Welcome to the Jazz Shapers Podcast from Mishcon de Reya. What you are about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM, however, the music has been cut due to rights issues.
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 for this final Jazz Shapers of the season is none other than, drum roll, Michelle Feeney, Founder and CEO of Floral Street, a British fragrance brand. Starting her career in PR, then launching her own PR agency in New York, Michelle was headhunted by none other than Estée Lauder companies and led MAC Cosmetics to become the world's biggest makeup brand, where, working with the United Nations, she also spearheaded the MAC AIDS Fund, helping children living with HIV around the globe. As CEO of St Tropez, she helped turn a niche brand into a mainstream global success - there's a theme developing here. And in 2017, while in her 50s, Michelle launched Floral Street, challenging the perfume industry's damaging environmental impact. As Michelle says, ‘Floral Street is an upstart brand aiming to do everything differently from making recyclability and sustainability the core of our brand’ and, and I love this, by the way, ‘challenging the use of sexuality to sell scents’.
Michelle Feeney is my Business Shaper, as I said, she's the CEO and Founder of Floral Street. They make lovely perfumes and do a lot more. But before we get into that, um, that was Diana Ross and Michelle, you know Diana Ross, or you worked with Diana Ross many years ago.
Michelle Feeney
Yes, I did. Um, we had a series of famous, more mature women that we decided to make MAC icons, and Diana Ross was one of those. And, you know, I was, ‘Wow’. I'd grown up, you know, listening to her music and dancing, and, and, um, I was responsible for taking her to Paris Fashion Week. And she's the only person I worked with as a famous person that's actually made me cry, um, and I took her to Paris Fashion Week. There was…
Elliot Moss
When was this? What year roughly?
Michelle Feeney
Uh, well, it must be about 20 years ago now, I must say, as time flies.
Elliot Moss
Somewhere between 1997 and 2004.
Michelle Feeney
Yes, that's right, yeah. Uh, no, it was the early 2000s actually…
Elliot Moss
Okay.
Michelle Feeney
…to be honest. And, um, I took her to the John Galliano show they requested. We had a huge event for her the following night which a lot of Paris was coming to, um, and we went backstage and they attempted to take a photograph of her with John Galliano and the head of LMVH. And I stood in front of her and said, ‘No, you can't take photographs’. And we went back to the hotel and she just shouted at me in front of everyone and said, ‘What are you doing?’ And I said, ‘I'm protecting you, you know, we are paying Estée Lauder companies, it’s our night tomorrow night, um, and I didn't want that photograph to get out before it's your very big night tomorrow night’. And she left the room and I just burst into tears because I was so stressed. Um, but she came back and she said, 'I'm really, really sorry and I didn't mean to do that to you’, and, um, in front of everyone, which I thought was so honourable and fantastic. And then I went on to work with her for the rest of that year and we had a great relationship. But I think it's, you know, you realise the vulnerability of some celebrities and the life they've lived and you have to really understand that when you're working with them, I think.
Elliot Moss
I've heard people asking you, why were you a success in PR and I think you've just answered the question. And I think, why are you a success in business and founder of this great business, the woman behind MAC and various other successes as well. There's, in your eyes, as you're telling me that story, there's huge empathy.
Michelle Feeney
Mm-hmm.
Elliot Moss
Is that the key to why you, Michelle, are so successful, do you think, if you strip it all back?
Michelle Feeney
I think so. I, I think I like, weirdly, what I don't like about now is as a founder, you have to be, sorry to be jazz hands, you know, you have to be upfront, you have to be constantly on some social media going, ‘Aren't I fabulous?’ and, you know, I'd rather stand back and be the person behind somebody in some ways and be empathetic. And working with people like Mary J Blige when she was very young and she, she'd never left the hood almost, you know and I've then got journalists from all around the world, um, speaking to her and I had to build trust, you know, that I was there for her, not for me, and not for my, not to be her friend, to be her business friend. Um, and I, I maybe that is my success, you know? I'm always thinking of the whole situation, not just that moment in time.
Elliot Moss
And how do you see it all? Where's that come from? Because you obviously, this is a lot to do with human understanding and dynamics in real time. Because PR is live and then running a business is live.
