Breaking Barriers: Why “Taboo” Brands Win with Shama Amalean Skinner (Former COO, Thinx Inc.)

Shama Amalean Skinner:

The tagline was Thinx Underwear for women with periods. This guy says to us, well, imagine if a nine-year-old boy was in the subway and he saw that, and he asked his mother what that was. And we said, well, that is exactly what we are trying to do. Women's health has been under-researched and underfunded for decades.

(INTRO) Sarah Chen-Spellings:

From the New York City subway to the pages of Vogue, the Thinx company, one of the most well-known awarded and recognizable period and incontinence, underwear brands out there. Serving 1.3 million worldwide. Yes, I did just say underwear brands serving 1.3 million worldwide, much less known the quite trailblazing operative behind this brand who played a pivotal role in defining an entire category.

Joining us today is Shama Amalean Skinner, former chief operating officer of Thinx, a company that revolutionized the conversation around period products. That was in 2022 acquired by major player Kimberly-Clark. Now, the brand's innovation in period pants not only provided a practical solution for so many, but also sparked, of course, some pretty heated conversations for challenging societal norms.

Becoming a Harvard Business case study along the way. Yes, it is still taboo today in many parts of the world to talk about menstruation. However, like any ambitious startup, Thinx faced its share of challenges and controversies in the process. And this is exactly why I wanted Shama to come on the show to share her unique perspective on navigating the complexities of actually being a disruptor and scaling a business.

For the first time, Shama reveals how she would have done things differently from an operator standpoint and real frustration about how the Femtech market is still grossly underfunded, despite its massive potential. Whether you're looking to finally crack mass retail this year for your product or working through some really hard personal questions and navigating startup life, this is another episode I think you'll love.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

I come from Sri Lanka. I grew up there the first 17 years of my life and then moved to the US for my first job where I was for about six years. So this was in the consumer goods space. And then I went on this expedition to Antarctica actually back in 2014. And the reason I mention that as kind of “who is this person” in answer to that is because it did sort of change my career trajectory quite a bit.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

So after I went to Antarctica, I was there for two weeks, seated on a rock and literally hearing ice slush into the ocean every couple of minutes. And I could see and feel climate change right there in real time. And so I decided that I didn't want to be contributing to this problem in this way. So I decided to leave my job.

I quit my my job with the large company. And I decided to join a really tiny company that was at seed stage at the time called Thinx. And what was compelling to me about things was threefold. First was that it was an opportunity to revolutionize a category that had seen no innovation in the women's health space for 80 years.

And then it was an opportunity to catalyze the mass adoption of a reusable product in a category that's dominated by single use disposables. And then it was also the opportunity to change the narrative around periods, a highly stigmatized and taboo topic. And so all of those things were what sort of compelled me to join Thinx. I sort of like fell into this role as I was thinking about what was important to me. And I've absolutely loved being in the startup space ever since.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Yeah. And Shama before we dove deep into the things journey, some of us in the audience might remember those amazing ads in the subways of New York, that were really game changing on a very taboo subject that is of periods. Can you tell us a little bit about the idea? Talk to us a little bit about the product that the market opportunity there.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Yeah. So the product is essentially a underwear that looks and feels like regular underwear, but it has technology layers built into what we call the gusset area, which is essentially the crotch area. And that essentially serves very much like a traditional pad. So you wear it in as a replacement for pads and tampons. And yes, you're right, we had this huge moment in the subways and it's essentially how we first made our mark as a brand was via the New York City subway.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Tell us about how you changed consumer behavior. Right. And both of us come from Asia where we know even using tampons. Of course, I was born in Malaysia, was the majority. Malaysia tampons are still a no. How would you even change the consumer behavior and the skepticism? Frankly, even I in the beginning, I was like, wait, does it really work? When can I take a chance and will I be disgusted by basically sitting in blood?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Absolutely. It was a long journey, Sarah. It started off with this going out to market with a taboo busting narrative, right? So what we needed to do first was to try to create a movement around this. And, and I'm telling you the story now in hindsight, right after reflecting on everything that we did, I don't think that we were super precise in the way that we navigated this problem.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

We sort of reacted to what we were seeing from consumers and we reacted to what we were experiencing as consumers in the market. Right. And what I mean by that is what we were experiencing from the traditional had an underwear brands out there. So traditionally padded underwear brands were really buying into the stigma, really sort of marketing the discreet nature of their products.

It was all really doubling down on the stigmatizing narrative and we were these like young millennials coming in and thinking, Why? For generations we have been spoken to like this, why are we continue saying to speak like this about a normal bodily function? And so, this was phase one for us was how do we create this movement around destigmatizing periods?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

And that was that journey into the subway, right? We wanted to go into the subways because we had just kind of mass ridership to be able to get some brand awareness around a new brand. And we just decided to go in there with a few images. We submitted a few images and one tagline, the tagline was Thinx Underwear for women with periods.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

That's it. And we submitted this a sample copy and we got a letter back from the agency that owns the inventory in the subways, the ad inventory, and they said, we cannot approve this copy as is. And so we said, why? This is rather odd. It literally the copy that was just that one sentence. And so we got on the phone with them and I will never forget this.

