to have it shut down. She said to live, it actually had to die first. That's such a powerful line. I'm curious, is there a story, David, from your career when you had to kill something and let it die in order for it to live? And how'd you talk about that with your.
- [68:41]
David
Team? I think most of the things I killed, I didn't want to have come.
- [68:45]
Host 1
Back.
- [68:48]
You did not want them to.
- [68:50]
David
Reincarnate. But what she's saying here is that she had a brand that she knew for it to maximize over the long term, she's going to have to shut it down so she could rebuild it the right way way. She also talked about the process she used to do that with her people. She said, hey, you know, I don't have all the answers right now about how we're going to come back, but we are, and give me some time and together we'll, we'll figure it out. And I like that. But she, she knew that where she was at was untenable for the long term in terms of maximizing the potential. You might have been able to struggle and do okay, but she, she doesn't want to do just okay. She wants to do great. And hopefully she made the right decision. And we'll find.
- [69:32]
Greg Renfrew
Out. We sure.
- [69:33]
David
Will. Just happened in 2025. So, you know, we'll.
- [69:38]
Host 1
See. David, one more sort of theme that I'd love to just get your take on. When Greg was replaced as CEO of Beauty Counter, she talks about struggling with that person that replaced her because she just thought that he was arrogant. And I love when she says that arrogance has no place in the business world. But, you know, let's be honest, you're probably going to work for someone who's arrogant at some time in your career, because it's just kind of the world that we live in. I want to know for the people out there who might be working for someone who is arrogant, how do you sit them down and tell them that they're arrogant without it feeling like you're just calling someone a.
- [70:17]
David
Jerk? I don't know the real answer to that one. I mean, I've. I've. I never worked for somebody who is, like, you know, arrogant. Thank God I never had that. When I was in the agency business, I had arrogant clients who had a way of belittling people. And there were people who work for him, people who worked in the advertising agency, whatever. But I was coming up in my career, and at that point in time.
- [70:42]
I wasn't in any position to tell him how arrogant he was because he was the type of guy who could have fired me. So I think you're in a really. I think you're in a really tough situation when that happens. But if you work with someone and you're with them day to day and they have an arrogant tendency, you know, I think the way how you can be heard is to do your job so well that.
- [71:08]
They'Re going to listen to what you have to say. But I think it's. I remember what Pat Kelsey, the coach for the University of Louisville basketball team, said. You got to crush it where you're at. I think if you crush it where you're at, then you earn the respect and the right to maybe give a person some feedback in a special way. And the feedback model, I always believe is, hey, here's what I appreciate about you. You have all these great tendencies. And here's how I think you can be even more effective. You know, you may not realize this, but you're a bit arrogant, and it comes off that way sometimes. And I know that you don't want to come off that way, and that's why I'm sharing it with you, because you don't want to be that way. I know you don't want to be that way. And maybe he does, or maybe she does, but, you know, but you know, you kind of shame him into accepting the feedback and hopefully doing something with.
- [72:01]
Host 1
It. Well, you said you didn't know how to answer that question and you damn sure just did, so it probably.
- [72:06]
David
Took me longer than it should.
- [72:07]
Host 1
Have. No, I love it. That's so helpful. David, what's one thing from your conversation with Greg that you're going to take with you into your leadership and your life and your.
- [72:17]
David
Work? Well, I think if you are powerful and you are in a position where you have responsibility, you never stand up anybody. Yeah, I mean, the fact that that person canceled the meeting with, with the founder and didn't reschedule it said that that person said to the founder that she didn't count. And I, I mean, I've always tried to show people that they count and they matter to me, but that just reinforces a deep down belief that I have is that you don't stand people up. You don't, you don't, you don't belittle them. You know, you honor and respect.
- [73:01]
Host 1
Everybody. David, another fantastic episode. I frickin love Greg. Such a good conversation. Well, thank you so much for joining another episode of How Leaders Lead. Stay tuned for next week and we'll see you then.