Michelle Feeney
Live, yes certainly.
Elliot Moss
Yeah, it's all happening, literally is panning out in front of you. Where's that super skill come from?
Michelle Feeney
I think I was kind of born somewhat with a gift of that. And then growing up in, you know, in the middle of Birmingham with my fantastic parents who had about 4 jobs, but I sort of grew up in shops and I grew up in Irish community and, and you're almost, translate, watching people and translating people without even understanding what you're doing, you know. And I think the Irish side of me has always been open, nobody's better than you, everybody, you know, be good to everyone. So I think it's, that's what's helped me, um, and have, have faith in myself, you know, or self-esteem that you build during your childhood with, with families is so important for you to step in the room, you know.
Elliot Moss
Michelle Feeney, my Business Shaper, Founder and CEO of a beautiful business called Floral Street, named after, of course, Covent Garden Floral Street. One of my favourite streets, by the way, young memories of going to Paul Smith.
Michelle Feeney
Yes.
Elliot Moss
Which was right on the iconic shop, iconic man of course as well from Nottingham, not far from Birmingham, sort of that way. If you're a Londoner, you just don't, you close your eyes and go up there. Um, we were talking about, uh, well, you were talking about your super skills and these things that have happened and there is a recipe which I will probably repeat towards the end of the programme around what being Irish means. I think I read somewhere that you really, you got a feel for that when you landed in New York and this is young woman in her 20s decides to go up sticks.
Michelle Feeney
Yeah, yeah.
Elliot Moss
No real plans, you said, ‘I've never had a plan. I've never had a, you know, I’ve never had to do a job interview or go for a job’. You turn up in New York and then within a while you're going, ‘Hold on a sec, being Irish means something’. Were there moments in your very little life where now you look back and you go, ‘Okay, that's the root of some of this stuff’. Was it stuff you saw or things you felt?
Michelle Feeney
I just think when you're in a huge community of any kind, you know, in a, in a foreign country, really, because if you think, you know, I'm, I was born in 1963, so I'm quite old and growing up in the, in the middle of Birmingham in the '60s was, you know, we were with such amazing communities of Jamaicans and Indians and Irish, you know, and it was a lot of people had left home and come over and were lonely and were, they got together on a Saturday night after a very, very hard week of working. And I think that community, that openness, that love of music and dance, you know, I did Irish dancing and I played the piano accordion, uh, but it brings people together and, and people had to believe in each other. If you're in an immigrant community, you have to believe in each other.
Elliot Moss
Yeah, well, often you're under attack, unfortunately, or you're othered and it's different.
Michelle Feeney
Yeah, yeah.
Elliot Moss
And there’s a, you know, as a Jewish, as a Jewish person, you're feeling, well, I'm Jewish and you feel it. And the first time in my lifetime, this difficult time for many communities, one is definitely feeling that. Just tell me though, the, the way you created the communities at MAC and the communities at St Tropez and now this community at Floral Street, do you think, not that you're replicating that, but that you've understood the importance of people feeling like they're part of something bigger?
Michelle Feeney
Absolutely. So I, I call it, you know, cult branding and that's what I think I’m, I've learnt throughout my life is how you cult brand. So how you speak to a certain community and the biggest lesson I had was from Tommy Hilfiger himself because I had…
Elliot Moss
I love all these names, by the way.
Michelle Feeney
I know, it's like…
Elliot Moss
You can take the woman out of PR, but this Michelle Feeney.
Michelle Feeney
No, but they're genuine as well, you know.
Elliot Moss
I know, I know, that's what's amazing.
Michelle Feeney
He wrote me a letter for my green card and everything. But, um…
Elliot Moss
As you would get, obviously, I mean.
Michelle Feeney
Yeah, exactly.
Elliot Moss
It was Tommy.
Michelle Feeney
It was Tommy.
Elliot Moss
Michelle here and I need a bit of help. Tommy says, of course, Michelle.
Michelle Feeney
Yeah, exactly. But he, the way his company branded at the time in the '90s was to go to the communities of rap, which were new and hip-hop and start to work with them. And he understood that America was made up, you know, which I had to learn very quickly, of many different communities, even in music, you know, the stations were separate, you know, you only listened to country or you only listened to…
Elliot Moss
MTV did not play R&B, did not play, did not have Michael Jackson on their station.
