In-Trend was created 16 years ago, and Emmanuelle Bassmann, Founder & Managing Director of In-Trends, believes that the key quality in creating a successful and long-lasting business is flexibility. Leadership for her is learning to be flexible with the staff, clients, and herself. Mindful leadership has been a discipline that Emmanuelle has adapted which has helped her become a better leader. “It’s about leaving a bit of mental space every day so as to not feel overwhelmed or make any hasty decisions,” she says. “You don’t react to everything that is thrown at you but you absorb them more slowly and calmly, and avoid consuming all your energy fighting conflicts in your brain. It’s also about empathy. We need to see things from the other person’s point of view, which is crucial when managing difficult clients.” For Emmanuelle, listening skills and mindfulness leadership are the way forward in business to start the transformation to create happier workplaces with more fulfillment.

“In-Trend has spotted multitudes of beauty trends with proven commercial value, giving the world’s best companies invaluable power in their trend decision making.”

“Acceptance to failure is also something that I’ve tried to work on. If you work in the fields of both cosmetics and innovations, your job is to push boundaries with what’s already on the market and to come up with a new way to consume beauty,” explains Emmanuelle. “Many innovations you come up with might never be launched, but it doesn’t matter. It’s about planting new seeds and trying to make them grow. Keep inventing!”

In-Trend was born after working in the marketing department of big firms that didn’t know what type of product innovations existed in other countries. Emmanuelle saw a gap in the market for highly specialized and tailored market innovation agencies that were experts in one sector. “Beauty felt like the right place to start as you need to come up with something new every 6 months or even monthly these days! Back in 2006, I created the first trend research agency specialized in beauty,” she says. “An agency made with local innovation correspondents based all around the world. This agency would be the only one that would be able to tell if an innovation is really an innovation as they review beauty products and services around the clock. I believe that to be a good innovator, you need to know the history of your market and what’s already been done to be able to invent the next big thing.”

In-Trend has a team of freelance beauty experts across the globe that update the team daily with new trends and innovative services and products. They spend days interviewing beauty start-ups launching innovative concepts, and brainstorming with their teams of beauty experts. “One of our best-selling reports is called What’s up in skincare? What’s in makeup? We publish them every six months for skincare, makeup, hair care, hair color, hair styling, body care, and they give the most comprehensive panorama of product innovations and the latest macro trends,” says Emmanuelle. “They are so valuable to our clients like L’Oréal, Coty, and Henkel, to name a few. It gives them insights on the products that are currently successful and of the ones that are emerging worldwide.” Suppose a client wants to launch a cleanser for skincare. In that case, they will have a panorama of the most popular cleansers worldwide, the latest needs of consumers, the new emerging concepts around cleansers observed worldwide, and the new alternative ingredients. They all need to construct a winning product development strategy plan for the next two to three years.

Emmanuelle sees In-Trend moving into food shortly. “The beauty of tomorrow will be one that takes a 360 approach to the food we eat, ingestibles (food and supplements), topicals, and wellness therapies/alternative medicines. Beauty will be more than just being skin-deep,” she adds. “Amanda Chantal Bacon, founder of moonjuice, is an amazing trendsetter. She considers 80 per cent of her own skincare routine to be about what’s going on internally and the other 20 per cent about is about applying products externally. This is the future!” IE

In-Trend

Management

Emmanuelle Bassmann
Founder & Managing Director

Description

In-Trend Ltd is a London-based research intelligence agency dedicated to Beauty: retail & professional for 15 years. In-Trend only specializes in beauty related markets: skincare, makeup, body care, hair care, aesthetic medicine and oral care.

Sarah Sagredo-Hammond, Owner & President of Atlas Electrical, Air-conditioning, Refrigeration, and Plumbing, invests time and money in developing her leadership skills to improve communication between her team. Through her mastery of leadership development, she enhances the skills and professionalism of her executive team. She creates a ripple effect that develops their teams with the same intention and cares for professional evolution.

