Elliot Moss
Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guest today is Melissa Odabash, MBE – founder and creative director of the eponymous luxury swimwear brand, Melissa Odabash. Having been scouted aged 18 by a modelling agent whilst swimming in a neighbour’s pool, Melissa’s successful global modelling career brought her in her early 20’s to live and work in Rome modelling swimwear. Disillusioned with the poorly made bikini she was wearing, Melissa spotted a gap in the market for more timeless, comfortable and stylish products and with the help of her family and some out of date sewing machine she created her first pieces, demonstrating them in local boutiques, more of which you will hear about later. In 1999 in the UK she launched Melissa Odabash with a small capsule collection of block colour bikinis before expanding into beach wear with designs inspired by her mother’s 1970’s crochet pieces. The brand is now sold in 75 countries and was described by Vogue, and I love this, as the Ferrari’s of the bikini world. And in 2023 Melissa received an MBE for services to the international swimwear industry and her continued philanthropic ventures all of which we’ll be talking about shortly.
I’ve now got an iconic person in the room with me here, it’s Melissa Odabash and she is the person behind the brand called Melissa Odabash which is convenient, lucky you didn’t call it something else which you could have done.
Melissa Odabash
I did in the beginning.
Elliot Moss
Did you?
Melissa Odabash
And then I changed it after a few years.
Elliot Moss
Oh is that right and what was it called in the beginning?
Melissa Odabash
Yeah. It was called Buchata which is a slow dance women do to seduce men in South America so I thought that was kind of cool and then I decided forget it.
Elliot Moss
Forget it, it’s…
Melissa Odabash
Forget it, after 3 years no one could say Bachata so.
Elliot Moss
No.
Melissa Odabash
I just moved it to my name which is even harder.
Elliot Moss
Well I was going to say it’s like, it’s not a tongue twist but you have, you have to say it a few times.
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
And then you go, ah yes of course, Odabash.
Melissa Odabash
Odabash.
Elliot Moss
Very easy. It’s fabulous to have you here. We’ve sort of tracked you down actually because for a while through various places thinking she would be a fabulous person.
Melissa Odabash
Thank you.
Elliot Moss
And here you are. Now my wife has a couple of Melissa Odabash’s as it were, not you but obviously your work and they are in the drawers. Did you envisage sitting back then as a model that you 20 years plus later would have people coming up to you, men and women saying, ah yes your work, thank you.
Melissa Odabash
Well more the men coming up saying I recognise your name from my credit card bills but um…
Elliot Moss
There is that too.
Melissa Odabash
Er did I visualise it, I know I wouldn’t fail, I don’t know, I just never, never thought for a second that I was doing something I shouldn’t be doing um…
Elliot Moss
But you were modelling, I mean I guess that’s my…
Melissa Odabash
I was modelling and then I started door to door like I would make whatever money I made from modelling I would buy the fabric, make a few samples and then whatever models were backstage with me or whatever we were shooting at the time, I would sell them to the girls to get the word out there and then they started coming back every year. You know, I was learning as I went along. I never knew anything about designing swimwear. I think you’ve either got it or you don’t. I don’t think it’s something you can learn like style you know, you either know, I don’t know, I think also from being a, a model for the biggest brands from Fendi to Valentino, I was constantly trying on clothes so I knew what fit and what didn’t so I know the woman’s body very well. I mean I can look at anyone from a distance and tell them exactly what size they are and what style would suit them but you know, you learn as you go along so.
Elliot Moss
But the, I guess the bit that’s interesting is that the you know, you think about models from the outside world and you say, well they’re models and then you don’t hear about many that then move into the world of business and I guess that’s the thing. So where was that, did you know when you were modelling that you weren’t always going to be a model I guess?
Melissa Odabash
Oh yeah, I mean I just did it to travel. I mean I am from New Jersey, I was like Paris, I was scouted in my back yard so moved to Paris first before Rome and I remember the lady that was scouting models in New York, she happened to go out to New Jersey because my neighbour was a friend of hers from college and I happened to be swimming in the pool and she said, ‘Oh who’s that you know, little girl out in the back yard swimming’ and she said, ‘That’s my neighbour’ and she said, ‘Call her in here’ and I ran inside in a bikini drenched, you know, soaking wet and she said, ‘Would you like to go to Paris’ and I was like ‘Sure can I just go across the street to my parent’s and ask them if I can go to Paris’.
