Rachel Weiss

Chair and Vice President of Digital Strategy

L’Oreal Women In Digital

Who inspires you?

It would be impossible for me to name one person. Over the past year, I’ve been very inspired by our L’Oreal Women in Digital Advisory Board. Each of these women is so dynamic, smart and accomplished. I’m also inspired by all of the female entrepreneurs I meet who are all so fearless, driven and supportive of one another.

Tell us about L’Oreal Women in Digital. Why do you think this initiative focused on women entrepreneurs was needed?

The idea sparked in March 2011 at SXSW 2011. SXSW is such an inspirational conference about creation and something just clicked in me that L’Oreal could really move the needle in the tech space by empowering women to create technology for other women.

As a digital marketer focusing on creating new innovative ways to market our products through digital channels, I saw the following challenges:

1. Female entrepreneurs lacking mentorship to guide them through the process of working with large companies. Why am I not seeing a lot of startups lead by women coming through our corporate doors especially when we are so vocal about seeking innovative ways to address our customers?

2. Lack of presence of women working at tech agencies to help us come up with solutions to build our business. I have so many meetings where a male executive starts it off with, “I asked my wife about your products….”

3. Difficulty in hiring and recruiting talented female IT professionals into our organization.

4. Need for a sense of community of women working in technology on all fronts to support, guide and educate each other as a collective force across all industries and functions.

I’ve always been interested in advocating and studying women in male dominated spaces. I actually wrote my college thesis analyzing the narrative structure of independent women filmmakers versus their male contemporaries. I always believed that women create and process narrative differently than male in the film space and throughout my professional career so that the same theory applies to how technology is being created and consumed.

L’Oréal’s core focus has always been about making women feel beautiful and empowered. I realized that we as corporate citizens and the world’s largest beauty company have a tremendous opportunity to really make a difference to support women in technology both externally and internally.

Where do you see the Women in Digital initiative in the next five year?

My vision is for this to be a global program impacting women in technology all over the world. Not only do I want to empower female entrepreneurs but inspire women to learn to code and become product managers. Next year, we want to work with educational institutions and advocacy groups to start to reach girls in middle school which we learned is when girls are “dropping out” of science and technology careers. In five years, I want talented women working in tech and digital marketing to know that L’Oreal is a great place to work and to also be able to see more women at the head of the table when we are working to create new technology for the beauty industry.

What was a defining moment in your career?

I lost my job at a start-up during the dot.com crash in early 2000 and waited tables in NYC. Working in the service industry really prepared me to be a manager, leader and work with a diverse group of people. It also told me how to pick myself up after working at a failed company.

What is your next step within your career?

I always want my career to be focused on innovation and “what’s next” and see myself becoming an investor.

Tell us something about yourself that we don’t know already.

I meditate every day to calm myself down and focus.

What is your favorite color?

Yellow

What is your guilty pleasure? (Real Housewives, Chocolate, 50 shades of Grey, etc)

I have an addiction to light online gaming. I’m currently addicted to SongPop which is a musical challenge game. I play this while watching Real Housewives of NY.

Who is your celebrity crush?

Daniel Day Lewis

How do you define success?

I love this quote from Johnny Carson. It’s on my facebook page.

“Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.”

If you had one year that you could say was the best year of your life what year would it be? Why? How old were you?

2011 was a pretty good year for me. I turned 40, feel at peace with who I am and feel I’ve finally found my voice as a woman. I also feel that I’m finally working in the perfect job for me here at L’Oreal.

1992 was also a great year. That’s when I first moved to NYC for a summer and felt such excitement about my life ahead after graduating college. I felt very Mary Tyler Moore back then.

Describe a time you failed. What did you learn from that experience?

I fail at something every day whether it’s personal or business. I really don’t believe in “failure.” I consider it more that sometimes things don’t work out the way you planned and you need to adjust, think about how to move forward and maintain self-esteem. What do you do fun?

I love to go to the theater and to movies. I also love to cook.

Do you have a hidden talent?

I can sing. I was a classically trained soprano.

What is your favorite mobile app?

Path.

What do you do to help you focus?

Meditate.

Cool Kid or Nerd in High school?

Molly Ringwald in 16 candles. You be the judge.

What is your favorite beauty trend for the fall?

Red lips…I always love red lips.

Any words of advice for up & coming entrepreneurs who are trying to get noticed?

Really listen to people as you meet them and find solutions for their business problems. Don’t talk about your company in a vacuum. Learn to add context and describe what value you add.

Keep up with Rachel Weiss at www.lorealwomenindigital.com and Twitter

Rachel’s Interview conducted by WIM intern, Kimberly Hamilton