Sarah leads her company by putting her employees first. The team is considered the most critical asset of the company, ensuring continuous professional and personal development with an intentional focus on personality tests that help communicate with each individual in the particular way they feel seen or heard. She, of course, has customary benefits available to her team, but what sets her apart from many CEOs is the personalized attention and care tailored to each employee, meeting them where they are to develop their motivational language.

She is devoted to giving back to the communities that have given so much to her family business. Seen across many organizations as a volunteer, sponsor, investor, or ambassador, her love and devotion to her community are felt by many. Not only does she invest hundreds of thousands of dollars, but her time, talent, and resources as well. To invest a large percentage of time showing up and investing in the communities she serves professionally is a unique attribute in a successful entrepreneur and has been a large part of the scale of growth in her company since taking over.

“Atlas Electrical, Air Conditioning, Refrigeration & Plumbing Services, Inc is ready to help you with any of your electrical, air conditioning, refrigeration or plumbing needs for both your home or business.”

Sarah doesn’t believe in resting on her laurels. She studies daily and reads many books a month, consistently implementing the things she learns. Tackling the challenges and learning curve is part of the job because her focus is on improving the quality of her product, her service, her team, and those who surround her.

The steadfast leader sits as one of three Global leaders in Femcity, a woman’s empowerment organization founded in 2009 to be the largest woman-oriented organization in the world. In five short years, she has proved to be a significant asset in growing and inspiring change in the organization, helping it move away from focusing on women in business to catering to ALL WOMEN who choose to lead a life championing other women. “I am a co-founder of Intently Be, a company focused on creating unique opportunities for women through events, modern luxury retreats, and merchandise with intention to inspire inclusivity, love, and freedom to be uniquely you,” she says. “The launch of the first luxury retreat was a huge success and three more are scheduled for 2022: Dominican Republic, New York, and Greece.”

In the male-dominated industry of HVAC, Sarah has quickly gained an influence. She devotes her time and resources as a board member of the national organization of Women in HVAC to coach on business development, marketing, and leadership to open doors for more women to dominate in this industry.

A key differentiating factor for the company is the gratitude Sarah leads with daily. This gratitude directly translates to the focus and investment in leading her team and the involvement and commitment. “Nothing can be accomplished without people believing in you and giving you the opportunity to serve them, and it is not taken lightly,” she says. “The incredible growth and increase of my bottom line, along with the growth of my influence in the industry across the nation is based on my foundation of people first, profits second.”

Using social media as a part of Atlas proprietary process has likely set them apart locally within their industry and has made Sarah a national influencer in the market. “Not only is it for the growth of our company, but is also used as a free service to the community in the form of blogs and videos of how-tos, informing individuals and business owners on reducing expenses to their bottom line.” The company’s most significant achievement is a continuous growth pattern in the last decade despite trying times like recessions and a pandemic. “Atlas has expanded from an HVAC company to have incorporated many new and diverse divisions like plumbing, electrical, refrigeration, and pest control. Our achievements, innovation, and growth are all due to our people first, profits second approach.” IEWL

Loreen Babcock, CMO of Montefiore, is nothing short of a highly regarded pioneer in healthcare marketing, a forward-reaching thinker here to challenge the rules. Although deeply strategic as she leads, she isn’t afraid to motivate her teams with an iconoclastic mix of both empathy and daring. As CMO of Montefiore, one of New York’s premier academic health systems, Loreen has redefined healthcare marketing not just here, but for the entire industry. How? By disrupting the status quo, smashing antiquated boundaries, and raising the bar on both category and creative execution to inspire meaningful – and lasting – change.

This dedication to inspiration, grounded in Montefiore’s own commitment and vital mission, became a guiding force during the pandemic. While our country, as well as the world, had to learn an entirely new way of living through quarantine, panic, and confusion, it was essential that the communities that Montefiore serves were kept educated and informed. Equally essential: that the heroic healthcare workers on the very front line of the coronavirus epidemic were recognized and fueled by inspiration.