Elliot Moss
How old were you at the time?
Melissa Odabash
I was 19.
Elliot Moss
Wow, okay and, and what was the life plan at 19 before that conversation?
Melissa Odabash
Oh I was, I was going to school at uni in New York Fashion kind or marketing, more marketing school and management in New York. I didn’t like it of course, I was partying the whole time and then um, yeah, then I packed my bags and I went to Paris.
Elliot Moss
And, and the family, so the family you are a mix of many different countries?
Melissa Odabash
Well yeah, well we are all born in America, even…
Elliot Moss
All born in America but…
Melissa Odabash
…third generations but I’m a mix, yeah. Italian, maybe Turkish I’m not sure, we’re trying to figure out my second name, Dutch, English, a little mix.
Elliot Moss
Yeah. And was there a sense of what Melissa ought to be doing according to the family at the age of 19 and was going to Paris okay with that plan?
Melissa Odabash
Well everyone worked for my family because my father was a developer.
Elliot Moss
Property developer?
Melissa Odabash
Property developer and both my sisters and my brother were working for and they knew I was like so not focussed and they were all great in school and I wasn’t, I was like, whatever, do I really need to know what year this War was, who cares like that was how I was so I was not very studious. I was street smart though and I think I was asked a few times already to model but my parents would never let me so I was asked by John Casablancas back in the day and all these other people and they were like, ‘No they have other intentions’ so they never would let me but because it was a woman and she knew my neighbour, they let me go to Paris and then I just partied.
Elliot Moss
Which is lucky that you went to Paris and you partied because if you hadn’t have done either of those two things obviously you wouldn’t have gone and created a brand and business.
Melissa Odabash
Yeah and the funny thing is my parents would come over to visit me and I didn’t want them, like I had gained like I don’t know, I couldn’t care a less, I was eating croissants and having the best time and I didn’t want them to know that I wasn’t doing something so I would speak fake French and they thought I was speaking French and I was like, look at least I am learning the language here. I’d make fake phone calls in front of them. I was not speaking one word of French but I had the accent so they were like, ‘Oh’ you know, my mother would say to my father, ‘At least she’s learning French’.
Elliot Moss
That’s brilliant, it’s all the beginnings of what makes a great…
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
…entrepreneur. It’s just know what to say and when to say it.
Melissa Odabash
Exactly.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for much more from my Business shaper, it’s Melissa Odabash and she is behind the brand called Melissa Odabash and they make gorgeous bikinis and the like and a lot more as well.
There’s a, there’s a story that you know, you went around at the beginning in Italy and you basically door stepped people and said, ‘there are, these are really nice bikini’s what do you think?’. You didn’t say you designed them.
Melissa Odabash
No.
Elliot Moss
And that’s true?
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
And how long did you do that for before things became more formal?
Melissa Odabash
Like two years I started going around to the best boutiques and saying, ‘oh I’m a model, they sent me here to try these on for you’ because I knew if you try them on then they’ll buy them and I didn’t say…
Elliot Moss
Why, why though, why is that true?
Melissa Odabash
Well because the samples are all made on my body so I knew they fit.
Elliot Moss
It’s brilliant, so you just went these are going to look great.
Melissa Odabash
They’re going to look great, they fit me, I mean they were made on me but and then they started buying them and then about two years later I moved to London and this girl that I had met was American living in Rome working for Proctor and Gamble and she’s lost her job and said, ‘I’m moving back to America, can I take your sample line’ and she got me, within two months, got my swimsuits in the Sports Illustrated, in a once a year magazine and my first shoot was on Naomi, Tyra Banks, Karen Wooglar who used to be a super famous model back in the day. Like I had six super models, Heidi Klum and that was my opening spread I got and then once I got into that then I would call a department store like Saks Fifth Avenue, equivalent to Harrods.
Elliot Moss
And just keep going.
Melissa Odabash
And say, ‘Do you want the credit in this magazine, I’ll give you the credit where they can buy it if you put my clothes in your store’.
Elliot Moss
Just going back to the bit where you were going there and you were selling essentially.
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
Was there an immediate buzz from converting the opportunity into a sale? Do you remember that feeling?
Melissa Odabash
No I don’t remember a buzz because they were the worst payers but I don’t remember that buzz really hitting. I liked it when I would go to a beach and see people walk past me in my, in my swimsuits. That gave me much more of a buzz.
