MECCA founder Jo Horgan: Don’t gloss over struggles
Jo Horgan, one of Australia’s most successful company founders, has a message for young women: it’s OK to bring your ‘whole self’ to work.
Jo Horgan, one of Australia’s most successful company founders, has a message for young women: it’s OK to bring your “whole self” to work.
“Life is hard – we’re trying to juggle everything, and it’s OK to show that and acknowledge that,” says the entrepreneur who 25 years ago took the chance that women wanted more than traditional big-brand lipsticks and set up MECCA, a cosmetic retailer that now has an annual turnover of more than $570m.
“We’re all just learning as we go,” she says. “We only get experience through actually doing, then we only do well if we’re willing to trial and experiment. If it doesn’t work out and an experiment fails, then fail fast, fail forward, pick yourself up and move on.
“When that little voice in your head is niggling away at you for failing, or telling you that you can’t do something, I say choose kindness – turn it into a positive voice and be kind to yourself.”
Horgan, whose husband Peter Wetenhall joined the company eight years after its launch in 1997, has been awarded an AM for significant services to retail business and to women in executive roles.
She has long been seen as a role model for women in business and says she is “thrilled” by the King’s Birthday honour, noting that it’s also one for the “entire MECCA team”.
Horgan, who is based in Melbourne, says that as well as “creative, innovative, clever and talented individuals” on her staff, she’s grateful to the brands that “believed in our vision from day dot, and, of course, our customers”. Retail, she says, was challenged by Covid-19 and now has to adapt to a new world. But Horgan believes there is also “real opportunity” with the change and MECCA’s strategy includes entertaining and educating customers as well as building community.
“The physical experience of beauty retailing is more important than it’s ever been and so we need to keep pushing the boundaries to dream up new and sometimes wild ideas that we can bring to life for our customers,” says Horgan. “People are craving that human connection, so our goal is to keep making beauty more interactive and more service-oriented. And then it’s about how we take the best of that human connection and translate it to digital so that our customers are being entertained, educated, engaged.”
Horgan says the company recognises its responsibilities around issues such as gender equality.
“Ninety-four per cent of the MECCA team are women,” she says. “I see part of my role being to show that a predominantly women-led and driven business can be successful.”