“Expanding our marketing audience to our own healthcare workers, these selfless heroes putting their lives and the lives of their families at risk to save thousands of other lives, was a surreal and historic moment,” says Loreen. “The big question for me was how to connect with our healthcare workers in a way that would have each and every one of them feel our deep gratitude for their courage and bravery to go to the frontline of an unknown battle for the sake of others—for the sake of us. Even more, how that would extend to all healthcare workers placing the healing of their communities before their own needs and safety for the betterment of humanity.”

The stakes could not have been higher. And the need for 24/7, all hands-on deck – as well as the need to rapidly change the context of expedited schedules to ‘COVID Time’ – all required a keen eye toward staying the course of meeting new objectives. Loreen, her marketing team, and her creative, media, production and promotional partners collectively rose to the challenge. Although she, her team or her resource partners did not have a role on the frontline, every single one committed to do their part, whatever it took, whenever it was needed. The outcome was an incredible body of work, as well as new learning – with a positive response from healthcare workers and the market that exceeded all expectations.

“As the crisis is receding, the mission continues its shift to re-establish consumer trust and to motivate the confidence that we will keep patients safe,” explains Loreen. “An important part of that communication is understanding that there are many who are fearful of returning to caring for their health. We must not shy away from that fear, but instead have knowledge and understanding of it. Only then can we create communications that are empathic – unique to our communities —in order to help assure the health of those in our communities is not compromised.” Loreen knows that providing awareness and an easy path to facilitate the adoption of new ways to receive care, such as virtual visits and consultations, is one way to accomplish this goal. And that COVID-19 has also significantly expanded those in need of mental health care, which requires an added emphasis to provide awareness and access to meet this new, greater need.

Leading with both passion and a uniquely egalitarian approach, Loreen believes in breakthrough work on all levels because breakthrough is what changes the paradigm. “Challenge marketing strategy and channels as you have known it. Be brave to resist conventional marketing practices. And above all, show your authenticity.” IEWL

Being hearing impaired from her right ear has posed many challenges for Sylvia Garrett, President & CEO of Sylvia A. Garrett & Associates Agency, but that did not deter her from her goal of becoming one of the most sought-after leaders in the industry. “There have been instances where I wasn’t able to hear a person in a crowded room. I am sure, it may have impacted my communication in a manner. I work extra hard to “listen” so that I can ensure understanding.”

“The Sylvia A. Garrett Agency is an independent insurance agency. We work with numerous providers to cover your home, auto, life, and business insurance. Our mission is to protect and build wealth for families and businesses by providing exceptional service while empowering our Team, our Customers and our Community. | Protect.Serve.Empower”

Sylvia believes one becomes a leader by establishing a clear vision and mission and successfully navigating others, against all obstacles, to mission achievement. Leadership also requires understanding and embracing core values and ensuring one’s environment reflects a culture whereby those values are practiced. “Finally, Leadership is caring for others, our community, and our world and demonstrating care with action,” says Sylvia, who recently received the Pillar Award, as a result of Community Service Leadership. “Our mission is to protect and build wealth for families and businesses by providing exceptional service. Our agency has structured what “exceptional service means from inception to closure, as well as defined exceptional service for the ongoing maintenance of the account.”

Sylvia A. Garrett Agency was born to diversify the insurance and financial industry and to empower the community. There are few women-owned insurance and financial services companies, even fewer women of color; it is an extremely complex and highly regulated business model that requires skillful strategic and management capabilities. “At any one time, we are carefully balancing: needs of customers, carriers’ requirements, financial industry oversight, service best practices, operational HR/training demands, etc.,” she says. “Therefore, it is not a business that should be entered into lightly. I think more than anything, my presence dictates, women of color cannot only exist in the industry but compete extremely well.”

