Michelle Lee has built a career around seeing where culture is headed next. From Editor-in-Chief of Allure and Nylon to a global leadership role at Netflix and now CMO of Landing International and K Beauty World, her path is anything but conventional. Michelle opens up about feeling intimidated when she first reached the top ranks of publishing, learning to take bigger creative risks, and recognizing early that the traditional media model was about to radically change.

Together with Jodi and guest co-host Lindy Firstenberg, Michelle explores what the modern beauty experience actually looks like as the lines between beauty, health and wellness disappear. They dig into personalization, the growing “pharmification” of beauty and wellness, and what Michelle learned overseeing global editorial and publishing at Netflix, including watching Squid Game become a worldwide phenomenon and seeing firsthand how culture can travel across borders.

Michelle also gets candid about stepping away from an intense full-time executive career, building a fractional career through relationships and side hustles, and the three résumé bullet points she believes everyone should be intentionally building. Then the conversation turns to K-beauty: why its first U.S. wave faded, how TikTok Shop and Amazon helped fuel its resurgence, and why succeeding in the U.S. requires far more than simply bringing a successful international brand stateside. It’s a conversation about reinvention, cultural fluency and building a career and a brand that’s ready for what comes next.

This episode is presented by Beauty Connect.

Shane Evans, CEO and co-founder of Heights Wellness Retreat, turned one disappointing spa experience into a business that has endured for more than two decades. After starting her career selling fitness memberships and later moving into medical sales, a frustrating birthday massage sparked an idea: what if high-quality massage could be professional, convenient and affordable enough to become a regular wellness habit? Four months later, the first Massage Heights opened and nine months after that, Shane opened location number two.

Today, Shane is transforming that original concept into Heights Wellness Retreat, evolving 100+ locations from a massage-and-skincare model into a broader destination for wellness, longevity, technology and community. She joins Jodi and co-host Lindy Firstenberg for a fascinating conversation about the changing wellness consumer, the rise of peptides and compounding pharmacies, the importance of making wellness part of a routine, and why the future may belong to destinations that bring multiple modalities from red light and cryotherapy to sauna and vibroacoustic technology under one roof.

But Shane’s story is also about entrepreneurship, leadership and knowing when to reinvent what you’ve already built. She shares why she returned to lead the company she founded, how she thinks about franchisee profitability and staying independent, and why her definition of success has shifted from money to something much more meaningful: freedom. It’s an inspiring look at what happens when an entrepreneur refuses to let a successful 22-year-old business stand still and instead asks what the modern wellness consumer will need next.

This episode is presented by Beauty Connect.

Ron Gee’s career has taken him from chemical engineering and Kraft Foods to senior leadership roles at some of the biggest companies in beauty including L’Oréal, Coty and Shiseido. Now an Industry Luminary Advisor at Accenture, Ron joins Jodi and CEW President Elana Szyfer to unpack the unexpected career decisions that led him from engineering to finance, M&A and ultimately beauty and why learning the language of finance became one of the most important building blocks of his career.

The conversation offers a rare insider’s look at beauty M&A: why major companies continue acquiring emerging brands, why some acquisitions fail to meet expectations, and why a brand’s relationship with its consumer can be every bit as valuable as its products. Ron and Elana revisit examples including BECCA, Prescriptives and Clarisonic while exploring what can happen when an entrepreneurial brand enters a much larger organization and why timing, corporate culture and preserving the people behind a brand can make such a difference.

But the conversation ultimately becomes about what comes after a big corporate career. Ron shares why he’s increasingly drawn to helping smaller and middle-market companies grow, rather than simply taking another major operating role, while Jodi, Ron and Elana explore the rise of fractional executives and experienced leaders choosing work based on joy, relationships and impact. And in a revealing look at the next generation of beauty consumers, Ron shares what his 20-year-old twin daughters are actually buying, experimenting with and prioritizing from devices and nail art to NARS and Drunk Elephant.

This episode is presented by Beauty Connect.