Michelle Feeney
No, exactly.
Elliot Moss
It’s extraordinary.
Michelle Feeney
So it was so, and I was like, oh my God, this country is so, is so siloed, you know, in comparison to our country, which I think I think is amazing in general. Um, so he sort of showed me how to market to different groups of people and speak to them with relevancy. And I think that has always, well, Lynn Franks taught me that in the '80s, we were, you know, in fashion and everything, and it was about relevancy, but bringing new ideas into that and take, what he did was bring that culture out to a wider audience and I call it the Tommy Hilfiger effect because it is, you know, communities, and then you bond that community together and, and it becomes a bigger market. So yeah, I think taking the time to learn, not bouldering in thinking you know it all, um, you know, having that understanding of music played such a big part in marketing in the '90s of fashion and beauty, um, and MAC, I didn't do MAC alone, by the way. I was, you know, head of comms and marketing and the MAC AIDS Fund. We were 7 people who took it, and I did launch 40 countries. But again, having to go to a country, I loved that role of going to a country, being dropped in, having to do your homework, having to sit with somebody and learn about, how that country worked rather than bombarding in. I think British companies at that point weren't, weren’t doing that well in America, and that's because they came in and go, ‘We're British’, and, and actually, you're British, it's great, it's got a quirk, but then how are you going to relate to those communities.
Elliot Moss
Absolutely.
Michelle Feeney
So yeah, and I think my background from when I was a kid really has done that. How am I going to relate, you know.
Elliot Moss
Yeah. Stay with me for much more relating from Michelle Feeney, my Business Shaper. She's the Founder and CEO of Floral Street, she'll be back in a couple of minutes. Right now we're going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Innovation Series, which can be found on all the major podcast platforms. Lydia Kellett invites business founders to share their practical advice and industry insights for those of you thinking about starting your very own thing, just like Michelle has done twice. In this clip, we hear from Bianca Rangecroft, Founder and CEO of Whering, a fashion app on a mission to upend the buy, use, dispose model.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast, and there's plenty of time over the summer as well, because this is the last in this series, as I said earlier, and you can hear this very programme again if you pop Jazz Shapers into your favourite podcast platform. My guest today is Michelle Feeney, Founder and CEO of Floral Street, a British fragrance brand. So this is not the first time you set a business up, and yes, it was in your 50s, and yes, that's unusual, and we'll talk about that a little bit, but the DNA of Michelle in terms of being picked up by Lynn Franks, and for the younger, the younger part of the audience here on Jazz Shapers, um, an absolute legend in the world of PR, like the number one person in PR essentially in the '80s, kind of defined what PR looked like, actually, I would say. Um, what is it about you that said, that's great, but I'm going to do my own thing, part one, and part two, then Estée Lauder and big companies? How did that happen? This is a journey, right?
Michelle Feeney
It's a complete journey as life is, which is really exciting and I, I literally have never had a plan. I went to New York.
Elliot Moss
Evidently. For somebody who's not got a plan though, it's worked out pretty well.
Michelle Feeney
I know. But, um, I went to New York because, um, my boyfriend at the time was a, well, is a record producer and songwriter and, you know, I was starry-eyed and I gave up my big job. I was a director at Lynnes at age 26 and went to New York without a plan, which was a bit stupid, really. But I was, I decided I wanted to try and write for some British publications from New York, change track. So I got a bit of a deal with the Daily Mail and, um, ELLE magazine and some other things. And I went to interview a founder of a hair salon in New York called Bumble and Bumble, Michael Gordon and weirdly, the next day he called me and said, ‘I've got a really good feeling about you. Would you come and talk to me about working for you?’ And by this time I'm absolutely broke because of course writing bits and pieces for British magazines.
Elliot Moss
Bumble doesn't pay very much.
Michelle Feeney
It's not going to pay, it's not going to pay.
Elliot Moss
No, no.