This guy says to us, well, imagine if a nine-year-old boy was in the subway and he saw that and he asked his mother what that was. And we said, well, that is exactly what we are trying to do. Right. So it's okay for a nine-year-old boy to see breast augmentation ads and body slimming ads and so on, but not an ad about periods. So this was very puzzling to us. And you can imagine we were kind of like 80 to 90%.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Remind us the timing of this. What year was this?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

And this was back in 2015.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Yeah. So not long ago. Not long ago at all.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Not long ago at all. In, you know what would be considered one of the most progressive cities in the US. So it was rather shocking for us. And so we took that story to the media and the media was very pleased to report that story out. And we had immense organic traction. We basically went viral, so we had over 100 organic news outlets reports on us and within the space of 48 hours and this was globally.

And so that really sort of started the movement that was, I would say, sort of phase one, which, you know, the story and the narrative that started this movement around normalizing periods. And then you asked about sort of subsequently, right? So after that, what was wonderful was that we had this fellowship, right? People that really believed in what the brand stood for but had not necessarily purchased the product.

So brand enthusiasts followers, but not purchasers. And that's just a really interesting space to be in, especially in consumer goods. You don't see that that often. And so we dug into that a little bit more. And to your point, this idea of it being seeming a little gross was still very much top of mind for purchasers, certainly those beyond the sort of innovator segment of consumers, right?

So we had the innovator guys that were kind of like yes, that early 2% very happy to kind of jump in and try the product. But the early adopters still needed a little bit more convincing. And so with that group of people, what it took was product education. So education around how it works, why it works, why it's not gross.

So directly hitting those questions head on, why is this not gross? How does this compare to your regular period products and things like this, which back then it would take usually three touchpoints, three advertising touchpoints to convert a consumer. And for us it took seven.

But when we converted that consumer, the effect was magnified because after they had tried the product you had the word of mouth effect woman to woman. So it's a woman talking to another woman about an intimate process and say, “Have you heard about this thing?” And that is really what helped us get to that next level of consumers.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Yeah. So I actually love this. And you know what you're unpacking here. I was listening in to I believe things was me to a Harvard Business case study as well in terms of the marketing and building into what is a multi billion multi-trillion opportunity of femtech as a whole. And yet it's interesting where it comes from, the point of which you mentioned earlier where it's usually a discreet exchange.

I remember back in the day women would go to, I guess, a pharmacy and they would just put their coin in and someone at the store would just give it to them, just like you would have had an alcohol bottle and a black bag. That would be the way it was done because you should not speak about it, right?

 And to really be front and center and change minds and hearts here, to create loyal consumers, that is something else. But how have you seen this globally? This whole movement of period panties is still rather new. I would we are starting to see it across the globe. But how has the take up been? And especially in areas where you and I come from, where even girls somehow would drop out of school when they're on their period?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Absolutely. So it's a really important question. This is something that what you just described around covering up in black paper and putting it in a black bag that still happens to this day in Asia. As you know, certainly in Sri Lanka, where I'm from, we have a long way to go to destigmatize this conversation. Now from one of the things that was unveiled to me through this work was actually just how prolific this problem of girls dropping out of school because of that period is, not just in other parts of the world.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

It happens here in the U.S. as well. So we commissioned this study where we surveyed many public school students. And just to try to understand and how many of them were missing school time. So not necessarily dropping out of school because that doesn't happen as much here, but certainly missing school time plus time because they got their periods and they didn't have anywhere to go.

We found that it was around 80% of girls that either had missed class time or knew of somebody who had missed class time because they got that period. Because what happens, let's say you're at school, you get your period and then you have to go to this, right? Because you go to the bathroom, there are no period products in the bathroom.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

So you have to go to the nurse and so you miss the class period and so on. And so what we did again, this was part of what the brand stood for is that we did a lot of advocacy work around making access to period products free and easy, particularly in places like public schools. So we did a massive advocacy campaign and we actually managed to change about six pieces of local legislation to ensure that periods could be available in public restrooms for girls to use.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

And so as that part of the business model as well, I'm really intrigued by how and I think we're starting to see more and more of this right, especially in the direct to consumer market where advocacy is very much part of the brand. I think you used the word movement. You had to start a movement before the brand loyalty followed.

Talk to us a little bit about the business model here. What kind of revenue numbers were you doing at the time? To the extent that you can speak about and what could it have done, I guess, in this market space?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Yeah, I can't give specifics about revenue numbers. I can say that this business grew very quickly and garnered a lot of attention, not just from specialty retail, especially brands like Victoria's Secret and Haynes and Aerie and so on, but also from the big CPG players as well. The category itself, so period underwear was double digits, 24, 25% takers by 2018.

