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In this exclusive monthly interview series in partnership with Industry Beauty, we feature one of our executive board members, to gain insights into their careers and views on what being a business leader in today’s beauty industry means to them.
Hind Sebti is the founder of Whind, a beauty brand inspired by her home of Morocco, offering a high-quality and indulgent range of skincare, bodycare and fragrances. She is also the co-founder of Waldencast, a brand development platform that creates, acquires and scales early-stage beauty and wellness brands.
In this exclusive interview with TheIndustry.beauty, Sebti speaks about what sets the British beauty industry apart from other markets worldwide, what key skills you need to have as a leader today, how she came to launch her own brand, and her advice for anyone launching/scaling their own beauty business.
Have you always had an interest in the beauty industry? Why does it appeal to you and why did you want to work within it? Â
My passion for beauty started in my native home of Morocco. In Morocco, beauty is everywhere, in the landscape, architecture, craftsmanship, people, and of course ancestral beauty rituals. I fell in love early on with how beauty not only makes you look but more importantly how it makes you feel. How beauty is not something superficial invented by the beauty industry a hundred years ago but is something that has been with us forever and is part of our humanity. This passion made me seek a career in the industry that I am so grateful to call my job, my hobby and really my life.
Fresh out of school, I joined Procter & Gamble and then L’Oréal, where over the space of 20 years I was lucky to work on some amazing billion global beauty brands as well as fast growing cult ones. But as I saw the beauty industry changing with more authentic, more purpose driven independent brands leading the growth thanks to their ability to resonate with consumers, I decided to jump into the entrepreneurial world by creating Waldencast – a global best in class beauty and wellness platform that creates, acquires and scales the next generation of high growth purpose driven brands – some of them are Obagi Medical and Milk Make Up, as well as brands we created in house such as Whind, a beauty brand inspired by my Moroccan Heritage that bottles up Golden Hour Beauty for all, as well as Glaze, a hair colour brand for the next generation and Coats, a skincare brands designed with dermatologists to answer the needs of young skin.
CEW UK promotes the British beauty industry, why is this important? What do you think sets the British beauty industry apart from other markets worldwide?Â
The UK is a top five beauty market globally, but what makes it unique is its creativity and talent. Some of the biggest beauty trends, expertise and brands are born in the UK. If I just take the hairdressing industry for example, the UK is the home to some of the most visionary and globally renowned artists in the world over the span of the last 50 years. It is also home to a playful, heavily involved consumer that likes to experiment and a rich beauty retail landscape between high streets, department stores, curated specialty destinations, as well as professional ones that give brands and consumers a great playground.
Why did you join CEW UK? Do you have any highlight moments from being part of this?Â
I joined CEW UK in 2015 and the board in 2016. I wanted to be part of the beauty acceleration. Beauty is the most beautiful of businesses – high growth, profitability, recession proof, and a delight to millions of consumers and professionals alike. But an industry that I felt still needed advocating for in the UK and more visibility.
What do you think are the biggest opportunities and challenges in the beauty sector today?Â
Sustainable business models. Long-term brand building. Brands that will be here in a hundred years versus collections of products that are trend-led.
What key skills do you need to have as a leader today, in general and in beauty?Â
Leadership is about having vision, energising and engaging people around it and enabling them to execute with excellence.
In beauty, this definition of leadership takes a new level in terms of understanding and, dare I say, loving people, our consumer targets to properly envision something that they actually need and executing with excellence as the only strategy the consumer sees in the execution. On top, beauty is about art and science, so the ability to both understand the data and listen to your gut and instinct is key.
How can people be encouraged to pursue entrepreneurship or senior leadership roles in their careers?Â
Entrepreneurship is great, but only for people that are ready for it (and those in general can’t resist it). Entrepreneurship is hard, and I think that glamourising it sets up the people it is not meant for, for disappointment or constant FOMO.
Senior leadership is great but hard too. I believe the key to success in business is finding what you are good at, passionate about, and becoming really good at it. That requires a lot of leadership as well as flexibility and agility in the fast-paced world we are in and, most importantly, resilience (a key quality in pursuit of a dream). There is no perfect way to shape the right career path – it is NOT a linear process. There is timing, personal growth, aspirations and opportunity. The things to develop in my view are self-belief (when people ask, ask why not) and seizing on opportunities (which often might not look like the end goal but are often stepping stones).
How did you come to launch your own brand, Whind?Â
The idea of Whind was born from a personal awareness and one observation. An observation that in skincare functionality flourished at the expense of experience and that brands (or rather collections of products) became a sea of sameness, replicating the same formula. And a personal awareness that after 20 years in beauty, I couldn’t see a brand that looked like me, that reflected my Moroccan, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern warmer, more indulgent, and joyful vision of beauty with decadent rituals. So I decided to create Whind to marry both functionality and sensoriality in formulations that marry high efficacy and clinically proven ingredients and time-tested ancestral ingredients infused in beautiful textures and transportive scents for that perfect Golden Hour, inspired by my home of Morocco. Thus delighting consumers who do not want to compromise on performance nor experience.
It started in skincare but rapidly expanded into bodycare and fine fragrance because it is what our community required – they saw Whind as much more than a skincare brand but as a lifestyle brand that transports into a universe of inside and out glow, Golden Hour glow anytime, anywhere.
What advice do you have for anyone launching/scaling their own beauty brand?Â
Understand your why. Validate it and stick to it. Too often we see brands born more as a collection of products than a meaningful, relevant and unique way to answer an unmet need functionally and emotionally. And then, when in market, being distracted too much by what others are doing and losing their north star.
Then once built, scale sustainably, with very strong operational discipline. I see that a lot of brands fall for their own hype but forget that what builds a successful business in the long run is as much brand magic as operational discipline.