Michelle Feeney
So anyway, I went to see him and he said, ‘look, I've just got, we have had nobody doing marketing or PR, and I, you know, I've just got a really good feeling about you and would you come?’ And so I went and bought a typewriter. I can't type, by the way and I did a proposal and he said, ‘okay’. And then I went and he listened to me and I said, ‘we've got to create some products’. You know, we had created the products. I then produced a hair show in The Limelight, and the owner of The Limelight, Peter Gatien, who was an impresario of the night, said, ‘I want you to come and work for me. And I want you to, I'm launching a new club, which is, uh, Club USA, and I want you to do everything’. And I said, ‘No’. I said, ‘I've never ever done nightlife. I'm not qualified’. Anyway, he kept asking me and kept asking me and he put me in a room and I said an inordinate, you know, a ridiculous amount of money that I wanted as a fee. And he went, ‘Okay’. And then I'm like, ‘Eff, I've actually got to do this now’. But that opened up this whole world of creativity in New York, celebrity, underground poetry, fashion, lots of money. It was just the most…
Elliot Moss
It was life-changing.
Michelle Feeney
It was life-changing.
Elliot Moss
But it sounded like you had to be dragged through that door. The confidence wasn't there at that age.
Michelle Feeney
No, it wasn't.
Elliot Moss
Interesting. I mean, maybe you backed yourself, but you weren't saying, look at me, I'm going to set up this business. You had two people basically saying to you, we want to hire you.
Michelle Feeney
Yeah, and that spiralled and I built this company, Michelle Feeney PR.
Elliot Moss
Can I just say, were you the, not the unwilling entrepreneur, but were you the, well, if you really think I should be entrepreneur?
Michelle Feeney
Probably, probably. I think I don't kind of think like that. I think maybe I'm just entrepreneurial by nature and that's why Lauder headhunted me in.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Michelle Feeney
You know, they were private companies still then and they, I got a call one day and said, ‘would you come and talk to us, you know, we know you've got your own company, but we've heard you're the best and will you come and talk to us?’
Elliot Moss
And it turns out, of course, they were about to acquire a whole bunch of things, entrepreneurs, and they needed someone like you.
Michelle Feeney
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
We're going to hold it there for a moment because it's time for some more music. This is Michelle Feeney here in the hot seat for this last in the Jazz Shapers series, Founder and CEO of Floral Street. When I research these programmes, I hear, you know, you hear all the different stories. There seems to be a number of pivotal moments for you and it feels like every day if I worked with you, I'd have a pivotal moment and a learning experience, Michelle. But the birth of your first child. And I was listening to you recount the story of the hospital where he was born and how tough that was and how that Michelle, at that point, said, ‘right, I need to get serious about my life. I need to be able to provide for my family’ because it was a really, it was not a nice hospital.
Michelle Feeney
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
Just tell me how that moment has informed other things in your life as you look back now.
Michelle Feeney
Well, having my son Harry completely changed my life. I was 30, I was in a foreign country, I had my own company. I went back after one week to work because who was going to pay the bills? I mean, when you…
Elliot Moss
And who looked after Harry?
Michelle Feeney
Oh no, I had a nanny.
Elliot Moss
Okay.
Michelle Feeney
And then she'd bring him for breastfeeding.
Elliot Moss
I thought you were going to say I left him on his own…
Michelle Feeney
No I left him on his own.
Elliot Moss
…and he was just fine, Elliot, he was just fine. I mean, he's absolutely fine.
Michelle Feeney
No, but it was, it’s America, you know, you’re on your own.
Elliot Moss
Of course, that's what you do. Yeah.
Michelle Feeney
You know, and people don't realise here, you know, how good they've got it, even if they have to wait a few hours, you know?
Elliot Moss
Yeah, there's a safety net here.
Michelle Feeney
Yeah, there is. But, um, it changed my life. It made me take myself seriously. My mum and dad said, ‘why don't you come home?’, because also a little bit after that, I split from his father and became a single mum. And I'm like, ‘No, you know, I've built this so far in the last couple of years to get here, and I love it here, and I'm not going to just give in’. So I think it was where I just thought, there's no excuses, you have to take yourself seriously. With whatever comes, you can overcome that and you can step forward. And you're on your own. I mean, you're always on your own, I think and that's quite hard. I think we cling on to that we're not alone, but we are alone.
