Rare Beauty Chief Impact Officer Elyse Cohen
In this week’s episode of the CNBC Changemakers and Power Players podcast, CNBC Senior Media and Tech Reporter Julia Boorstin sits down with Rare Beauty Chief Impact Officer Elyse Cohen, who is redefining what corporate impact can look like.
From her time in the White House to working with Selena Gomez at Rare Beauty, Cohen shares how she’s putting mental health at the center of a global brand. She talks about people-first leadership, the power of listening, and why sometimes the best leaders don’t fill the silence. She also opens up about imposter syndrome, building a “personal board of directors,” and helping raise tens of millions for youth mental health.
Listen to the full episode here. New episodes drop every Tuesday.
All references must be sourced to CNBC Changemakers and Power Players podcast.
COHEN ON PEOPLE-FIRST LEADERSHIP
JULIA BOORSTIN: Your background is unique. You’re probably the only person in the world who has worked both with Michelle Obama and Selena Gomez, two incredibly powerful women in totally different fields, but maybe not so much. How have you changed or grown having worked with these two incredible women?
ELYSE COHEN: Yeah, first of all, I’ve actually never heard it been said that way, so now I’m going to use that. I probably am the only person who’s worked for both of them. What’s interesting is they actually have a lot more similarities than I think people think, and so I’ve learned a lot from that. They’re both people first people.
BOORSTIN: What does that mean?
COHEN: That means that they put the people around them first, even though they they’re talented, they’re famous, they’re known for these amazing things that they’ve built. They’re just like a friend. It’s just like talking to a friend. And I think that one of the things I love most about both of them is when you see them at any event, they are listeners. First and foremost, they are listeners, which I think is something that I’ve sort of taken and carried in in leadership, and just along the way, is people wait on line to meet with them, both of them, Michelle Obama, Selena Gomez, there are lines out the door to take a photo and meet with them. And instead of them doing the talking, they sit and listen to every single person that they’re taking a photo with, that they’re learning about. And I just think it helps them learn so much about what’s going on around them in moments where they may feel secluded and isolated. And so, for me, I’ve learned so much from that. One is listen more than you talk, right? Ask a lot of questions and listen a lot. Michelle Obama, in particular, really was the person who taught me that my voice mattered. I’ll never forget the rooms I was in with her, you know, where she’d look around and she’d be like, guys, shut up. Elise, what? What do you have to say? Like, what? And so, I think, you know, anyone sitting in those rooms has a lot of these aha moments of, how did I get here? Do I belong in this room? And so, she’s someone who really teaches us that we do.
COHEN ON SILENCE BEING A LEADERSHIP SKILL
BOORSTIN: Being a people first leader seems like it’s incredibly valuable, especially if maybe you’re an intimidating person or someone I think that would be intimidating like a Michelle Obama or a Selena Gomez. Do you think anyone can be that kind of a listener and that have that kind of openness? Is that something people can learn or practice?
COHEN: Oh, that’s a good question. I think it, I think it takes a lot of observing and just sitting in the moment. I think I’ve learned that you don’t always have to fill the space, and that’s taken me time. So, I think it’s definitely a skill that can be learned, but you have to be intentional about it. You have to want to do it because I think a default is often to do the talking and not realize that there’s something really special about sitting in silence for a minute and allowing someone the space to share. Because I do think when you’re someone like Selena Gomez, Michelle Obama, people worry they don’t know what to say. They don’t they don’t want to fill that space. Sometimes they get so I have this story that when my mom first met Michelle Obama, she accidentally stepped on her foot, and she didn’t want to tell me, she didn’t tell me for two years because she was so mortified that she thought of all the things she wanted to say to her, and instead, she kind of she just tripped. And I think that that happens a lot, and so there’s a lot to be said for just sitting and doing a lot of the listening.
BOORSTIN: And then on the flip side, you said Michelle Obama basically told you not to have imposter syndrome.
