As the preeminent beauty retailer for an entire continent, Jo Horgan sits on Australia‘s highest perch over the market’s beauty industry. But her inspirations come from far beyond beauty.
On the eve of her honoring with CEW’s Corporate Empowerment for Women Award, Mecca’s cofounder and co-chief executive officer discusses the United Nations research that informed the genesis of Mecca’s M-Power program, the historical figures who inspire her (including a legendary Washington Post publisher) and the author she’s tapped to help teach her thousands-strong workforce about financial literacy.
What was the impetus for Mecca M-Power, and how does it relate to the broader values of Mecca?
Twenty-eight years ago, Mecca started with a simple mandate and that was to put the control of the beauty experience back in the hands of the end consumer, which was always a woman 28 years ago, and to make them feel fantastic about beauty. It was about reclaiming beauty from much more of the traditional construct of large houses, double-page spreads telling you what beauty should be. It wasn’t about the customer being in control and playing with beauty like you did when you were little.
Right out the gate, we had this education program for our teams and seeing the impact of that on their broader lives, because it wasn’t just about the product, it was about them and their philosophy and positive psychology.
We came up with this focus on education as the most important lever to get to gender equality that’s been proclaimed by the U.N. and by most bodies of deep study and research into gender equality. We thought, let’s make it our goal to ensure that 10,000 girls can get secondary education.
When that crystallized with M-Power, we thought about this phenomenal platform of 6 million customers, we have this platform where we address 60 percent of the market, we have an opportunity to have a massive impact. And the idea was to commit $25 million on our 25th birthday.
Which female historical figure inspires you the most and why?
One is Katharine Graham, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography. To me, that was the story of a woman who did not expect to have any impact at a time when women’s impact was more traditional, and how she found her voice and her strength and her form of female leadership.
Reading Estée Lauder’s book, getting to know Leonard [A. Lauder] really well, seeing the company from the inside-out, that is something that really resonates with me.
Third is from Jim Collins’ latest book, “What to Make of a Life.” He tells the story of these two women in America who fight for the vote, and that has had such an impact on me just recently.
How do you think about inspiring the next generation of leadership at Mecca?
I have the most enormously privileged position that I am in an industry that attracts phenomenally bright, curious, open, predominantly women — 96 percent of our team being women, and we get the chance to educate the team and provide them with belief about what they can do.
We’ve been working with Scott Pape, the barefoot investor, he’s a bestselling author in Australia, and he has a book on money management. It’s about how you manage your finances towards financial independence. It’s like, every week, 15 minutes, take a coffee and do this work and learn how to set up the most effective bank accounts. It’s about providing a platform for extraordinary women to come into an environment that’s enabling and where they can build self belief, knowledge and their ability to do extraordinary things.
