Episode 43
March 2, 2021

Sun Up to Sun Down

with Amanda Baldwin, CEO of Supergoop!

About this episode

Supergoop! is the first protective skincare brand that puts sunscreen at the forefront of everything, creating highly innovative, reef safe, feel good formulas that are developed for all skin tones. In this episode, Supergoop! CEO, Amanda Baldwin, shares with us her journey from growing up as a gymnast, to starting her career in private equity, to transitioning into marketing and landing a job at Estée Lauder, to leading Supergoop! over the past four years, growing the company more than 10x and the team to over 50 people. She talks with us about finding and growing talent, how morning runs are some of her best strategy sessions, and how she thinks about board meetings.

This episode is sponsored by

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In This Episode You’ll Hear About:

  • How being born and raised in New York City and growing up as a gymnast gave her a drive for setting big goals, handling challenges, and working hard
  • Why walking into the wrong room by accident during a Harvard Crimson information session changed her life trajectory because it was there that she fell in love with branding, marketing, and finance as career options
  • How her time at Goldman on Wall Street and in private equity taught her so much in a short period of time with a lot of hard work and long hours
  • Why Amanda’s time at Estee Lauder was an incredible experience where she was able to learn from great leaders and grow in her own leadership style
  • How a networking friendship led to an opportunity to become President and later CEO of Supergoop! 
  • Why team building, company culture fit, and great training within the company are a priority and why they are making a difference at Supergoop!
  • How Amanda led, and still is leading, the company through COVID meanwhile embracing challenges along the way
  • Why morning runs are an important part of her day and a crucial part of being a great leader
  • What is coming up at Supergoop! and why they are committed to going where no SPF has gone before

To Find Out More:

supergoop.com

Quotes:

“I was always listening to what was going on around me and trying to sort of soak it up as a sponge. And I would just take on whatever was thrown at me.”

“I remember going to my boss and sort of talking to him about how I was really interested in the "other side of the table" and him being really supportive of me applying to go. And that's sort of what pivoted me to apply to business school. And I did write my business school essay about how I wanted to be a beauty CEO one day.”

“Finding people who've been on common paths is often a great way to open doors because they understand what you're bringing to the table in a way that somebody who doesn't have your background maybe needs a little bit more education to understand.”

“I just felt like I was speaking a language that was my native tongue and that I kind of just instinctively knew how to do it. It didn't seem so hard. And that to me was a sign of it making sense.”

“I think that real leadership is about seeing the future, piecing together where the world is going and being brave enough to kind of go for it.”

“You don't get anywhere by being stressed out or being angry or not handling things in a professional manner. People look up to you, you're the calm, and you've got to reflect that.”

“A team is really successful because of all the different kinds of voices in the room and different sets of expertise and different viewpoints and different ways that people are looking at information.”

“The number one thing is building the team, and building the culture that supports that team. The first thing I think about this morning and the last thing I think about before I go to bed.”

“It is my responsibility to make sure that there's a very clear idea of what our goals are, of what order of operations we're going to do things in. And then also along the way, I also think of it as sort of my job to clear the hurdles, to open the doors and clear the hurdles.”

“I think really creating a space where people are encouraged to take risks. There's nothing wrong with failure, and there's a premium put on learning. I think it's really, really important. Because you don't grow and you don't learn unless you are given the freedom to go and do that.”

“I think that a great board is meant to give input. I always say I look forward to our board meetings, that I want the input, I want the advice. So that's why we have to shape the materials that we present to sort of help us extract that advice from our board.”

“You can either decide to survive or you can decide to thrive.”

“A great CEO is also sort of knowing when you don't know and being OK with that and sort of thinking through who might know the answer.”

“When you're in my shoes you don't go home at night and put down your laptop and stop thinking about it or stop caring about the people or stop caring about the business. It is a 24/7 job.”



Read the transcript

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