Elliot Moss
But you're happily married now.
Michelle Feeney
Oh, now, yeah.
Elliot Moss
And are you on, I mean, you know, your husband may say, but we're together. I mean, in that sense.
Michelle Feeney
Yeah, no, no, no, I know,
Elliot Moss
I know what I mean is, it's really interesting, there is a dichotomy here. I know exactly what you mean, you're always on your own because at the end of the day, you look to Michelle to make sure that what you're doing is going to work. I get that. But you've also, I imagine, got to be vulnerable enough to let go and let people support you.
Michelle Feeney
Mm, you'd have to ask other people that.
Elliot Moss
Well, I can see. Okay, so that's a really interesting point. So I think there's, for me, it looks like you are that, there's a protection there still. Like, you, for this point in your life, you're like, there's a level of trust where you trust yourself 1,000%, and even the people you love the most maybe you don't trust them quite the same way. I don't mean that rudely. Is that fair? And it's part of the entrepreneurial thing, isn't it?
Michelle Feeney
I just, I just think I realised that life can change in a heartbeat and you, as a mum particularly, you have to be prepared. You know, you'll know from your culture, you know, life can change in a heartbeat and, you know, it made me grow up and, and take things seriously but, you know, my husband and I have an amazing relationship and we're brilliant partners and we have a lovely life but I’m, he knows that I'd be okay on my own, you know, because that's who I am.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Michelle Feeney
And I, I trust, but totally, sometimes too much really, I think, in other ways. But I think as humans, you are, you know, you come in alone and you're out alone, right, so, as Buddhists say. But, um, you know, I think that's been a driving factor in me being able successful as well, not to let myself down.
Elliot Moss
I think I heard you describe, and, and we'll be hearing from Marvin Gaye and Donald Byrd in a moment, but I think I heard you describe the Estée Lauder company, um, and being part of it as being like an Olympic athlete. And actually coming into running your own business, not everyone necessarily wants to be the Olympic athlete and you find that hard, which I do want to talk about as we go into our final chat, um, and how we square that circle around performance because it seems to be a bit of a buzzword at the moment in the context of all sorts of other cultural things happening. Anyway, stay with me for that. It's Michelle Feeney, she's my Business Shaper, she'll be back. And as I promised, we've also got some Marvin Gaye and Donald Byrd for you too. See you in a minute.
Michelle Feeney's my Business Shaper and remiss of me not to double down on this thing called Floral Street. But of course we've talked around who Michelle is. Floral Street, you've set up, um, you've called it the upstart. I talked about performance. That business was set up for lots of personal reasons by the looks of it, but obviously also the market opportunity. You're now, how many years on are we, like 9, 8, 9 years?
Michelle Feeney
8 and a half, yeah.
Elliot Moss
Where are you in that journey and how do you ensure that the people in it are Olympic athletes, are prepared to make sacrifices?
Michelle Feeney
Well, it's been one of the hardest things, if not the hardest professional thing I've ever done, um, being on my own, starting from absolute scratch because I'm known for taking things and amplifying them and globalising them. Um, we've lived through lockdown, you know, so many things and now with what's going on in the world, it's made it relatively challenging at every step. I've had to pivot like mad and I've had to learn to inspire, I think, and I've got to that good point. I've made a lot of, you know, errors with hires and people and me trying to make people perform like I do, at the level I do. And instead of doing that, my mantra now is, how can I make the people that work with me the best they can be at what they're good at and not expecting them to be good at everything, um.
Elliot Moss
Is that the evolution you've taken as a leader?
Michelle Feeney
Yes, it is actually.
Elliot Moss
Is that the biggest thing?
Michelle Feeney
It's the biggest thing, I think, in a modern era with modern people and I realised my, when you work for somebody like Estée Lauder and you're on a billion-dollar brand, is what we got it to, you cannot fail, you cannot fail. There is no failure allowed. None. And I realised I'd kept that momentum in everything I did since I moved back to the UK, which is a very different society with a different approach, you know, I, I, I sort of started saying, I wish people would put as much energy into their job as they do booking their holidays, you know, and making sure they got enough days. But, um, you can't fight that. So I have to, I have to find a way through that. And also as a startup, you know, there's some failures in there and I have had to allow myself to kind of slightly fail.