According to Sylvia, having a team of licensed professionals with extensive industry knowledge within itself is not enough. The team must be focused upon transitioning their knowledge to empower customers in their decision-making. “The goal is to protect families and households to do this, it is critical for us to get to know our customers and their needs. We must share knowledge and information so that the customer trusts our ability to provide guidance regarding insurance coverage options. We must also be sensitive to each family’s budget,” she explains. “One customer reached out to me, stating she had talked with 5 other agents and they had been unsuccessful in obtaining insurance for her agency.” Sylvia asked her questions to understand her business model and probed to determine why other agents had difficulty placing her insurance risk. “As a result, I was able to articulate her business model and determine her risks/exposure as a business owner and advocate from her business when I spoke with an underwriter,” explains Sylvia. “She was extremely happy when I reached out to her to inform her, a carrier would provide her a quote. To add icing on the cake, the cost of the insurance protection/coverage was within her budget!”

Sylvia plans to retire and travel around the world in the next 5-7 years or explore an adjunct professor’s role, which she had previously taken up. Currently, she is working on a succession plan. “I am weighing multiple options. I would like to work with a partner, who appreciates my business acumen and business model,” says Sylvia. “My goal is to continue to diversify my portfolio by significantly increasing by commercial/business insurance portfolio prior to my retirement. As I look for a partner, I would want to align with a company with a national footprint. I am currently in 14 States, as well as, have “direct” access to a lot more insurance carriers.” IE

Gabriella Szekely joined Glaukos in 2015, just after the company was listed on the NYSE after more than 17 years of experience in pharmaceutical drug development at 3M, Pfizer, and Allergan. She and her team contributed to developing new medicines such as Aldara®/Immiquimod, Pregabalin/Lyrica®, and therapeutic indications of Botox, including spasticity and chronic migraine. She has been leading the R&D transformation at Glaukos from a purely medical device to a hybrid pharmaceutical company that develops breakthrough, vision-saving ophthalmic therapies. Gabriella established key scientific functions responsible for drug discovery research, including pharmacology, toxicology, drug disposition, and pharmaceutical development sciences, by hiring key talent and establishing the multidisciplinary collaborations necessary for the complex interdisciplinary innovation required for the successful development and regulatory approval of novel therapies. Persistence, curiosity, tireless efforts to solve complex scientific problems, and building highly effective teams are key in overcoming the many challenges they typically face on the 10-15 year-long journey that leads from a new idea to a novel, approved medical therapy.

Gabriella mentored several women at different stages in their careers. Working in the life sciences/pharmaceutical industry, where many leaders are trained as scientists, developing business understanding and nurturing leadership skills are especially important—recognizing the talent in potential future leaders and providing them opportunities to grow and challenge themselves without the fear of failure in a supportive environment. Her advice to future aspiring leaders is to see and seize the opportunity in every situation. “Be brave and be bold to step up to new challenges. Remain humble, non-judgmental and practice servant leadership to enable and support others to succeed,” she says. “I have had an opportunity to work with a number of exceptionally talented and highly motivated women who had great educational foundation and product development experience and just needed to be encouraged and build their self-confidence to pursue potential leadership opportunities in our diverse scientific teams.” Armed with a unique ideology, Gabriella has been taking the company to new heights.

Glaukos was founded in 1998 as a medical device company and has been a trailblazer in defining a whole new class of therapy for patients suffering from glaucoma. If this condition is left untreated, it may lead to vision loss. Traditionally, anti-hypertensive eyedrop therapies are used to treat this.

However, patient compliance with medications remains a key challenge, and 50% of patients are non-compliant due to their ability to administer their eyedrops accurately or regularly. In addition, eye drops may also have undesirable side effects, such as redness, irritation, drowsiness, or allergic reactions.

Glaukos pioneered Micro-Invasive Glaucoma Surgery, or MIGS which offered a safe alternative and revolutionized the traditional glaucoma treatment and management paradigm. “We launched the iStent®, our first MIGS device, in the United States in 2012, our next-generation iStent inject® device in the United States in 2018, and most recently, the iStent inject W device in 2020. The iStent is the smallest medical device approved worldwide to be implanted in the eye and has been implanted in more than 800,000 eyes globally to date.” Since its inception, Glaukos has become an ophthalmic medical technology and pharmaceutical company focused on novel therapies to treat glaucoma, corneal disorders, and retinal diseases.