COHEN: Oh yes, oh yes, yeah, I think, you know, I think many times we make assumptions about what rooms we should and can be in and I’m definitely guilty of it. I’m, I am the person who defaults to, why are they inviting me to do this? Why are they honoring me to do this? Why should I be in that room? Why am I the one up for that job? And she is the first to look around the room and and tell all of us that we have a voice and a spot in every room. And I think that a lot of the programs that she’s focused on, especially with young women and girls, is really encouraging that everybody has a voice and something to share.
COHEN ON RARE BEAUTY’S IMPACT STRATEGY
COHEN: I’m the chief impact officer at the brand, which is really, how does, how do you build this mission of mental health, self-acceptance, inclusivity, accessibility across the full business. So, working cross functionally with our people team, with our marketing and comms team, with our product team, on how do you integrate that mission and that value across all levers of the company? One big way that we do that is through the nonprofit partners that we support, through the Rare Impact Fund, which I’ll get to in a second. And I think what makes the business unique is we made a couple decisions early on. It was important to me that if this was so integrated into the business, we had to leverage the businesses’ communication channels to talk about mental health the same way we were launching and talking about a new formula of a new product. And everyone was bought into that from day one, when we talk about new products, we integrate them in with a nonprofit partner. We have, you know, shoots with people, photo shoots with people who are talking about, you know, why Rare Beauty products or the Rare Beauty community make them feel a certain way, or how they have felt less alone by being part of this community, not just by purchasing a product. So that’s sort of the the core business. I’m working with influencers. I’m working with every part of the business which I love. And when I say I, it’s a team, there is definitely no I in anything that we get done. And then, of course, there’s the moments of social issues that are going on in the world. And how does, how do we navigate all of that? Then there’s the foundation, and I think, you know, I like to say it’s very different than your typical corporate philanthropy. It’s a separate nonprofit organization, the Rare Impact Fund. We donate 1% of all of our sales to the Rare Impact Fund. But Selena also made this really bold call to action to mobilize 100 million for youth mental health. So we are also fundraisers. We are grant makers, we are strategy builders, we are conveners to help really build an organization that’s really transforming the landscape of youth mental health. So the 1% is an ongoing revenue stream, but we have our work cut out for us. We are out there fundraising with corporate partners, high net worth individuals. We do an annual gala, and I’m really proud to say that we have raised over $30 million but more important than that is honestly the impact. We’re reaching over three and a half million young people each year. We support 30 nonprofits. We’ve launched a couple new initiatives this year that are really important in terms of just around both AI and also nonclinical providers in the mental health space. So yeah, so we’re running a nonprofit, I say on the side, but it’s really not on the side. It’s very integrated, and there’s a team working really hard to meet a lot of those goals, and it’s been one of the most underfunded issues, truly, of our lifetime.
COHEN ON HOW BEAUTY BRANDS ARE REDEFINING MENTAL HEALTH
BOORSTIN: You think about beauty, concealer, bronzer, lipstick, and mental health. In a world where there’s so much focus on appearances and this Instagram idea of perfection and Instagram filters, how do you make these two things work together?
COHEN: This is always my favorite question because I think that we are working to transform the beauty industry like purely, and I wouldn’t say single handedly because I actually think a lot of brands are taking note and stepping into that space. Beauty has, like you’re saying, historically, been an industry that has been all about covering up who you are, trying to look like someone else, trying to be somebody else. And Selena, our founder, felt that since she was seven years old, when she first became famous, and she was in a makeup chair, constantly feeling these unrealistic standards of perfection. And I think, you know, she feels that a lot of that in this industry, Hollywood is no different, really played into her mental health struggles. And so for us, we’re taking that industry and we’re shifting the narrative and we’re reframing it and we’re talking about how beauty can be a tool to enhance who you are. It doesn’t matter how much or how little makeup you wear. Take that model in that industry and actually make it be something that can bring people together and talk about be be uncomfortable, talk about mental health and self acceptance. Talk about what might be bothering you, inside and outside. And so for us, it’s been an opportunity to reshape the narrative.
