The new 9TO5 is out now! Make sure you don't miss out on your copy!
Sweet talk
Discover Afternoon delights at Blue.
There are two things the girls and I love: shopping an...
» more
Read this week's complete print edition of 9TO5 online right now! Plus you can search or browse through our back issue archive - for free!
Invisible woman
She created a multi-million dollar beauty business but don't ask Andrea Horwood-Bux if she wants to have it all...
What were the challenges in launching the product, Invisible Inc?
Explaining the difference between this product and 99 per cent of the sunscreens, moisturisers and foundations on the market. Especially when regulations prevented us from saying in our advertising that most sunscreens don't work.
Why did you choose Megan Gale to be the face?
A WA girl who the average Australian likes and could talk to about the importance of wearing Invisible Zinc physical protection every day in this country. She was a treat to work with!
What was your role before Invisible Zinc?
I started Australian Style magazine at 21 with no qualifications. Luckily you don't think you are young and inexperienced at the time you are precisely both those things. Like most 21-year-olds, I thought I knew an awful lot, and what I didn't know couldn't be that hard to learn.
Then you built Becca up to be a cult beauty brand...
A girl I knew from school asked me to help start the company up and running. So, I put together a syndicate of investors to fund it and then helped launch it in London and New York. I was only involved for the set-up, then went back to my entrepreneurial ways.
How do you juggle your career with your two kids?
You can't run a business and do the ironing, cleaning and shopping. I work and I spend time with our kids, the rest I can happily delegate. I don't know where women got the idea we can do it all. I know I can't
read on below advertisement
- not if I want to do anything very well (and not become a grumpy shrew).
What do women need to be successful?
Assume no advantage or disadvantage, behave like a person in business or you're asking for your ideas and actions to be prejudiced. Women have a different intuition and morality that can benefit the business world. Remember that, and go forward with the confidence that we have something important to add to the running of things. We don't traditionally start wars or like blowing things up, we don't need to over-inflate our egos because we can produce life. It takes two sexes to make a life; it makes sense that the world needs two sexes to run things properly - it's just taking the boys a little longer to realise it.
How do you deal with challenging people at work?
Other people can be hell. To get right to it: sidestep the crazy ones, the greedy ones, the egomaniacs and the sneaky ones. Seek out the like-minded and the ideas you believe in, and (where possible) only do business with people you like. Go around those you don't and you'll have half a chance of getting some good things done, and have a nicer time of it as you go.
Andrea was one of the six Australian finalists in the prestigious Veuve Clicquot Awards 2008.
What were the challenges in launching the product, Invisible Inc?
Explaining the difference between this product and 99 per cent of the sunscreens, moisturisers and foundations on the market. Especially when regulations prevented us from saying in our advertising that most sunscreens don't work.
Why did you choose Megan Gale to be the face?
A WA girl who the average Australian likes and could talk to about the importance of wearing Invisible Zinc physical protection every day in this country. She was a treat to work with!
What was your role before Invisible Zinc?
I started Australian Style magazine at 21 with no qualifications. Luckily you don't think you are young and inexperienced at the time you are precisely both those things. Like most 21-year-olds, I thought I knew an awful lot, and what I didn't know couldn't be that hard to learn.
Then you built Becca up to be a cult beauty brand...
A girl I knew from school asked me to help start the company up and running. So, I put together a syndicate of investors to fund it and then helped launch it in London and New York. I was only involved for the set-up, then went back to my entrepreneurial ways.
How do you juggle your career with your two kids?
You can't run a business and do the ironing, cleaning and shopping. I work and I spend time with our kids, the rest I can happily delegate. I don't know where women got the idea we can do it all. I know I can't
read on below advertisement
- not if I want to do anything very well (and not become a grumpy shrew).
What do women need to be successful?
Assume no advantage or disadvantage, behave like a person in business or you're asking for your ideas and actions to be prejudiced. Women have a different intuition and morality that can benefit the business world. Remember that, and go forward with the confidence that we have something important to add to the running of things. We don't traditionally start wars or like blowing things up, we don't need to over-inflate our egos because we can produce life. It takes two sexes to make a life; it makes sense that the world needs two sexes to run things properly - it's just taking the boys a little longer to realise it.
How do you deal with challenging people at work?
Other people can be hell. To get right to it: sidestep the crazy ones, the greedy ones, the egomaniacs and the sneaky ones. Seek out the like-minded and the ideas you believe in, and (where possible) only do business with people you like. Go around those you don't and you'll have half a chance of getting some good things done, and have a nicer time of it as you go.
Andrea was one of the six Australian finalists in the prestigious Veuve Clicquot Awards 2008.
Story: Elise Pitt