“In corneal health, our proprietary suite of single-use, bio-activated pharmaceuticals are designed to strengthen, stabilize and reshape the cornea through a process called corneal collagen cross-linking to treat corneal ectatic disorders and correct refractive conditions,” says Gabriella. “We are leveraging our platform technologies to build a comprehensive and proprietary portfolio of micro-scale surgical and pharmaceutical ophthalmic therapies.” Their most recent proprietary non-invasive topical drug delivery platform is designed to be used on the eyelid to treat dry eye disease, presbyopia, glaucoma, and other ocular surface and corneal disorders such as blepharitis, conjunctivitis, and related conditions. “We are pioneers of designing and manufacturing micro-scale devices for the eye, as well as developing novel reservoir based or biodegradable drug delivery systems that are very safe, non-invasive to administer and provide vision saving medical therapy.” IEWL

For Tina Anne Sebastian, Co-Founder of Quacoon, anticipating unexpected hurdles and handling these in a calm but responsive manner without giving up is key to launching and building a startup, for her resilience and determination are two of the defining characteristics that have helped her not only on the entrepreneurial journey but in life in general.

“I believe that the work I do is on behalf of all women who are expected to play traditional roles and denied an opportunity to define their life path or follow their dream career, whether it be in the form of an entrepreneur or as a job they like,” she explains. “There is a lot of talent being wasted due to these conventional gender norms that often restrict women from the workforce.” This is especially relevant considering that most people who left employment during the pandemic to care for their children at home were women. Taking on the role of a woman founder under these circumstances alone, especially without a safety net or a support system, should inspire other women to follow suit.

Tina is also the founder of Card-Boss, which uses AI to grade sports cards online, currently a patent-pending invention. She is the editor at The Melting Potter a global media site focused on sustainable, inclusive, and ethical business, technology, investing, lifestyle, environmental issues, and entrepreneurship. She is a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and holds certifications in quantum computing and cybersecurity from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “In the past year, I co-authored a paper “Implementing evidence-based instruments to improve the measurement of frailty levels among home-delivered meal clients” along with Dr.Lisa Juckett, Professor at OSU and the Meal-On-Wheels non-profit based on an analytics project completed for them,” she adds.

At Quacoon, Tina, along with co-founder Barbara Dunn—who brings significant experience in supply chain management—have ensured that they have an equal number of women team members, thus ensuring equal opportunities. Quacoon was born out of the disruption in essential item supply chains, such as food and toilet paper, witnessed and experienced during the pandemic. This was not just a minor inconvenience but a major event that led to increased hunger and poverty worldwide, while excess food was rotting and being discarded in other parts of the world.

In light of these shocks, companies need to maximize their operational resilience for future unexpected disruptions. The only viable solution is to break down existing silos, enable cross-company collaboration, increase end-to-end visibility, and ensure ready access to alternate options. To be truly effective, this collaboration needs to happen in a voluntary, self-organizing manner, which Quacoon hopes to achieve with its social platform. Some of the features of this proposed solution include crowdsourced product shortage information, real-time demand and supply planning ecosystem, end-to-end traceability and analytics, alerts, and news from the ecosystem for timely decisions and sharing of trucks, warehouses, and other resources. A significant feature is the ability to integrate with existing systems.

The company’s pilot client, a grocery chain located in Columbus, Ohio, has assisted Quacoon to realize its full potential. “While we are still working on the project with them, our initial phases of implementation have shown promising responses from the consumers,” she says. “We are working on building a resilient supply chain that will enable them to serve their customers better and expand their business.”

