E253: A Billion dollar NIGHTMARE! The Disturbing Drama Behind The Scenes Of A Billion Dollar Beauty Business. The Ordinary - Nicola Kilner

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

FlightStory

Society & Culture, Business, Education

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2023

⏱️ 114 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nicola began her career as a business-management student at Nottingham Trent University, where her sponsored work program with the pharmacy chain Boots led to her becoming one of the company’s youngest buyers. In 2011, she met Brandon Truaxe who would found and launch DECIEM in 2013, with Nicola serving as brand director. DECIEM was a skin-care company made up of 10 different brands, the most popular was ‘The Ordinary’, which was launched in 2013. After Brandon’s struggles with mental health crises, Nicola became DECIEM’s Chief Executive in 2018.

In this conversation Nicola and Steven discuss topics, such as:

Managing an organisation through the Covid-19 pandemic
Recovering from the death of a founder and honouring their memory
Juggling pregnancy, motherhood and being a CEO
Making a company feel more like a family than a business
The skills she implements as a leader and CEO

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My new book! 'The 33 Laws Of Business & Life' per order link: https://smarturl.it/DOACbook

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Sponsors:

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Just a tragic story and a tragic ending.
0:03.2	It's hard to say if it's regress, but is there anything different we could have done?
0:09.2	Nicola Kielner
0:10.4	Co-founder and CEO of Desium and the Ordner.
0:13.2	This is the unthinkable, inspirational and tragic story of how she built a $2.2 billion empire.
0:20.0	I always just had this feeling that the only way to achieve financial freedom is entrepreneurship.
0:24.6	And then I met Brandon.
0:26.6	Brandon True Acts
0:28.2	founder of Desium and the Ordner.
0:30.6	One of the fastest growing skin care companies in the world.
0:33.6	A success story.
0:35.4	The minute in launch we couldn't keep it in stock,
0:37.8	producing 400,000 units every single day and valued at $2.2 billion.
0:42.8	It truly happened what felt like overnight.
0:45.4	And this is really where Brandon's behavior started to change.
0:49.4	He'd gone from someone who there was just so much warmth to just this coldness in his eyes.
0:54.4	I was suddenly pushed out of everything.
0:56.4	And then I got fired.
0:57.6	Use of emails were being sent firing people and copying the whole company in.
1:02.0	Everything was played out on Instagram.
1:03.8	Saying he was shutting down the entire company.
1:06.0	The shareholders had to step in.
	...

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