Twenty years ago, Jo Horgan, the chief executive of cosmetics giant Mecca, realised something had to give. “I had my first child, and I was trying to juggle everything, and I was thinking, ‘This is hard. I need to think outside the square here and make this manageable.’”

Mecca now has more than 100 stores, and with a combined wealth of $812 million, Horgan and her husband and business partner Peter Wetenhall have a place on the Financial Review Rich List. But two decades ago, the company – and Horgan’s newborn – were in their respective infancy. She was feeling overwhelmed.