About this conversation
Monica Walls fell into HR as a walk-on temp at Applied Materials and spent nearly thirty years in Silicon Valley, rising to VP of People. Then a childhood friend told her, "You've had an idea for lipstick since grad school. If you don't do it now, you're never going to do it." She had a mortgage and no second income. She did it anyway. Keca's Usna is the result: Keca was her nickname as a teenager, Usna is Croatian for lip. In this hour she tells the CEO story she'd never shared publicly, takes us to her grandfather's island in Croatia, explains the necklace behind Strength, Faith, Love, and walks Cynthia through the box she sent (Cynthia wears the raspberry live on air). Every model on her website is a woman she knows. Her line for all of them: "Who we are today is enough."
In this conversation
- 00:00Keca's Usna: what the name means, and falling into HR
- 07:06The CEO meeting she'd never shared publicly
- 10:17"If you don't do it now": the leap to lipstick
- 16:46Croatia: her grandfather's island and a box of prom pictures
- 22:13Croatian shade names, and the necklace behind Strength, Faith, Love
- 28:44The formula: long-lasting, hydrating, not sticky
- 33:47Cynthia opens the box: seed paper, bamboo cloths, and why raspberry
- 40:13Be bold, be you: real women as models
- 49:20Her niece Natalia's shade story, and "you are the statement"
- 53:06If something is missing, plus the rapid fire
