Heela Yang may have cofounded, built and sold a powerhouse brand that has some of beauty’s most directional launches — Sol de Janeiro catalyzed both the premium body care and body mist crazes — but even at the top of the hill, she thinks she’s grown more laterally than upward.
“The whole idea of climbing up a corporate ladder is completely out the window, as far as my case goes,” the 2025 CEW Achiever Honoree said. “I’m like a jungle gym, hopping from one opportunity to another, learning different skills, and then I ended up founding this brand.”
Yang launched Sol de Janeiro nearly a decade ago, and though her role, her business and the industry overall have changed drastically, “what hasn’t changed is this obsessiveness about staying true to the brand DNA, and sometimes, the brand just has its own destiny and energy,” she said.
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“It goes certain places that you didn’t really expect, like the perfume mist, where you have 12-year-old consumers dressing up as it for Halloween. If you had ever asked me if I could imagine this five years ago, I would’ve said no,” she continued.
Although the business has grown significantly since its debut (it was acquired by L’Occitane in November 2021, and was expected to anticipate north of $650 million in global retail sales in 2023), Yang said her focus has only sharpened over the years.
“I no longer wear 25 different hats. In the beginning, like all founders, we all do everything and you’re happy to do it,” Yang said. “There have been phases and milestones where I had to bring in a lot of senior people who knew more than I do. My team knows a lot more about commercial, distribution, strategy than I ever could.”
Her new mandate intersects heavily with her leadership style. “I see my job as making sure that we have the best talent, that we work together in a way that’s like a marriage: one plus one equals more than two. My job is to make sure our culture brings out the best in each other,” Yang said.
She’s also tried to maintain the speed and agility of Sol de Janeiro’s days as a start-up at the same time that the environment reflects that “we’re getting more and more sophisticated,” she said.
Both within the organization and beyond it, Yang also strives to “be women’s voice,” she said. “We didn’t start the brand by identifying a problem or a gap in the market. The gap we saw was how women were being spoken to and represented.
“Talking about problems and solutions feeds you a certain sense of what beauty is supposed to be, and our mission from the beginning was for you to celebrate who you are,” she continued. “It’s that mindset, and it’s like a party that I wanted to throw for women. They’re not separate initiatives, it’s who we are internally and externally.”
