My parents kept the best aspects of the Asian culture, and they Americanized the family. My mother was a great example for me. She was a working mother with a good career.

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.

Avon invented the concept of direct marketing and direct selling beauty. And that's still very valid to us. We'll have a firm that will be around for another 114 years as strongly as it was the first 114.

Avon is a unique place to work; we've got family-friendly policies. We have more senior women in high-level management than any other company; 46 percent of our officers are women.

China is going to be one of Avon's largest market opportunities. It has a large geographic expanse, with hundreds of thousands of women in small villages really striving to make an earnings opportunity for themselves.

I think there is a big and significant difference between being a leader and being a manager-leaders lead from the heart. You have to be analytical and flexible. Flexibility is one of the key ingredients to being successful. If you feel like it's difficult to change, you will probably have a harder time succeeding.

That was very much ahead of its time back in the 1880s and, not surprisingly, it was met with some resistance. [I]f you fast forward to today and the fact that we're the single largest source of employment for women (broadly speaking, as the reps are independent contractors), we've been an important creator of entrepreneurship for women.