Female Founders: Naomi Furgiuele of Nuria On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Believe in your idea and take up space — Even if you are the only woman in the room, you deserve to be there. Take up space, have confidence in your idea, don’t fall victim to imposter syndrome. As a Chemical Engineer, I was in a male dominated field, both in school and then at work, and I learned that I couldn’t let gender make me feel like I didn’t belong. I learned to focus on my ideas and skills.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Naomi Furgiuele, Founder, Chief Strategy Officer & Chief Curator of Nuria Beauty.
For nearly two decades Naomi Furgiuele led product development and scientific teams for some of the world’s biggest global brands in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and consumer products. As part of her work, Naomi met women from all over the world, learned about their families and their health, and became intrigued by each woman’s unique skin health journey. Inspired by these women, and her travels, Naomi created Nuria to distill this global beauty wisdom into clean, effective skincare products that support girls’ education.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Prior to launching Nuria, I led product development and scientific teams for some of the world’s biggest global brands in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and consumer products. Most recently, I was the Vice President of Face and Sun R&D at Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., leading a global team to create award-winning products across Neutrogena, Aveeno, Clean & Clear, and more. Before leading the Beauty R&D team, I led the development of medical devices for global businesses in pain, allergy, oral care, and diabetes care.
Nuria was born out of my experiences traveling the world and speaking with women about themselves and their families. I found that women around the world really connect over their skincare and I wanted to work to help make that a positive connection. They recognized their skin health was a reflection of their lifestyle and environment, not a static skin type. Whether they faced rough skin due to Europe’s cold climates, or dullness due to environmental stressors in Asia, these women turned to time-tested, local, plant-based ingredients to create their own solutions based on what their skin needed to be healthy. These skin problems are truly universal, and I knew women everywhere could benefit from these gems of skincare wisdom.
At the same time, I also frequently confronted the reality that many women lacked equal opportunities within their culture, often stemming from a lack of education and professional development early in life. In 2018, I founded Nuria with a mission to connect women globally, to share our skincare wisdom with each other, and to help girls achieve their full potential. As a part of my mission, I am proud that Nuria donates a portion of every sale to She’s the First, a non-profit that fights gender inequality by providing education to girls.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
One of the most eye-opening things that has happened since founding Nuria was the Ever Given getting stuck in the Suez Canal. As a small but still global business, it was amazing to me how much one bottleneck could disrupt supply chains that touched our business. It felt a bit poetic in a way, since Nuria’s mission is very much about these global connections — sharing women’s local skincare rituals from around the world. Coming face-to-face with the impact on me of a canal on the other side of the world was a wonderful reminder that what we are doing is important because whether we sense it or not, we are all impacting each other every day.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I’ve definitely made some funny mistakes along the way as I learned about skincare product development. Early in my career when I was developing my first cosmetic formulas, I didn’t understand yet how to use the concentrated dyes that give lipstick and eyeshadow their beautiful colors, and I once had orange lips for days. Active ingredients often come in concentrated solutions and can be the most expensive part of a formula, so naturally, yup, I’ve tripped while adding the active ingredient to a big batch of face lotion! At the time, these mistakes felt embarrassing and amateur, but now I realize they were an important part of my journey to becoming a more confident and skilled scientist and entrepreneur. Most importantly, I learned to own my mistakes — take action, talk about them openly, accept responsibility, don’t hide from them. Not only is this the right thing to do, but it’s the best way to learn from mistakes and teach others what to do when they inevitably make mistakes (we are human after all!). When leading a team, it is important to create an environment where it is acceptable to share the mistakes we make so everyone feels empowered to rapidly learn and grow. By owning your mistakes, you also influence the narrative about your mistake, taking them from something to hide or judge to something to learn from and use as a learning example.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
People often talk about mentors, but about halfway through my career I learned about sponsors — people who not only offer advice but also advocate for you. As a Chemical Engineer, I was in a male dominated field, both in school and then at work. Six years into my career (and two kids later!) I met a woman, also an engineer, who had become a senior leader at Johnson & Johnson. She was honest, caring, and tough. I would go to her for advice, and when she asked me a question that I couldn’t answer, she would send me away to think. She was an incredible role model, and years later I realized how many opportunities she opened up for me — she was really my sponsor, not just my mentor. She certainly had an impact on my career, but she also changed the way I developed others, so her impact was much further reaching.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
In my experience, women in the workplace often take a supportive role — don’t get me wrong, they work hard to succeed in their own careers, but they also often work hard to help others succeed. Women are more likely to compromise the space that they take up themselves to enable other people to take up space. We do this on a personal level as well — in the US, family leave is more often taken by women, and we juggle the needs of our family with our careers. I think this supporting behavior is amazing and I know I spend a lot of my time doing the same thing, but it can lead to women not jumping in 100% on an idea that they have themselves and pursuing the founding of their own ventures.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
- Become a mentor or sponsor for other women entrepreneurs
- Find other people in your life to take on a supporting role
- As a society, continue to make more changes that support men taking family leave, men being the stay at home parent
For women already in a leadership role, I think it is important to take on the role of sponsor or mentor, particularly for other women entrepreneurs. Sponsoring is such an important role because it is not only the imparting of all that career wisdom or guidance, but it is the act of helping women founders dig in on the paths that will allow them to be seen as successful. Creating actionable opportunities for women entrepreneurs can be an incredibly powerful tool for putting more women in sustainable roles as founders.
