INNOVATOR
Jo Malone, founder, Jo Loves
"MY VOICE IS IMPORTANT, NOT JUST FOR MYSELF AND MY BUSINESS, BUT BECAUSE PEOPLE TRUST ME WHEN I SAY SOMETHING, AND I NEVER TAKE THAT FOR GRANTED. I FEEL THAT IS A RESPONSIBILITY THAT IS BECOMING MORE AND MORE APPARENT IN MY LIFE."
JO MALONE, FOUNDER, JO LOVES The “English scent maverick” on her second entrepreneurial innings, and why she believes success is a journey b y TA M A R A P U P I C
T
he story of Jo Malone serves as a testament that entrepreneurial spirit never fades. In 1983, the then 21-yearold Malone started up her fragrance and scented candle business Jo Malone London from her kitchen, opened
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her first store in London in 1994, and five years later, sold the company to Estée Lauder Companies for an undisclosed amount, remaining its Creative Director until leaving the enterprise in 2006. Then, owing to a noncompete agreement signed with Estée Lauder, Malone was prevented from launch-
"WHEN WE WERE RECRUITING, I WENT TO THE THEATRE INDUSTRY, AND I FOUND PEOPLE WHO USED TO BE ON STAGE. THEY CAN PERFORM, DANCE, SING, AND TELL GREAT STORIES. SO, PEOPLE WORKING IN MY SHOPS HAVE NOT COME FROM THE RETAIL INDUSTRY AT ALL.”
IMAGES COURTESY JO LOVES
CRAFTING CREATIVITY
ing a new fragrance or skincare brand for five years. For others, being internationally praised as a self-made entrepreneur might have been enough, but what happened after those five years was one more detail that set Malone apart from her peers. “When it came towards the end of that period, I realized that the desire to create fragrance was just too powerful for me,” Malone remembers. “And so, I decided to try one more time, and see if I could build it again.” And that’s how the Jo Loves brand came to be, Malone’s new scent, bath, body and candle collection, which she launched in 2011. I spoke with Malone at The Retail Summit held in February in Dubai, and when we meet at the lobby of The Atlantis Dubai, I can see that she is relaxed around journalists, and generous with warmth and empathy,
while also answering all my questions with complete honesty, which, for her, I notice, hardly needs to be a conscious effort. And thus, she opens up that starting a business for the second time round was probably one of the hardest things she had ever done. “For the first two years, I regretted that decision every single day of my life,” she says. “It was hard, because no one knew that I had left [Jo Malone London], and I had the responsibility to the Lauder family, and to the consumer, and also to myself. Sometimes, regardless of what you most want in life, you have to be respectful of the people around you. Relationships are a golden ticket in life. On the other side, if I hadn’t done it, I would have denied myself as a person. I would have denied that one thing that had motivated me, and had made me happy. So, I really had to think differently.”