Elliot Moss
I was going to say, because a lot of entrepreneurs say failure is a big part of it. For you, you've done corporate world, you've done this. It sounds like you're less comfortable with the notion of failure, even the little ones that build and become something brilliant, is that?
Michelle Feeney
Yeah, I'm really, yeah.
Elliot Moss
You don't like it?
Michelle Feeney
Yeah I'm extremely hard on myself. I'm, you know, I’m the hardest taskmaster on myself.
Elliot Moss
Why are you so hard on yourself, Michelle? You've got nothing to prove. All the things you've done, anyone took one slice of what you've achieved and they would say, thank you very much.
Michelle Feeney
But you don't, I don't hear that, you see. So I'm like, okay, when you work in, you know, again, high level in America, you're only as good as today, you know.
Elliot Moss
Of course.
Michelle Feeney
And I think I've still got that in me.
Elliot Moss
But if you were managing you.
Michelle Feeney
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
What would you be saying to Michelle?
Michelle Feeney
Enjoy the journey a bit more, maybe.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Michelle Feeney
Step back a bit. Smell the, literally smell the roses, as I was at the weekend in my garden.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Michelle Feeney
Um, you know, but I don't know if you can really change your DNA. I don't know. You can work around it but, um.
Elliot Moss
Well, when is, and again, we're going to run out of time, unfortunately. Your happy place? Because I can see you push yourself, and I can see there isn't Michelle managing Michelle, saying, well done, Michelle, you've had a great career. That isn't happening. Where are you happiest, Michelle? At what moment and what space do you really kind of relax?
Michelle Feeney
Okay, um, relaxing, I'm not so sure, but I, I, um, I, I…
Elliot Moss
We don't do that here. I don’t know what is that word?
Michelle Feeney
No, I, I love I do yoga every day and I love that. But where I'm absolutely happiest is when I've cooked an incredible meal and I'm sitting with my family and we're just being and discussing and I'm listening to my daughter, my son, my husband, my mum, my brother, and we're all together. And that, that brings me ultimate happiness and you can do that, if you haven't got much or you have got a lot. And I think that for me, those, those are the important things for me. Things that don't cost.
Elliot Moss
Things that don't cost and weirdly, kind of to start, end where we started, a sense of belonging. Brilliant to talk to you. Amazing. Thank you so much. What an amazing life you've led and have fun, keep going. I'm sure you will.
Michelle Feeney
I still want to.
Elliot Moss
I know, but I do continue, continue to but it says it's not, this isn't a tribute to Michelle Feeney, this is more like, I know there's more to come, but also be nice to yourself.
Michelle Feeney
Yeah exactly.
Elliot Moss
We don't know each other, I can say that, be kind to yourself. Just before, um, I let you go, what's your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Michelle Feeney
Um, It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing. And this was recorded, this album that it's taken from, when I was born and my dad was a big jazz, um, lover and this track for me was one that I'd play in New York and it was the spirit for me of America and New York and, um, I just loved the musicianship in it.
Elliot Moss
It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing, the song choice of my Business Shaper today, Michelle Feeney. And of course, that was Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. She talks about the importance of being Irish. And why was that important? It's about being open, nobody's better. Be good to everybody, have faith. I loved all those things about her background as an Irish person in the Irish community. How am I going to relate? A big theme for her in terms of her work, in terms of her personal life, in terms of the brands that she has created, indeed, the Floral Street brand that she is creating now. Think about how that relating is going to actually happen. Building cult brands, the Tommy Hilfiger story and the Tommy Hilfiger effect, that is what relating is all about. She talked about not letting myself down, and I think that really captures why Michelle Feeney is Michelle Feeney and how she's now translating that as a leader slightly different. She's finding what people are really good at and helping them be the best that they can be. Really great stuff. That's it from me and Jazz Shapers, have a happy and wonderful summer. See you the other side.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You’ll find hundreds of more guests available for you to listen to in our archive. To find out more just search ‘Jazz Shapers’ in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.