The company was actually founded on creating earnings opportunities for women, even before it went into skincare, lipstick, and fragrance. The founding Avon principle, before women could vote and when basically only men were working, was to allow women to get out of their homes and to create an entrepreneurship opportunity for them.

No one in my family had a retail or marketing background. They were professionals. They didn't understand just what I was doing by going into retailing. After I started, though, it got into my blood. I knew this was what I wanted.

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

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

I feel like I'm part of history being made. I leave Apple board meetings thinking, 'I've got to do a better job.'

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.

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.