BaubleBar, the popular jewelry retailer, has exploded in popularity over the past 13 years. The trendy — yet affordable — line is now available at over 200 retailers across the globe with celebrities like Taylor Swift, Blake Lively and Julia Roberts being seen sporting the company’s designs.
The multimillion-dollar company, which has over 100 employees, however, started as a school project by two best friends.
The idea was the brainchild of Amy Jain and Daniela Yacobovsky, who met each other while working as investment bankers. The two, who loved fashion, would frequently indulge in retail therapy to unwind from their stressful jobs.
Jain and Yacobovsky eventually quit their finance jobs and attended Harvard Business School together. For a class project, the duo developed their business concept, a company that made well designed, on-trend jewelry at a great price point. And after graduating, they officially launched BaubleBar and turned their class project into reality.
I recently sat down with Jain at the Retail Innovation Conference & Expo (RICE) in Chicago. We talked about leadership, mental wellbeing in the office, fighting burnout, and more.
Below is the conversation, which has been edited for brevity and clarity:
You came into the CEO role in 2017, what has been your approach to leadership and managing a team?
Amy Jain: I’m a very behind-the-scenes founder, and my job is to make sure that every person that runs a division in our company is basically building a company within our company and making sure I’m helping them be successful. I have a team of entrepreneurs. I interview for that skill set. I interview for that hustle…someone who is just going to hear ‘no’ 100 times and not be discouraged by it.
What are the qualities you look for when you’re building your leadership team?
Jain: Well, the first thing I do is I don’t go out to hire C-suite men and women. I go to hire people like what I was when I was starting my career. My old boss saw potential [in me],and he pulled me into rooms. He exposed me to things and then every week he gave me a little bit something extra and saw, like was I able to take it and was I ready for the next opportunity? And that’s how we built our team. If you look across our team, people have been at the company on average eight, nine years …And what’s amazing for us is they all have this institutional knowledge. They know where we’ve been and where we are. They know our customer intimately. But for me, I feel like I have been able to help them… shine on their own.
I think that we’re a highly collaborative team. As a founder and as a CEO, I really believe in being behind the person and making sure that they have all the tools they need to be successful. And then …the people that are working for them feel like, ‘Wow, I work for such a good manager that deeply cares about my success, deeply cares about how efficient I am, about getting to the finish line with my project.’ And it creates a really happy and collaborative environment, at such a high-paced company where stakes are high and things could get intense…
A recent report showed mental health leaves of absence are surging, with 33 percent of women in the workforce saying they have taken a leave of absence because of this. How do you approach mental wellness as a leader?
Jain: Well, it’s really interesting, I think mental health can be affected by so many things, including a lot of things outside the workplace. My first priority is making sure that at the workplace, this is like their happy place. And it’s their happy place. And I can’t say it’s everyone’s happy place working at Baublebar, but what I can say is they’re challenged, they’re appreciated, and they’re acknowledged.
What are your thoughts on employees asking for leave of absences for mental health reasons?
Jain: We’re very supportive on it…I want great talent to stay with BaubleBar. I don’t want them going elsewhere.
I need to be able to support your whole life. And so that’s just not mental health. That is the fact that you have a family and that you need to have different working hours to be able to be a great parent. And that’s not just females. We have, you know, dads in the company. We’re all grown-ups. We know how to get our work done...Like we want you to go to your kids’ baseball game in the middle of the day. We want you to be able to take your child to the doctor’s appointment. And let’s just make sure everyone knows what’s going on so we can either cover for you or start meetings at different times. But there should be no reason we can’t accommodate all of that stuff.
In our world, because of how well we know our team members, if someone came in with that request, their job is waiting for them. It’s what can we do to help you reset and how do we make sure that we’re there to support you in the ways that you need it so that if you’re ready to come back, we’re here for you.
Have you experienced burnout in your own career? And how have you dealt with it?
Jain: I kind of really hit a wall before Covid-19. I had two young kids and our business was going through a lot of change. I was like, ‘I can do it. I can do everything I can do anything.’ And I can like keep all of this anxiety and pressure inside me and my body just, you know, imploded.
And I think that to me, it was like my wake-up call. I got some great advice going through it because there’s lots of things you can do to figure out how to create some balance in your life. And so, the thing that you need to try to figure out is how to put you first.
And it’s not through a selfish lens. It’s like if you are good and you feel good about the things you want to feel good about, then everything else in your life is going to be good.
And so, I rejiggered every part of my life — I need to make sure that I’m sleeping. I need to make sure that I’m exercising. I need to make sure I’m seeing my friends. I need to make sure I’m getting to travel to see my parents…When I did that, what I found is it wasn’t like I had less time to do everything else. I actually had the same amount of time. I was just all of a sudden like present. And I was happy. And I was making an impact in a way that I wasn’t doing before because I was always tired and grumpy. And so I think the pushing yourself so hard is a thing and it’s figuring out how to just like stop and find your way of being able to reset.
How did that health scare give you a stronger sense of your boundaries or outlook on how you prioritize your mental health?
Jain: As a founder, the company is your baby. It is your first born. It is the thing that is you just think about 24/7. …And it can just be all consuming. I [learned I] need to have an off button. BaubleBar isn’t Amy Jain, they’re two separate things. And it was separating those two things out that was my breakthrough.
Daniela Pierre-Bravo is a journalist, author, and founder of Acceso Community — a mentorship program for professional women. She is the co-author of “Earn It” with Mika Brzezinski. Her solo book, “’The Other: How to Own Your Power at Work as a Woman of Color,” is out now. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @dpierrebravo