Are two CEOs better than one? The team behind the Los Angeles-based on-demand beauty app, beGlammed, is betting on it. beGlammed’s Founder Maile Pacheco and former Chief Strategy Officer Jennifer Musselman are now co-CEOs. The former CEO Rebby Gregg, who held the position since 2015, will continue to support the team as an investor and a managing member of the company.
Pacheco says she decided to start the company in 2014 after a friend told her how frustrated she was with finding a hairstylist or makeup artist to come to her. “At the time, I had just started using Uber and fell in love with the convenience of the cashless business and seamless booking process, and I had a lightbulb moment and thought, ‘Why not create an Uber for hairstylists and makeup artists?'” says Pacheco.
What was the impetus for the decision to have co-CEOs?
Jennifer Musselman: I wanted to demonstrate the importance of women supporting one another in business, and I couldn’t think of a better way to do so than by empowering [Pacheco] with a C-Suite role. Having [Pacheco] as my co-CEO allows me to be more focused on strategy and move the vision forward expeditiously, while [Pacheco’s] experience in the beauty industry and love of technology is in the detail of all that we do. Some of the most iconic brands came from dynamic duos: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard of Hewlett-Packard and Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben and Jerry’s. [Pacheco] and I are bringing a little Thelma and Louise to the boys club.
What are your responsibilities as co-CEOs of beGlammed?
Musselman: We meet several times a week to discuss or even challenge one another on some of the fundamental decisions we have to make for the business. For the day-to-day, [Pacheco] and I have carved out where our skills and experience best complement each other. [Pacheco] oversees our beauty professional engagement, recruitment and development; I spearhead brand marketing, business development and tying the operations together as a whole. We work collaboratively and have a dual-reporting structure in client services, technology and finance. Perhaps, most importantly, our philosophies align on the importance of culture – in brand voice and with employees. [Pacheco] appreciates my psychology background which encourages healthy confrontation to make better business decisions. That’s really at the core of why we can effectively co-lead.
Maile Pacheco: [Musselman] and I have complementary skills that will add significant value to beGlammed’s growth in our current stage. The responsibilities are no different for us versus a single CEO. We may actually achieve company benchmarks and objectives more quickly and efficiently with our combined efforts and each of us overseeing specific areas of the business.
What are the most important characteristics someone needs to have to be successful in your role?
Musselman: My experience as a global brand executive at Viacom has been invaluable in leading the team toward our vision; I have been where we need to go. But veteran experience alone could hold a company back to simply doing things the way things have always been done, especially in the tech industry which moves at lightning speed.
I’ve always prided myself on being open to learning from those I respect. I’ve had assistants and interns bring good ideas to the table that I hadn’t thought of, so openness with experience is a winning combination.
I’m most known for pushing companies or people outside their comfort zones, to expand and innovate, methodically driving transformation and innovation forward. There’s always a method to my madness. I’m very strong-willed, and I had to learn how to harness that through emotional intelligence and strategic risk-taking.
Pacheco: What are you doing when no one is watching? Are you being honest and truthful in your actions? Effectively manage from the heart and treat each person on the team like the most important asset to the company, because they are. Tact is contagious and imperative when you’re working with a large workforce of independent contractors who you don’t physically interact with on a daily basis.
You have to truly love what you do, enough to get you out of bed early and to keep you up late at night. Learning and understanding every aspect of your business, inside and out, comes from passion and drive. Aside from a great business, passion ignites excitement and motivation and is also attractive to potential investors if you’re fundraising.
The uncanny ability to keep going and believing in yourself and your team, even through the most challenging of times. You may hear 70 “no’s” before hearing a “yes” and you keep fighting until you finally hear that “yes.” Leaders with grit have the ability to problem-solve through complications and hard times and are collaborative and listen to their team and their peers.
What has been the biggest challenge and, on the flip side, the biggest reward of starting beGlammed?
Pacheco: One of the biggest challenges for me and for many new entrepreneurs, especially in the early stages of building a company, is prioritizing the workload. I would ask myself, where do I start? What should I tackle first? What’s the most important thing I should be doing right now with my time?
As a founder, your list of tasks grows, even as you are checking things off. Of course, my creative self wanted to start with design, branding and marketing, the areas I felt most confident in. While all of those areas are important to every company and need attention eventually, I quickly realized during that time that I needed to focus my attention on more important aspects of the business: financial forecasting, negotiating partnership contracts with my investors and creating a proof of concept for my idea.
What’s really rewarding for me is knowing that beGlammed is providing a predominantly female workforce a pipeline of work and sustainable income that puts food on the table for themselves and their families. beGlammed is a platform for freelancers to own their career and their lifestyle and grow their professional experiences – a platform I wish was available to me when I was learning the ropes of the beauty industry as a celebrity makeup artist.
What are three characteristics you look for when you’re hiring a new team member?
Musselman: Openness, strong sense of self (secure, no ego) and hard work ethic. Some jobs require fundamental skills of a trade, like coding. But when people can come together and are not afraid to not know everything, they are able to let down their guards, take risks and voice their opinions. This is what the strongest teams and most successful businesses are made of. I look at how an individual will fit within a team environment because there’s not one person who should be so valuable that he or she is more valuable than the collective team, not even a CEO.
What’s the biggest lesson you learned at work and how did you learn it?
Musselman: You can only change yourself and influence others. I’d been in previous positions before where my strong will and clarity of what needed to be done to succeed overpowered and alienated others. I had to learn the art of “buying-in” to move my vision forward. The hardest lesson came when understanding that you’re not always going to get the buy-in you need. At that point, you have to decide if it’s happening enough times that it’s clear you’ve outgrown your team, boss or role. Instead of becoming disgruntled, you look for new opportunities to expand and leave graciously. Or, you make the choice to stay and shift your attitude to align with their vision. I’m a firm believer in personal choice no matter your position, as well as accountability for your choices – both the good and the bad.
Pacheco: To be self-aware. I’ve held many positions in my career, from working in a stock room of a cosmetic store to launching a new corporate position within a global brand. One thing that I learned along the way regardless of what position I held, is that my actions, reactions and tact affected my personal performance and actually may have influenced the people around me. I learned what my strengths were, and I accepted the areas of opportunities I had to grow with constructive feedback from my peers and management. Personal growth is just as important to me as professional growth. To be self-aware is to be coachable. A coachable leader never shies away from advice, regardless of whether the advice comes from a stock person or an executive.
What is one thing you wish you would have known when you were starting out your career?
Musselman: Careers are a delicate balance of pushing your boundaries and driving toward success and knowing when to take your foot off the gas to recalibrate and ask yourself, “Am I still enjoying this?” And if not, that’s okay. Give yourself permission to grow and do something different. Try something new or reinvent your current job to make it work for you again. It was a windy road to CEO, but I’m a more well-rounded person and a better leader for it.
What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
Pacheco: The best advice I’ve received is to be adaptable in all regards, in both work life and personal life.
What is your business advice for other young professional women?
Musselman: Hold your value and raise each other up. Too many times I’ve held myself back in my career, both in advancement and monetarily, because I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers and make my needs more important than someone else’s or the team’s. Advocating for others comes very naturally to me. Advocating for myself is uncomfortable, but I learned that if I don’t, people — personally and professionally — won’t value you at your worth and will try to take advantage of you. Do your homework and know your value in the marketplace and demand your worth.
