Hi everyone I'm Hillary Kerr, the co-founder and chief content officer of who

what wear and this is Second Life, a podcast spotlighting women who have truly inspiring careers.

We're talking about their work journeys, what they've learned from the process of setting aside their doubts or fears,

and what happens when they embark on their second life.

Today I'm speaking with the founder of Tacha, Vicky Sai.

Tacha is a skin care company that combines Japanese botanicals

with clinically backed ingredients

to help heal people's skin and soul.

Though Vicky is a major player in the skin care space now,

it took years of trial and error

to find work that matched her values.

She first began her career on Wall Street. to find work that matched her values.

She first began her career on Wall Street

as a derivatives trader at Merrill Lynch in New York City.

While there, she witnessed firsthand the September 11th attacks on the Twin Towers, and we actually recorded

this episode on the 22nd anniversary of that day.

Please note that Vicky and I do share our experiences of being in New York City on 9-11, so if you want to avoid that content,

you'll want to skip ahead to around the 15 or 16-minute mark.

Through that traumatic experience, Vicky realized that she needed to find more fulfilling work and ultimately left her finance job to attend Harvard Business School for a fresh start.

She first interned at SK2 and then took a job with

Starbucks in China and later joined a tech startup focused on sustainability.

However, Vicky was still struggling

...