Professional skin care brand Dermalogica is outstanding not just because of its contributions to the beauty industry, but perhaps more importantly, its dedication to empowering women around the world and encouraging their financial independence.
Celebrating women in business and entrepreneurship at the recent Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN) “Bold Beginnings, Brave Futures” conference held in Austin, TX, Jane Wurwand, Dermalogica’s chief visionary and co-founder, represented just one of the thousands of female entrepreneurs within the skincare industry. Sharing business advice with an invitation-only group of more than 200 female entrepreneurs, Wurwand and others addressed a wide range of topics, including how to grow and scale businesses using the newest technologies and resources to produce not only immediate results, but long-term sustainable social change.
“The professional skin care industry puts more women into business than any other industry in the world” said Wurwand. “Dermalogica supports more than 30,000 salons and spas owners worldwide, most of whom are women. In fact, 98% of professional skin therapists are women. So, speaking on entrepreneurship and the importance of supporting women in business is a topic that we are passionate about.”
Since its conception in 1986, Dermalogica has supported more than 100,000 professional skin therapists, many of whom have gone on to start their own businesses within the skin care industry. In 2011, Dermalogica’s mission to support women’s financial independence came to ultimate fruition with the launch of FITE, “Financial Independence Through Entrepreneurship” (www.joinFITE.org), which helps women start or grow a business across all industries. Though it was founded just three years ago, FITE has already helped more than 40,000 women worldwide, with that number rapidly increasing each day.
Following the panel at DWEN, professional skin therapists representing top authorized Dermalogica retailers and skin centers in Austin offered guests signature Dermalogica services at the “Relax and Recharge Reception” at the W Hotel, while activation-kiosks, provided by Dell, allowed attendees to instantly make microloans to the hundreds of eligible women entrepreneurs identified worldwide as part of FITE.
The DWEN conference also served as the venue at which Dell announced the findings of its second annual Gender-Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute (GEDI) index, which examines opportunities for female entrepreneurs in 30 countries worldwide, and is the only metric index of its kind.
This year, Dermalogica was one of the businesses featured in Dell’s award-winning “New Beginnings” television advertising campaign—a project that spotlighted entrepreneurial, “home-grown” businesses originally started on a grassroots level. First aired in January, the ad only further demonstrated just how extraordinary and admirable Dermalogica is.
--Eloise Giegerich