For the days to come, Quacoon aims at becoming a household name, being used by every single company and individual involving supply chains. It will be the global de-facto platform for building and maintaining resilient, secure, and sustainable supply chains in an easy, affordable manner in ten years. “We plan to expand to be a full-fledged platform that anyone can sign up and intuitively use to achieve the best possible results without complicated jargon or training or manuals. We are just getting started and the future is certainly bright and fun,” says Tina. IE

Quacoon

Management

Tina Anne Sebastian
Co-Founder

Description

Reimagining supply chains with Quantum and AI.

Margaret Regan, president and CEO of The FutureWork Institute is a visionary and futurist who constantly researches the next 10 years to help her clients catch the wave before it drowns them. Every two years, she reinvents the organization by completely rethinking its structure to respond to “what’s next” for the workforce, workplace, and marketplace. She created a culture based on “myjob-myway, myperks-myway, my business-our way,” which allows staff to move fluidly in and out of several concentric circles: full-time or part-time staff, associates, associate partners, affiliates, etc. She has won the Promise of Innovation Award for her people, process, structure, and culture at The FutureWork Institute (FWI).

As a futurist and member of the World Future Society, Margaret is often asked to bring to her keynote presentations and consulting assignments a perspective on the next 10 years and their implications for workforce change management. Her keynote presentations, See the Future to Be the Future, are visual journeys into the next 10 years as ESIs and AI change the nature of how we work and serve clients. As a global diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant, Margaret has led executive teams in Japan, keynoted future-focused conferences in Europe, Asia, and North America, worked in Paris on French-American mergers and global summits, educated executive teams on cross-cultural differences, and conducted women’s studies in the US, Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

Margaret operates at the cutting edge of change, using research and consulting expertise to help clients envision the future manager, employee, and customer. She works with her clients to help them lead change at every level, give them a competitive advantage in the war for talent, and provide the market insight to target products and services for an increasingly diverse and rapidly changing customer base. She also works with clients going through a change process to coach individual executives on leading the change. Having been the first woman executive in three different companies, she spends much of her time helping executives understand, recognize, and address personal, style, leadership, and behavioral issues. When new women entrepreneurs start their business, Margaret spends an afternoon or an evening with them, helping them get started and advising them on celebrating their wins and learning from their losses. She also spends a lot of time on women’s work/life issues as they balance the entrepreneur’s life with family commitments. She has helped several women start their businesses and been there as a coach and colleague when they are ready to give up, or the work becomes more than they feel they can handle. She has also pushed women to step up into leadership roles, even when they think they are not ready, since men step up when they only have 60% of what is needed, and women tend to wait to have 100%. Armed with just brilliant ideologies, Margaret has been leading the company towards greater heights.

The FutureWork Institute, a global consulting firm that translates future trends to transform organizations, operates on five continents. It was also born because clients wanted to work with a woman-owned business. The FutureWork Institute is a certified women-owned business (WBE) incubator of innovation and change in addressing current and future workplace and marketplace issues.

As the Global Pandemic emerged, The FutureWork Institute became known as the firm that has the most experience in virtual collaboration and learning modalities. They gave birth to their sister company, CNDG UniVirtual, that has been building immersive virtual worlds for 12 years. To help keep social distance, Margaret created the FutureWork Conference Center in immersive virtual reality with CNDG/UniVirtual. This allows clients to hold conferences, meeting and training in auditoriums, exhibit halls, meeting rooms and classrooms with breakout spaces in a Mountain Cabin, Space Station, Tropical Island, a Tokyo or Paris office, etc.. What clients find so important in the “Now Normal” is that the Center allows employees to create their diverse avatars and go to the cinema together, learn dances from different cultures, ice skate, jet ski, go hang gliding and ride in a hot air balloon with colleagues without worrying about social distance and without suffering the endless Zoom fatigue. This is all part of Margaret’s focus on helping clients achieve a MindShift, a HeartShift, and a SkillShift in creating a more inclusive, future-focused culture and environment. IEWL

Ronit Pinto, founder of the award-winning media company Honeysuckle Magazine, has been a bold and creative thinker her entire life. Raised in Texas, after graduating college she cultivated her professional interest in art and culture in Tel Aviv, where she worked at an art gallery with European dealers and interned at City Lights, the lifestyle edition of The Jerusalem Post.