In partnership to that idea though, as individuals, it is going to be equally important for any woman starting off as a founder to find other people in her life to take on some of those supporting roles. I’m not just talking about finding someone to do laundry or send a fax — sometimes you are going to need someone to stand in for you and even help make substantial decisions because you simply can’t be everywhere or think of everything at once.
As a society, we need to continue with the progress we are making in shifting the gender roles of the domestic landscape to standardize men taking family leave or even being the primary caregiver in some cases. This requires continued, long-term reform at an institutional level, particularly when it comes to finding a career path back to work later in life, an issue that many women confront as well.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
Diversity is one of the greatest engines of progress. Great ideas come from everywhere, from different perspectives, from different life experiences, and putting more women in founder roles allows us to solve problems that may be currently unaddressed, unseen. No one should be held back from pursuing a great idea.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
Being a founder sounds elevated and powerful, but the reality is as a founder, you have to be willing to be everything from the shipping manager to the financial officer, willing to package your first orders and set up your business bank account while on the same day giving an interview for a national publication. I remember some days feeling like I was spinning my wheels with all of the little things that needed to get done to launch our first product, and I had no one but myself to delegate those tasks to. It didn’t seem elevated and powerful when I was rushing to FedEx before they closed, or when I was testing 25 prototypes to develop the perfect formula, but those were frankly the moments that made me feel most like a founder, like I was working on something that was mine to build and grow.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
I think being a successful founder takes a strange mix of boldness and humility — you have to believe that you have an idea worth pursuing, since you have to convince other people to invest in and work on that idea, but this boldness has to be coupled with humility, because you have to have the flexibility to adapt and change. Maybe your original idea will work better if you tweak it a little, maybe the market has changed and you need to adjust your launch plan, and most importantly maybe you hear from your consumer and you realize you need to make a change to make your idea more impactful. Most people would say that being a founder is also about shouldering risk, and while that’s true, I think it is important to realize that you aren’t just shouldering financial risk, but you also risk a lot personally by putting your idea out there for other people to pick apart, so you have to be interested in learning from feedback and not take it personally when something doesn’t work. I learned a lot early in my career at a “regular job” that has helped me become a founder, so I don’t believe in the philosophy that you are either born with the qualities that make a good founder or you aren’t.
In the end, as a founder, you are still part of a team. That team may change from being just you and your first customer to you and your partners, employees, and peers, but adaptability is the thread that connects it all. You must adapt not only your business plan, but also your understanding of your role and interdependence in order to continue finding satisfaction with the project you founded.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?” (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Believe in your idea and take up space — Even if you are the only woman in the room, you deserve to be there. Take up space, have confidence in your idea, don’t fall victim to imposter syndrome. As a Chemical Engineer, I was in a male dominated field, both in school and then at work, and I learned that I couldn’t let gender make me feel like I didn’t belong. I learned to focus on my ideas and skills.
- Being a founder isn’t being a team of one — If you truly believe in the project, you should want your work to find other people who can carry it just as well as you can. Set yourself up to be a leader but also make sure you are continuing to provide support for your partners to help you take your vision and give it its best life.
- Take time for yourself — Sometimes we are the last on our own list of priorities, and frankly that doesn’t help anyone! You have to take the time to keep yourself whole and healthy to be effective at home and at work.
- You will fail — Statistics tell you that something you work on will fail. Just accept that fact, and then when the time comes, you’ll more easily pick yourself up and try again.
- Have fun — Work doesn’t need to always be a slog, and you don’t always have to be the most stressed out or overworked. Have fun! That isn’t a sign that you aren’t working hard enough, it’s actually a sign that you are working on the right thing for you!
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Nuria works to combat the reality that so many women lack equal opportunities within their culture, often stemming from a lack of education and professional development early in life. With a mission to set a higher standard in the beauty industry, Nuria also connects women globally, to share our skincare wisdom with each other, and to help girls achieve their full potential. As a part of this mission, Nuria donates a portion of every sale to She’s the First, a non-profit that fights gender inequality by providing education to girls. To-date Nuria has donated six figures and based on their total donations, they have provided 4.5k months of education.
Beyond working to improve education, some of the things that set Nuria apart from other brands are that Nuria products are not only cruelty-free (Leaping Bunny certified), vegan, allergen-free, effective, and safe, but also carbon-neutral. We have offset the carbon footprint of every product over its entire lifecycle, from raw material extraction and manufacturing through product use and recycling. So our consumers can confidently use Nuria products and know that they are taking great care of themselves and the planet, while empowering the next generation of women.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
All women should have the same chance to realize their full potential. I want to help create a world where every single girl finishes high school. That might sound ambitious, but I don’t think that’s unreasonable. It is unacceptable that, in 2018, 63 million girls worldwide didn’t have the opportunity to get a high school education. Once a girl is given an education, she has experienced irreversible growth, and this cannot be taken from her. In 2017, Project Drawdown published the top ways that we could combat climate change. In the top 5, higher than plastics recycling and electric cars, was educating women and girls. Educated girls realize higher wages, contribute to economic growth, and improve health outcomes for themselves, their family, and their entire community, and all of these improvements lead to lower emissions and improvements in global climate change. Providing the support for every girl to finish a high school education would truly change the planet.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
I would love to talk to Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo. Not only has she had an absolutely incredible career, but in some of her public writings, she has expressed her ability to maintain her core family values through all of it. I would like to learn more from her experience on what we could continue to do to support women’s leadership positions in the workplace without simultaneously discarding what may define us as women in the process.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Female Founders: Naomi Furgiuele of Nuria On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.