Maria Hatzistefanis is celebrating 25 years of Rodial, the cult-favourite skincare brand that launched her beauty empire. Here she shares the lessons she's learned along the way.Since I was a little girl, about nine years old, on this tiny remote island back in Greece where I was born, I would go to this one newsagent that had only international magazines and save all my pocket money to go and buy those magazines, go home, close the door and go through them.
The biggest challenge is listening to other people when I need to listen, and not going against my gut feeling. Bad because what have we been doing for the last 25 years for people not to know Rodial has been around for a while, but good because we have this new customer who is discovering us for the first time, which is super exciting.and on the first page, I say it took me eighteen years to be where I am today. There’s no such thing as an overnight success.
My first book came about because I was getting a lot of messages on Instagram from young people who wanted to start their own businesses, asking for advice.