“At The Jerusalem Post, I interviewed directors, artists, Tarot card readers, environmentalists, animal rights activists, and filmmakers… [I] was kind of ‘let loose’ to do whatever I wanted,” Pinto says. “It was a wonderful experience that enabled me to get out there on the street. That ‘boots on the ground’ approach and form of agency has informed my personal and professional approach today. You want to learn something? Go and find out about it!”

Pinto has carried over the “boots on the ground” philosophy to Honeysuckle. The brand was incorporated in Detroit in 2013, the city Ronit made her home after leaving Tel Aviv. (“It’s where my mom’s family is from originally,” she notes.) While working on film sets in Detroit – such as Michael Bay’s Transformers series and projects for Jim Jarmusch and the late Wesley Craven – Ronit also grew her journalistic portfolio. She became Allure’s Detroit beauty writer and worked as a publisher’s assistant for a fashion and design magazine. With Honeysuckle’s creation, Pinto merged her passions for film and journalism into a source for intellectual curiosity with a soul – an educational and stimulating publication through a cultural lens.

“Honeysuckle has always been a platform encouraging hope and individual expression in the face of challenging and extraordinary circumstances,” she says. “Even when facing an international pandemic!”

Since relocating its headquarters to New York, Honeysuckle’s media footprint has grown exponentially. The brand has won awards for its social justice reporting, including two New York State government honors: A New York State Assembly Citation Award from Assemblywoman Inez E. Dickens of Harlem for significant contribution to the culture and community of New York City, and an award from State Senator Brian Benjamin for taking a progressive stance on the social and economic issues plaguing our society. In one of Pinto’s proudest moments, Honeysuckle also aided in securing a female inmate’s compassionate release from a California state prison.

Particularly known for its edgy initiatives, Honeysuckle has hit remarkable milestones in its coverage of the cannabis industry. Pinto and her team have led three innovative policy-changing Times Square billboard campaigns, the inaugural project being the first time in history that cannabis and hemp brands were allowed to advertise in the iconic space. Along with publicly-traded companies, the event offered an opportunity for many marginalized and minority-owned brands to gain mainstream recognition.

Honeysuckle’s latest Times Square billboard campaign spotlighted “the greatest rapper in the world,” Lil Wayne, and his cannabis brand GKUA (also the cover story subjects of the magazine’s most recent print edition). As it wouldn’t be Honeysuckle without another glass ceiling shattered, this campaign also featured the first Indigenous cannabis brands ever to advertise in Times Square. Brand partners Legacy 420, a retailer based in Ontario’s Mohawk Territory, and the Idaho-based Tribal Hemp & Cannabis Magazine from the Indigenous Cannabis Coalition joined forces in the world’s premiere international Indigenous cannabis collaboration. Other campaign partners include Green Bee Life, Hamptons Medi Spa, My Bud Vase, The Herb Somm, and High Tea.Today.

For Honeysuckle’s next steps, Ronit says, “We are expanding our model over our different platforms. Now that adult-use cannabis has become legal in New York through the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA), it will be a lot easier for us to do what we’ve been trying to do for the past four years, in terms of exploring the intersection of various industries.”

Reflecting on what brought her through the most challenging times, she adds, “I think it is extremely hard to do your own thing and make it in any kind of arts category. It’s sad, but true. Part of our mission is to normalize creativity and freedom in the workplace. It’s a hard road, but sometimes not doing it can be even harder and require more energy. But there is only one way to change your environment and that is just to do it! If you wait for others to do it, it probably won’t happen.”