Elliot Moss
But was it hard work there actually turning up and putting on your own stuff?
Melissa Odabash
Okay this is Italy where you couldn’t drive your car on certain days depending on the last digit of your licence plate because of the pollution so it was a nightmare. There was nothing easy about starting my business in another country in a foreign language.
Elliot Moss
And what, so then what kept you on that road Melissa at that point because that’s, there’s a lot of tenacity in there. Where, where did that grit come from?
Melissa Odabash
Probably from my father, he was always like business men, always like you have to make it on your own you know, don’t depend on anyone. I don’t know I just always have been that way and I am also quite proud I don’t want to fail. You have to show your parents that you know, you can do it too.
Elliot Moss
And was there a thing also because you talked about your siblings that they went to Uni and they were academic…
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
…was there a bit of like, I’ll show you?
Melissa Odabash
Er not to my siblings, I mean they have always been super supportive but more to like my parents like okay I am never going to ask you for a penny, I’ll do it on my own type of situation. They were supportive though, I mean super supportive. Once I got in the magazines then my father said, ‘Oh she’s carrying on my name’, then he was super supportive.
Elliot Moss
Ah. The Odabash family.
Melissa Odabash
Yeah the Odabash name.
Elliot Moss
Now, now it’s getting the respect.
Melissa Odabash
Then he was bringing it on the golf course showing his friends that his name was being on supermodels.
Elliot Moss
And then in terms of your friend from Proctor and Gamble and the professional…
Melissa Odabash
Yeah she’s still working for me today.
Elliot Moss
Is she?
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
Okay.
Melissa Odabash
I still have all the same employees I started with. Same factories in Italy yep.
Elliot Moss
And that…
Melissa Odabash
Great family.
Elliot Moss
…and that learning curve in those first few years you came to London, what, what, if you can go back that far.
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
What were the things that you took away and went, jeez these are new things I am having to learn?
Melissa Odabash
Oh every day, I’m still learning like I don’t believe I think when people know, think they know everything they don’t like you still have to learn as you go along. I don’t know, every day there’s new issues you know, just when you get over Covid and 65 countries shut down at the same time and you can’t ship to any of them, you finally start to recuperate and then Brexit happens and then that’s like you know, I have to set up companies in other countries because of duties and taxes and someone’s not going to buy a swimsuit if they live in Ireland from my website anymore because the taxes would be £75 in duties so I had to open a European website you know just so that Ireland can buy on a European website like it’s just, it’s a constant, it’s a constant. But I love what I do so I keep going.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for much more because Melissa Odabash is going to keep going here on Jazz Shapers as well. She’s coming back in a couple of minutes. Right now though we are going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Academy Digital Sessions, they can be found on all the major podcast platforms. Mishcon de Reya’s Emily Knight talks to Charlotte Young, a fund manager at Troy Asset Management about why women historically invest less than men and what’s being done to change it.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and you can hear this very programme again if you pop ‘Jazz Shapers’ into your podcast platform of choice. My guest today is Melissa Odabash, MBE – I like saying that – MBE, we’ll say it again. Founder and credit director of the eponymous swimwear brand Melissa Odabash. You were talking before about you still love doing what you’re doing and you learn every day.
Melissa Odabash
Yep.
Elliot Moss
You obviously still have the time to focus on what next season looks like?
Melissa Odabash
Well I work a year in advance.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Melissa Odabash
And it’s, it’s funny ‘cos people, men, they always say to me, ‘so when are you going to sell?’ It’s the first question they say to me.
Elliot Moss
As in sell the business?
Melissa Odabash
Always. What’s your forecast, when are you going to sell?
Elliot Moss
I haven’t asked you yet? That’s terrible.
Melissa Odabash
Well I know, but I know it’s going to come and I was like what would I do, like right now, it’s so in my DNA that’s all I know how to do is you know, and I love it.
Elliot Moss
It’s what you do. And on that though…
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
The creative side of it obviously it started with I’ve tried on the best brands in the world, I’ve been wearing them you know a clothes horse for all these brands, I’m going to do my own thing. Do you still love what’s the little take going to be, what’s the twist going to be, what’s the texture going to be?
Melissa Odabash
Oh always.
Elliot Moss
Is that the thing that still makes you, is that when you are at your most fulfilled?
