Tessa Sharum

I think it would have to be my consistency. When I was teaching, consistency was such a big, prevalent part for me, because in schools, not everyone's going home to the same environment, so I always tried to make sure that every single day, I showed up as the same person that they would expect, and it would never be a question as to what was expected of them when they walked into my classroom. I've continued that in my current role, so the girls that I have that report to me know that consistency is important to me. I will show up every day and give 100%, and those are the expectations I would have for them. Obviously, I'm understanding that things happen in life and try to give them flexibility for those challenges, but I still hold them accountable so they're able to grow into that integrity. I'm also very outspoken about things whenever I agree or disagree, which has helped me advocate for myself and the products we work with.

The best career advice I ever received came from my hiring manager Andrea during my third round interview with her. She told me, 'I think your education is a huge skill set that we need on our team. I think with you, if you can run a classroom, you can run anything.' That advice really changed the entire trajectory of my career path because she gave me the opportunity to come in as a junior analyst and learn. Every other company I had interviewed with had talked about my education as if it was a waste of 5 years and discounted my experience, saying my skills wouldn't translate properly. But Andrea saw the value in what I had done and believed in my ability to transition and grow. Because of that advice and her faith in me, I was open to learning, and after 6 months she offered me the opportunity to move into the planning side for marketing, which set me on the path I'm on today.

I think one of the biggest things is having the confidence to speak up on something. Especially for me in cosmetics as a woman, I use these products daily - things that I've grown up using, and I've learned how to do my makeup and what fragrances I like. So being in this market, I've been able to speak as a user of those products. A lot of times we'll be in meetings and innovation and merchandising conversations will be geared around our financial officers, and statistically, they're mostly men and they don't understand the product. So I'm like, wait, hold on, you're not considering this. The confidence to speak out on things that you know, and then also being open to be like, hey, I'm not familiar with why you think this, can you explain it to me, has really helped me in my position grow. I've been able to understand where people are coming from who aren't familiar and are looking at it from a numbers standpoint, and then I can kind of meet in the middle with the product's success. It's just being comfortable enough to speak out about something, ask questions when you don't understand, or if you just need clarification.

Cosmetics is so hard because it's ever-changing. The industry moves quickly and you have to stay on top of trends, innovation, and what consumers want. It requires constant learning and adaptation, but that's also what makes it exciting. You're always working with new products and innovations, and if you have great leadership like our CMO Maria who is a brand guru, you get to see how attention to detail in everything from product development to how the script is written can be a turn-on or turn-off for consumers buying that product. Those are the kinds of details that make a difference in this field.