of sheer personal distortion, I quickly resolved during our interview to listen to her and hear her, rather than trying to frame her or fix her identity. As Lise says, “We each have our own brilliance and if we manage to align it profoundly with ourselves, then beauty comes, is seen, felt and transmitted”.
6.1.3. The loop
“We have to work hard because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring”. This value of work, which has affected all dimensions of her life, also applied to her studies.
“I was into poetry, but in a very straightforward way. It’s been one of my great strengths all my life. Things had to work out well in my studies”. Lise did a BAC C (Scientific) although “mathematics wasn’t my cup of tea”. She continued at a business school in Lille.
The business school in Lille was not a total coincidence. At the time, if you wanted to avoid going to a business school in Paris, all you had to do was return a blank exam paper on one subject. It was a playoff. That’s exactly what Lise did, who absolutely wanted to avoid attending a school in Paris….
During and after business school, Lise traveled widely and everywhere. Her philosophy of travel and discovery is very instructive to shed light on her journey. Indeed, Lise thinks that it is by discovering things, other “worlds” … that we can better understand our natural fears. “I told myself that I would raise my children better one day by having lots of different experiences”.
Then there was, just after graduating from business school, what could be described as the first desire to align with our own life wishes. Indeed, questions about the meaning of her studies then clearly arose. “This school, why?”, “What am I going to do for a living?”.
She then decided to do a master’s degree at the Institut Français de la Mode (French fashion institute). “I wanted to recover and immerse myself in this whole universe of materials, fabrics and creations”. Chasing the natural meant she returned back galloping, as they say. At least that is how we could interpret this journey: the child who was passionate about nature, fabrics, creation, pre-adult life, who went to business school and finally returned to her first love for a year and a half. “I had a blast at the IFM”. This teaching, both theoretical and very practical, allowed Lise to develop strong expertise. We can imagine that words and understandings were acquired on sensations, intuitions, which she had always carried within her from her earliest childhood.
6.2. Employment to entrepreneurship
I admit that “chance” seems to have helped Lise somewhat. Indeed, during her time at the IFM, Lise answered an advert for an internship … in a large cosmetics company. She had already applied there, unsuccessfully, when she was in business school. She tried her luck again.
6.2.1. Paid employment
Her studies at the IFM made the difference, and she was taken on an internship basis. This allowed her to design a whole training program for employees. A very nice challenge for Lise who experienced it as a first achievement. During this internship, she met all the major players in the company, marketing, engineers, etc. Professional life became meaningful because it could bring together both the desire to be involved in creation and exchanging with others. There is probably nothing more beautiful than bringing to Others, and it is probably at this moment of the interview that I understood her depth. At the end of the internship … she was recruited on a paid basis as make-up product manager.
“It has always been natural for me to unite people around a project and I am a creative woman”. Lise’s career with this major cosmetics group was to be a dazzling one. First in consumer product make-up, as product manager, then as Marketing Manager. She was then entrusted with the most beautiful luxury brands, which she improved for some and raised to the rank of number 1 for others. In total, 10 years on international make-up brands, serving beauty and femininity.
She was then entrusted with the Global Marketing Department of Travel Retail, with the aim of federating and structuring the business of products sold in airports worldwide, thus strengthening her assets as a manager of very interdisciplinary projects and its international dimension. Around 2008, a time when many major groups, including her own, were making innovation a priority. She was offered a major new opportunity: to imagine and create the Make up Innovation Department for the whole world.
Her objective: to build the 5-year innovation plan for all make-up brands. “It was fabulous to start from a blank canvas, to invent tomorrow and to identify the best levers with the 600 people in R&D and interface packaging”. Very driven by the desire to create and very respectful of people, it is in the collective that Lise passionately grew this Innovation Department and it has led to many great innovations. The strength of her convictions and her internal network enabled her to sometimes succeed in the impossible, for example, by initiating major and transforming developments in the Chinese make-up market, then barely emerging.
However, it was not a long quiet journey: “I have always mobilized a lot of energy and commitment, a very powerful driving force”. “I’ve been hit in the face, too”. A trademark of Lise’s, no doubt about it, as her frankness and authenticity must have disturbed more than one. Innovating is not always easy, and if you don’t meet the right people at times, it’s not surprising that you have to defend obvious approaches. And these approaches you will certainly defend to the strength of your faith. Lise’s is great….
After 20 years of focusing on brands, international in retail, and innovation, Lise felt like she had more or less gone around the block, arriving at a crossroads… This led to profound questions about the meaning of her life, her usefulness to others. “A real challenge that must be addressed face to face”. “It takes courage, but it’s the only real solution”. All of these were triggers for her departure towards entrepreneurship.
6.2.2. The trigger
First of all, in all large groups, you inevitably have constraints and opportunities. But there comes a time when, inevitably, there are breaking points, the balance, if it does not suit you, disturbs you: this was the case for Lise, the balance being broken, she decided to take another direction in her life.
Another event was also the trigger for this profound questioning that would strongly influence the course of her career and her life. Her father became seriously ill and died shortly after his retirement. “It was so unfair”. “You don’t have to wait until retirement to do things that are essential to you. Life is here and now, because later on, you don’t know”.
Finally, Lise moved from Paris to the greater suburbs in a real house with space. She rediscovered her roots: painting, working with materials, nature. She had never totally abandoned painting throughout her life, but it was not easy for her to let her artistic soul express itself in an apartment in Paris, with a family life and the education of two young children. There, in her new home, she had “finally” a real space. “The greenery returned, the painting returned, the reconstruction, it reconnected me to a certain spirituality, to the sacred”.
6.2.3. Entrepreneurship
“I wanted to find meaning, to be true to myself, to grow, and to pass it on to others”. It is this deep faith that led her to want to stay aligned with what she really wanted: to create freely and without constraint, to bring to light the beauty of the world around us, to celebrate this universal beauty: “because I deeply believe that contacting this