Melissa Odabash
Well yeah, I mean I love the creative part is like probably 15% of a brand is the creative side. The rest is problem solving, employees, shipping, marketing it’s all the rest. The creative side is the best part about the brand. Also like you know it goes on paper first so when you do finally see the finished product and then you go off to do the shoots and you see it live on a model, that’s when you’re like ‘ah’ pat myself on the back you know, give myself a little tap on the back.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Melissa Odabash
Because it’s very, it’s very difficult because you might have great ideas but you can’t develop them. It’s just so hard to develop especially today everything is so difficult and I don’t know so when something does come out exactly how you want it visually then you’re like ‘okay, I’m doing a good job’.
Elliot Moss
And you’ve moved into loungewear now?
Melissa Odabash
Right.
Elliot Moss
And I went and I had a look and you see obviously as a bloke I mean what do I know but I have got, I’ve got an aesthetic.
Melissa Odabash
Exactly.
Elliot Moss
And I see this stuff and it’s beautiful and I looked at the blues and greens this season and I thought, that’s pretty, I mean those are nice colours.
Melissa Odabash
Well I believe in like I think a lot of people go wrong when they create brands because they think they can do everything so it’s very hard to stick to your core of what you know and then after years and years of learning it, knowing all the problems then you can slowly launch into other items but it still has to stick with the brand and for me I travel around the world non-stop so loungewear was such an easy add on or after the beach, you’re cold or you’re sunburnt or you just want to take off your swimsuit and so my loungewear is all still for the beach like it’s still a resort wear product.
Elliot Moss
And also obviously I think the world’s kind of become more casual, especially…
Melissa Odabash
Totally.
Elliot Moss
…since lockdown. People are much happier in their, in those lovely soft materials because they don’t need to dress us in the same way that they did and again, on the materials, do you just look wherever you need to look in terms of you know, fabrics. I remember speaking years ago to Nicole Farhi and we were talking about India. At the time India was a bit of a new frontier, it was French Connection then. Is that joy of finding the fabric that you want still part of what, what drives you?
Melissa Odabash
Oh yes and it’s so because of you know, sustainability now like I go to Paris. I buy most of my fabrics in Paris or Italy and they are getting so advanced with sustainable fabrics and everything. Still not quite there for swimwear because it has to be tested for water, chlorine or the sun but they are really coming out the other side and I believe that within 5 years we will have 100% sustainable fabrics for garment business so it’s good. Amazing innovation coming, coming through now.
Elliot Moss
And again that sounds like it fascinates you?
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
I mean is there anything that doesn’t in a way because it sounds… I look at you and I look at your eyes kind of literally shining as you talk about your business and all the different facets. Is there anything that is boring in the things that you’d like to avoid doing truthfully?
Melissa Odabash
Um, is there anything boring, I mean my business is not boring but of course there’s certain things that is a bit boring like you know, the deliveries, the Fedex or…
Elliot Moss
But it’s got to work right?
Melissa Odabash
Yeah. They all have to work. I love actually every aspect of it and I don’t think I would appreciate where I am today if I didn’t struggle all those years to get where I am today. So I think it’s good to know every aspect of your business so in case something fails, you don’t have to rely on people. I am not someone that delegates because I am quite a hands on person and I know I can get it done just as quick. So in the beginning when you are building a business it’s very hard to delegate because you are so used to being a one man show and just doing the whole thing yourself so I am always prepared if anything happens I can solve the problem immediately. In every, whether it’s the Fedex box went to Pakistan instead of New York or went to I don’t know, Dubai instead, I am like, it’s okay we’ll fix it. I keep the office calm like there’s no problem we can’t solve.
Elliot Moss
I like the sound of you. Melissa Odabash, she’s my problem solving Business Shaper today here on Jazz Shapers.
You talked earlier about you know, you can’t teach style and I think that’s right and I’ve had a few different, all different sorts of guests around different… in advertising and other creative industries and they say pretty much the same thing. Of course you can be a great technician and you can make something but actually envisaging, I’m looking here at a Prada bag by the way so it’s a lovely bag but these are, this is the world of luxury Melissa. Was it always going to be a luxury brand for you? Was it ever going to be mainstream and I don’t mean that to be disparaging about mainstream, they are just different audiences. Why luxury?
Melissa Odabash
Well first of all I use luxury fabrics like high quality and for me that’s like my swimwear you can still wear in 20 years, they do not fall apart so that for me is luxury and that for me is, I view sustainability completely different than other people because for me, sustainability is something that lasts for a long, long time.
