Janet is co-founder and managing partner of Charlotte Rhys, South Africa’s leading luxurious bath, body and lifestyle range. Within 14 years the brand expanded from a single product to over 100 luxury products. Today they supply leading hotels across the world.
My Definition Of Success | Success means achieving the goals you set, and it is inevitable that these goals change and become greater and more ambitious as your business grows.
I Am Driven By | The desire to provide the South African market with a superior range of luxury products that are better than the very best international brands. And to keep improving and extending the range as the tastes and needs of our customers change.
My Highlights | From the very beginning 14 years ago, we have always had a strict policy of sustainability, environmental responsibility and anti-cruelty, long before these buzzwords were fashionable. It brought a unique set of challenges to the table to ensure that these criteria were always met, when developing a top of the range luxury brand. However to our immense pride we succeeded. Our brand is unique at the top end of our market sector, having Beauty Without Cruelty accreditation, being eco-friendly, biodegradable, using 70% recycled and recyclable packaging material and being free of harmful chemicals and dyes. An extremely rare combination of technological excellence, luxury, environmental responsibility and ethics. We take great pride in having achieved this.
The Difference Between Good And Great | We set the bar very, very high when developing a local brand that would match or surpass the best of the international beauty brands, and we have always maintained that benchmark. Every single product that we manufacture conforms to the highest international quality standards of excellence and luxury and we will never deviate from that. And I think that is the difference between a good and a great product, and people who are good at what they do and people who are great at what they do. Making sure you never drop your standards and never accept mediocrity.
A Key Talent | When you are starting out, grow organically and take it slow. Don’t fall into the trap of taking out high interest loans and getting into unmanageable debt. Another thing I learnt is not to be seduced by big turnover. If the bottom line is not worth it, it is often better to walk away.
The Characteristics Of Success | I have always had a strong work ethic and a keen business sense and these have certainly been crucial in helping me achieve my goals.
Principles I Live By | Honesty, ethics and a sense of responsibility towards your employees, your customers and your suppliers.
Critical Skills I Develop | Human resource skills and computer skills have been the greatest learning curve in running one’s own business.
Performing At My Peak | I lead a very active life both physically and mentally, which helps to keep me at my peak.
Resources I Use To Stay Inspired | I enjoy reading, mainly biographies, as well as watching a good movie or stage play. However my greatest enjoyment and inspiration comes from the menagerie of animals I live with. Dogs, cats, ducks, rescued battery chickens and an aviary of exotic parrots. They keep me inspired, grounded and help me relax and switch off at the end of a long hectic day.
Ajen Sita is the CEO of Ernst & Young Africa. Ajen joined the firm in 1993 focusing on entrepreneurial growth companies. He became a partner in 1999 and was appointed head of the entrepreneurial services division in 2001. Sita is the E&Y’s South African head of audit and chairman of the South Africa’s Thuthuka Education […]
Phil has more than 24 years’ experience in the fast-moving consumer goods industry in various senior positions. Phil has previously served as COO – Africa for Coca Cola SABCO and as an Executive Director at Tiger Brands. My Definition Of Success | Success is two-fold. My job is extremely important to me. That said, as […]
Jon Mooallem is a a contributing writer at New York Times Magazine and writer at large for Pop-Up Magazine. Jon is also the author of American Hippopotamus and Wild Ones. Jon Mooallem Definition Of Success | I used to conflate success with impressing people and accumulating little tokens of prestige. Now, I see success in […]
Chetan Bhagat is an Indian author, columnist, screenwriter, and speaker. All of his books have remained bestsellers since their release and four have inspired Bollywood films. In 2008, The New York Times called Bhagat “the biggest selling English language novelist in India’s history. Time magazine has named him one of the “100 Most Influential People […]
Penny Heyns TLP is, without doubt, the world’s greatest female breaststroke swimmer of the 20th Century. She is the only woman in Olympic history to win both the 100 and 200 meter breaststroke events in Atlanta 1996 and broke 14 individual world records during her career. Her achievements brought her personal audiences with Nelson Mandela […]
Bora Yoon Definition Of Success | Success means living a satisfied life, in which one can pursue the art of creation, cultivating self-knowledge, community and enlightenment both inwards and outwards. I Am Driven By | Transformation, purpose and progress, creating something that wasn’t there before. Defying people’s perceptions and ideas of what could or should be, and […]
Every month I select someone out there who is still a bit too young to be concerned about building and leaving a legacy, but who is nevertheless absolutely ‘crushing’ it and Banele Christopher is my pick for this month’s RISING STAR. With a background in strategic communications, he is a Jozi-based entrepreneur and social media […]
After a ‘moment of magic’ when Anna was spotted by a model agency scout while working as a barmaid in London, she was thrust into the world of International modelling when she joined the agency that also managed supermodels Yasmin Le Bon and Linda Evangelista. She went on to model for some of the biggest […]
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