I became CEO at the beginning of the hit on old economy stocks. When something like that occurs in your first six months as a CEO of a more traditional branded firm, it makes for a fast learning curve.

It's an unbelievable responsibility to influence decisions, shareholder value and most important to me, people's careers and livelihoods.

I can only have dinner with my girlfriends once a month instead of once a week.

Since I'm a mother and a wife, I have to have passion or the frustration would win out. But I love managing people. The product is second to managing the people. And marketing to consumers is so challenging because it is evolving constantly.

We also never undercut representatives' prices. A representative will always be able to sell the discounts in our core business, which are not offered at retail. So it's never more advantageous to buy there.

There's obviously a correlation between an economically empowered woman and the investments she makes. That leads to her social and moral conscience for bettering her community.

I think the economic empowerment of women that has been growing over the past decade is at the 'inflection point' with this global recession. Women are, we believe, the solution for their families in their ability to go out and increase household income.