Fortunately, Honeysuckle is happening and blossoming all over, thanks to Pinto’s far-projecting vision. “We always try to stay ahead of the curve,” she asserts. “Some of that is natural, as my close friends joke that I am ‘from the future.’ I’ve also had the honor and privilege of working with extraordinarily talented and intelligent people. Especially given our independent status, it is these elements combined which make Honeysuckle stand out.” IE

HoneySuckle

Management

Ronit Pinto
Founder

Description

We are an internationally distributed print and digital publication focusing on sustainability, social issues, spirituality and culture brought to you in a sexy package! www.honeysucklemag.com

Danni Rush is a strategic, agile, and operational leader, driving several areas of the business and executing the company’s long-term business plans; alongside her other c-suite exec members and with the support of their teams in the U.S. & U.K.

Danni is responsible for spearheading new initiatives for the growth of the business, leading organisational changes, driving rapid business growth, and creating an open, innovative, and great place-to-work culture for our teams. Along with Melanie White, Executive Vice President in the US, Danni is also a key brand champion and spokesperson externally.

The steadfast leader is the Chief Operating Officer for Virgin Incentives, Virgin Experience Days, and Virgin Experience Gifts. Danni’s career has spanned several industries, including travel, retail, and outdoor education. Her passion for team engagement, having seen the positive impact that a highly engaged and motivated team can have on business performance, led her to her role as COO. Danni leads the customer experience, product development, partnerships, and people strategy and helped the business navigate through the challenging pandemic period to increase employee engagement ratings and win gold at the 2021 U.K. Employee Experience Awards.

Danni typically splits her time between focusing on executing her functional responsibilities (customer experience, the people, suppliers, and partners) and openly sharing and spending time on the ground with teams from the U.K. & U.S. Daily, along with the executive team. Danni is involved in making critical decisions that impact business revenue & profitability, strategic goals, customers, product innovation, and the business team.

She has inspired her team because she is approachable and open to conversations and mentoring sessions with her team members who want to grow their careers. “I encourage people to be really clear on their goals and dedicate time to think about what they want from new roles and when they want it,” she says. “Once people are clear on their personal goals, it’s important to build self-belief and confidence, and push themselves forward and find inspiring mentors because when you don’t see ‘people like you’ in senior positions, it becomes a challenge to visualise yourself there and that can hold people back.”

With this mindset, Danni has been leading the organization to great heights. According to her, one of the biggest trends in the industry, Gifting, is the massive shift from just buying ‘stuff’. Whether that’s from a consumer point of view when purchasing a birthday gift or when businesses are thinking about reward and recognition. The focus is now on creating memories and giving stories to tell. “We’ve been on this journey in the U.K. for a couple of years now and thought it was about time we bought our business to the U.S.,” explains Danni. “In 2021 we acquired Cloud 9 Living in U.S., a family run business with 15 years experience of inspiring gifters with hand-picked exciting experiences, guaranteed to delight everyone.” After their successful acquisition, they rebranded the business to Virgin Experience Gifts to join the likes of other Virgin U.S. operations, such as Virgin Hotels, Virgin Holidays, and Virgin Voyages.

Virgin Incentives is the B2B arm of Virgin Experience Gifts, working specifically with corporate firms for reward and recognition and employee and customer gifts. Whether it’s a birthday, a thank you, or a farewell, there are over 2,400 experiences that are perfect for unique and thoughtful employee benefits and rewards. They cover all gifting bases from supercar driving experiences, golf lessons, or wine-tasting tours. “We’re constantly innovating our product range and launching brand new experiences that we know will be loved by everyone,” elucidates Danni. “We recently introduced unique excursions and for the hybrid teams out there, we also offer a vast range of at-home & virtual experiences that can be enjoyed for remote get togethers.”

After a successful year, Danni and her team have ambitious and exciting plans to grow in the U.S. They will further invest in their people, enhance the technology platforms, and continue to innovate and evolve their products. “We want to actively disrupt the gifting & rewarding market – giving and receiving gifts should be fun and exciting, and we want to get that out to everyone across the U.S. so we’re expanding our product range to include new and fun experience categories,” she adds. WL