Elliot Moss
So you don’t have to, and you don’t replace.
Melissa Odabash
A very long time and then you can pass it down to your kids if it doesn’t fit you anymore and I get that all the time, I get so many people on Instagram sending me pictures of their kids in a swimsuit that I made 15 years ago so for me, that’s sustainability, is good quality, things that will last and you never have to throw them away. I never started this thinking it was going to be more than a year. I just started because I knew I needed something other for my brain and the way I work other than modelling so when I started it wasn’t about, and I don’t believe it should ever be about, start a brand because you want to make money, it’s just something, it’s a passion and that’s why I do it. It was never about money and it was never about this is going to be luxury because back in the day there was ten luxury brands you know, Armani, Valentino never, I don’t even think swimwear was considered like in the fashion world. It was something like Speedo, you bought once a year and you went…
Elliot Moss
But no, and you’re credited with creating the category…
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
…of luxury swimwear.
Melissa Odabash
No one, no one, no one, I mean yes they added on and then slowly, slowly the big brands would add two pieces in the end of their fashion show but it was never considered a separate section of actually fashion so I had to pave the way and actually show people that this is an all year round product and I remember being American living in London and the way foreigners view London, they are like, ‘why would you sell swimwear in the rainiest country in the world’ and I was like, ‘yeah the weather’s so bad that they travel so much to get out of it that that’s why I did it in London’.
Elliot Moss
And that was 25 years ago. I mean this is your 25th anniversary.
Melissa Odabash
Yeah, yeah.
Elliot Moss
As you look back now again and you mentioned your dad briefly and I know he passed away…
Melissa Odabash
Yes.
Elliot Moss
…he was very young and your mum and what I mentioned in the introduction around the crochets and all that. Apart from them or whose influenced this journey that you’ve been on now?
Melissa Odabash
Probably…
Elliot Moss
Because you seem…
Melissa Odabash
…100% credit to my mother because she has…
Elliot Moss
Okay.
Melissa Odabash
…always been like super artistic, she can draw, she used to main stained glass windows, she can sew, impeccable style and she raised five kids, like she was a housewife, she doesn’t really work except for you know, we are all a year and a half difference between us so that’s a lot, a full house of kids but she used to you know, I was the only one interested in fashion and she used to get Women’s Wear Deli which was the fashion magazine in New York and somehow she got it sent to New Jersey and we would go through the whole magazine, she would wake me up and watch Elsa Klensch, CNN watching the European Fashion Shows and I would sit there fascinated by it just like, Karl Lagerfeld made that skirt two inches too long, he should have made it shorter, would have looked better with the jacket. I was 9 years old and I, I think I just, watching my mother this whole time and her style and she looked good even at breakfast. I mean none of us inherited what, what she was like but she just was super glam and I think that’s what inspired me.
Elliot Moss
Stay with me for my final chat with my guest today, it’s Melissa Odabash and we’ve got some Buddy Guy and Junior Wells for you too. That’s in just a moment don’t go anywhere.
Melissa Odabash is my famous Business Shaper, you’ve got all sorts of names today I’ve given you. All very positive though, all nice ones.
Melissa Odabash
All positive.
Elliot Moss
All positive. Another thing that you, you touched on and I’ve read about you is that a lot of what you do does good things as well, there’s money going to various charities around the world and you, you’ve received this MBE not just because you’re in the fashion world and doing brilliant things but because of your philanthropic work as well. Why has that been important to you Melissa? Why do you think you’ve pursued that, where’s that from? That desire to do…
Melissa Odabash
My father was an extremely charitable man like he grew up with nothing, he was self-made so even as kids he would take us to, we’d have to all take one of our Christmas presents and go to orphanages and give away our presents. We, you know, it was something like the homeless we always brought food to them and he made us physically do all of it, like we always were the first family online serving soup kitchens or anything so it was you know, as a young kid we always gave back. We have our own Odabash charity so I now make mastectomy swimwear line for breast cancer and you know, I think if you’re in the public eye you are only as good as what you give back because for me that’s, that gives me so much more than designing.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Melissa Odabash
It’s giving back and seeing people you know, happy, you know it’s already intimidating going to the beach even when you don’t have breast cancer. Imagine on top of it you know, women are so complex, we have so many you know, we are self-conscious about everything so when they approached me, could I do something. I said I would design a swimwear collection.
