Carol Hamilton and Janet Gurwitch on Reaching the Top — and Staying There
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Carol Hamilton
Group president, Acquisitions and West Coast Headquarters, L’Oréal
Janet Gurwitch
Operating partner, Advent International
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You first met around 2012, when Janet was with Castanea, which sold Urban Decay to L’Oréal. When did it go from personal to professional?
Janet Gurwitch: Carol was in Houston [Texas] for an Ulta conference and I asked her to dinner. I wanted to know her better. At Castanea, I had brands that would hopefully sell to L’Oréal potentially, but I was intrigued by her and wanted to know her personally.
Carol Hamilton: I remember thinking, oh my gosh! Janet Gurwitch asked me out to dinner, this is amazing. We went to a really lovely restaurant. That is the moment we moved from professional colleagues to aspiring friends.
What role does friendship play in business?
J.G.: Carol and I are fortunate to have each other. It’s nice to have a colleague who is very serious about their career, but we can also go to a play together and talk about life.
C.H.: You have to seize those moments, because so often we are just too busy. But we need to celebrate friendships because they are so meaningful.
What has enabled each of you to reach and stay at the top of your game?
C.H.: We keep on going because we are very curious and because we keep learning. It is another real dimension of our friendship, in that I didn’t know anyone in the private equity world until I met Janet. I didn’t know what she did or what they did. I knew she was a top merchant and creator at Neiman Marcus and when she told me her story of going into creating Laura Mercier and then Castanea, I was amazed she had the courage to leave this glamorous fashion and retail world at the very top. Here was Janet in such an enviable job and she did this. She’s the pioneer in terms of women in this industry to do this. She was so generous with her description of what she did — and she was so nice and calm and not egotistical at all — so unlike so many people in that world. Absolutely no bulls–t.
J.G.: I sold Laura Mercier in 2008 and decided to rent a villa in Tuscany for the summer. I thought, “This is what I’m going to do now.” I loved Italy, but I was hungry. It’s like the Hamilton song “The Room Where It Happens.” I was hungry to be in the room where it happens and I wasn’t ready to leave. I decided I wanted another phase. I didn’t want 400 or 500 employees and I didn’t want to be a [chief executive officer].
The Smith family, who had owned Neiman Marcus and were investors in Laura Mercier, started Castanea and they asked me if I would join. The first brand we bought was Urban Decay. I loved it and still do.
It’s one thing to reach the top, but another thing to stay there. What has enabled you to do that?
C.H.: It has been determination, courage, a love of what I do. Sometimes when people get passed over for certain jobs like I have — they will say, “That’s it. I have to leave.” It’s almost like an imperative. My point of view is that when that agenda starts to happen, I ask myself, “Do I love what I do? Do I love who I work with? Where would I go? What am I giving up and what am I getting?” I always try to put myself in blinders to not let company politics drive the decision making. My love of the people and of the craft supersedes the politics and any reaction that I might have to leave because I’ve been passed over.
What keeps you so engaged in the business?
C.H.: Excitement about what I’m doing. It was a huge surprise when I was asked to design and run L’Oréal West. I’m not an architect, a designer or a schematic professor. This huge project I was asked to run was like another new adventure. Also — in my role overseeing acquisitions, the quality of the people I get to meet with — not just at L’Oréal but externally — motivates me a lot, because I’m not stuck in a small world. Our worlds are quite large in terms of the networking and the people we get to touch.
J.G.: The beauty business is so dynamic and has expanded into wellness. There are always new things for me to learn. Being in the game keeps you young and engaged. We get to meet entrepreneurs, most of whom are interesting, driven women.
Beauty is changing dramatically. In 1996, I built a prestige brand around a makeup artist to sell globally in the world’s top department stores. Today, you wouldn’t do that. What hasn’t changed is you need quality product that really works, an authentic voice. How you do it, how you sell it and who you sell it to is very different.
Do you ever encounter ageism in the beauty industry and how do you counter it?
C.H.: Janet and I were at a WWD Beauty Summit before the pandemic, and she was talking to [a] finance guy who was interviewing someone for a position. Janet suggested promoting a certain person in the firm, and the man said, “She’s 65, she’s too old.” He didn’t know that Janet might be near that age, and that is the way a lot of people talk to us. It is so insulting.
It is a badge of honor and courage to be able to hold your head up high and keep on going and achieving, because the results are the best proof you should still be there. We need to band together, but we also need to role model. What we can do in this age of experience is pay it back.
You’re both involved in some of beauty’s biggest deals. Are there enough women in the room?
J.G.: Private equity is dominated by men. We would go to board meetings for Drybar and I’m the only person there who’s ever had her hair blown dry. They’re all saying, “My wife, my daughter, my girlfriend.” I’m thinking to myself —what is wrong with this picture?
One of the reasons I went to Advent was because of Tricia Glynn, who’s a partner there. She excels. She just hosted a big dinner for the CEOs and operating partners Advent supports [those] who are women. It was the first time we had all met as a group and it was terrific to see so many outstanding women together.
C.H.: There are a lot of women entering through venture capital and private equity firms, because beauty is a hot category. If a PE firm that hasn’t specialized in beauty wants to start, they might hire a woman to do that. My big question is how many will succeed. There are enough deals going on, but how many will really rise above to sustain a long-term career, like Tricia and Janet.
It is a question of time, and having deliberate acts of support, like dinners and forums, where you get women together to know each other. It seems like a small gesture, but it is an imperative, because if we keep doing that, five years from now it will have made a difference.
What do you know now that you’re glad you didn’t know when you were in your 20s or 30s?
J.G.: How few women would be in big positions or that Roe v. Wade would be discussed again; I thought that was resolved. I was very active in women’s rights in college, and I would have thought we’d be farther by now.
C.H.: In the ‘90s, I had to fight like crazy to sustain the phrase, “Because I’m worth it,” for L’Oréal Paris. The advertising agency felt that women’s rights had been won and that the brand looked irrelevant with the phrase. I went ballistic. I told my boss this was wrong and demeaning and that the brand wouldn’t drop the phrase on my watch. The fact that we are still facing this — and it’s worse, that is shocking. I’m glad I didn’t know that then.
