A Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship in the USA for the acumen built up as the founder of Dermalogica – the leading professional skincare brand in the world – Jane Wurwand shares the lessons picked up along her unorthodox business journey.
A BUSY TEENAGER
“I started working at a local salon in Dorset in the UK, at 13, doing the laundry and other tasks. I learnt an incredible work ethic there and fell in love with this industry, so when I finished school, I went straight to studying skincare. But I’m not a cosmetic chemist: I’ve never been to college or university and I’ve never taken a business class – which might be incredibly frightening when you consider that I’m developing products!”
FIVE WORDS THAT SHAPED ME
“My mother told me and my sisters: ‘Learn how to do something.’ And she knew what she was talking about. She’d been widowed at the age of 38 with four girls to raise. I was two years old when my dad died of a massive heart attack and stroke, aged 42. But my mother had had nursing training, which she used to put food on our table. I’ve been an advocate for vocational training since then.”
LEAVING THE UK
“I moved to the USA in 1983 with just a suitcase, but the first place I immigrated to in 1978 was SA. I lived here for four years. I was a skin therapist in Sea Point, Cape Town. The next two years, I made extraordinary friends and had incredible clients, who were very hard taskmasters. I realised that my skills set needed a lot of polishing.
“When I later moved to the USA, I was classically under-prepared. There was a 10,4% unemployment rate in California, which I’d neglected to find out about before I arrived, so nobody was really hiring. However, I always get jobs very quickly because I’m relentless and pretty good at what I do. I can wax a bikini line in seven minutes!”
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