Elliot Moss
And also you, you talk publicly about ageism.
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
I mean I see, I see there are issues that you alight on and you say, well this is important. That voice, I know it’s not just about the business, again where does that come from? That thing of standing up and saying, excuse me?
Melissa Odabash
Yeah well I get interviewed all the time and they are always asking me, what age do women stop wearing a bikini? So I purposely posted everyone from J-Lo, I mean Christie Brinkley is, has just turned 70 and she looks insane in a bikini and I don’t, I think times are changed you know, I don’t think there’s an age for what’s appropriate or not appropriate and I, I just, I am always saying like, you know, it’s about confidence. It’s about feeling good, especially with the world today like if you feel good, go for it. Just, it’s not about how you look, it’s about your, you know, how you feel.
Elliot Moss
I have to ask something really superficial now as well.
Melissa Odabash
That’s okay.
Elliot Moss
The Beyoncé thing, the Elle MacPherson thing, the Gwyny, not that I’ve ever met Gwyny obviously, Gwyneth Paltrow is it kind of cool that these very, very, I mean ridiculously famous people, women…
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
…are wearing your brand. What does that…?
Melissa Odabash
Actually I was with Elle yesterday.
Elliot Moss
Of course you were. I mean of course, yeah me too.
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
Except…
Melissa Odabash
And Naomi. Yeah, it’s, it’s like you know, over the years like it always hits you like the first time you, you see them in a magazine and then all of a sudden asking if they can come to your showroom to pick up some things and it’s, it’s always a thrill and I am still friends with all of them from Cindy Crawford like 20 years, 25 years, they supported me from day one and they still wear my stuff 25 years later so it’s a huge honour because celebrities can chose from any designer and then of course Beyoncé but my biggest and I’ve worked with every celeb, but my biggest celeb that gave me the biggest thrill was I got an email one day from Barbara Streisand.
Elliot Moss
Oh.
Melissa Odabash
And I thought, okay I can retire, I’m done, I’ve done it all, I mean Beyoncé was cool but Barbara Streisand.
Elliot Moss
Barbara, Babs.
Melissa Odabash
So I go running into my office to my team and I am like, ‘guys, Barbara Streisand wants me to design da, da, da, da’ and they were like, who?
Elliot Moss
No. No.
Melissa Odabash
And I was like Barbara Streisand.
Elliot Moss
No that’s terrible, that’s the moment you know.
Melissa Odabash
Well they’re under 30’s.
Elliot Moss
Of course.
Melissa Odabash
And I am like, Barbara Streisand and I am like, I am the worst singer but I am trying to sing songs and they are looking at me and then I was like, the movie, Meet the Fockers like, ah that one, yes we’ve seen that. I am like oh my gosh.
Elliot Moss
I still remember A Star Was Born.
Melissa Odabash
And she invites me for like 10 years now, she invites me to her concerts, she sends me beautiful things every Christmas, she writes me beautiful letters so for me, I’ve checked the box. MBE from the Queen and Barbara Streisand, I don’t know like…
Elliot Moss
And you’re not, and you’re not selling?
Melissa Odabash
And I’m not selling and those were the two biggest, I’d say they were my biggest highlights.
Elliot Moss
Barbara Streisand and the Queen, I don’t think I can top that.
Melissa Odabash
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
It’s been really great talking to you.
Melissa Odabash
Thank you.
Elliot Moss
Carry on doing what you do.
Melissa Odabash
Thank you, thank you.
Elliot Moss
You’re not selling, news again here.
Melissa Odabash
No I’ll be back next year if I haven’t sold.
Elliot Moss
Just before I let you disappear what’s your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Melissa Odabash
Marvin Gaye, Mercy, Mercy Me. It is just such a happy song and reminds me of dancing in my Paris days or whatever, it’s just a happy song. You always see people when this song comes on, get up and dance or sing along to it.
Elliot Moss
Marvin Gaye with Mercy, Mercy Me, the song choice of my Business Shaper today, Melissa Odabash. She talked about liking to know absolutely everything that goes on in the business so that she’s got a really good handle on it. She talked about always being prepared and the love of solving problems and over the years of course, 25 years in there have been lots of problems which she has managed to solve and I love this thought, ‘if you are in the public eye you are only as good as what you give back’. I think that’s a really good mantra to have. That’s it from me and Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
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