And if you looked at actually 2015, it was nonexistent. That's how quickly the category grew and we started taking market share from pads and tampons. You asked another question around advocacy and how advocacy plays a role in branding. So I think there's maybe three sort of distinct components that help a brand become successful. So one is that branding piece, which in my view, if you can get galvanize consumers around a movement and around a purpose, they are more likely to stay with you and the example that I give for that is actually Patagonia.

That is just the gold standard when it comes to really standing for something. And then the second is the product itself. You've got to have a good product. If you have a product that doesn't work, then it doesn't matter how good your brand is. And then the third is the team. The team really matters. You need a strong management team and a strong team overall that is able to, especially with start ups, that's able to change as the environment changes and as the startup matures.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

And to the extent that you can speak about that, this has been covered elsewhere with regard to the management of an operation of space, which of course you were very central to as the COO or what were some of your learnings there in terms of your journey? What were the mistakes? I guess to the extent that now hindsight 2020, right, what would you have done differently?

Anything that comes to mind here on if a COO is tuning in to you right now in this conversation, what should they have in mind as priorities?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Gosh, it's a really good question. There's so many learnings, difficult to pick just one. But one of the things I'll start off with is that I mentioned this concept of change and adaptability with startups. I think the ability to adapt as the startup grows is really critical and particularly at a leadership and management level. And I think different people are right for the organization at different times in its history and its maturity, and there's nothing wrong with that.

That's a good thing, right? That person that is stellar from 0 to 1 may not have the skill set to take you from 1 to 10. And that person who took you from 1 to 10 may not have the skill set to take you from 10 to 100 and just recognizing that and allowing space for that. So that your employees feel like they're on the journey with you and you're in tune with what they are good at and critically what they want to do with their lives.

Often we try to sort of fit people into these roles as the organization is growing, even though it's not really something that they want to do. So being cognizant of that I think is really critical.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Yeah, so that's definitely an important bit. And in fact, I think your episode is coming up to a feature with Kendra Scott where she talks exactly about that. And her biggest mistake was actually hiring brand names. Thinking that, oh, this person from a fortune 500 would do extremely well, but in fact, really stuttered at a startup because they were not built for the grit and the hustle.

They expected a full-service team as they were used to. So management lessons learned, and that's definitely one of the top among a lot of our leaders. How about from an operations standpoint? I think one trend that we're seeing increasingly with a lot of our startups is that the manufacturer or the source, you know, globally and with increasing the China tensions and all of that, that is definitely the supply chain issue is still a top of mind for the exacerbated by the pandemic.

As someone who really thought through that, a new source from Sri Lanka back in the day. Tell us a little bit about, you know, your strategy with supply chain management and some of your lessons there.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

I think it's a really important one. The pandemic affected everybody. It affected us just as much as affected others, despite the fact that we had a very, very close relationship with our manufacturer. And the reason is supply chains are extremely convoluted. They are opaque. There are so many different parts and components to it, particularly apparel supply chains.

You go all the way down your manufacturer is just your tier one supply. It's a tier two is the raw material supplier. Tier three is the yarn supplier, tier four is the cotton spinner. And there's so many all the way down to in the case of cotton, that's just one material with lots of other materials that we're talking about.

But you can get up to sort of five tiers. And not only is it five tiers, that you're getting cotton from multiple sources, right? Some of it might be coming from India. Some of it is coming from this region in China. Some of it's coming from another region, China. So it is very difficult to understand exactly what's going on in your supply chain. And that's one of the most challenging things about supply chains.

And we, as a brand and I'll say for myself as an operator, I've always been keen to make sure that I knew everything that was going on in my supply chain insofar as I could. During COVID, we had tons of supply chain disruptions. We knew where all of our materials were coming from, but there were disruptions in sort of that tier four or five level that we couldn't unblock.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

So that meant that we ended up losing sales because we didn't have enough inventory. And then subsequently we actually overordered it because we overcorrected for that issue. Overbooked raw materials, overbooked capacity, overbooked finished goods. Purchase orders ended up in an all the inventory situation after the pandemic. That was a really challenging time for a lot of brands, but I think the point is why that even if you are even when you are very close to your supply chain because of this sort of very convoluted, opaque nature of the supply chain, it's that much more difficult to navigate.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Yeah. And what would you have done differently as a COO? You spend something like seven and a half years operating, getting from 0 to 1, and things has had an interesting trajectory, to say the least.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

So I'm going to answer that relative to what I just shared with you. And it's redundancy. So what I would have done differently is I would have created more redundancy in the supply chain, too reliant on a few key partners, especially because we had performance materials. Right? But we hadn't dual sourced those performance materials. And that was a mistake because when you come to a position, when you're exposed in the way that we were during COVID, we didn't have anywhere else to go to get that specific material.

And then what was the second part of your question?

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

What makes a good COO?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Oh, gosh, I don't know if I have the credibility to answer that question, but patience, empathy, grit, rolling up your sleeves. The thing with this role, it's different depending on the organization. Each organization's version of a COO is different. In the case of my experience, it was sort of like a little bit of everything. So yes, a deep focus on supply chain and operations.

But I also had other departments that were not traditionally be rolling up into a COO like wholesale and digital. At one point I had digital marketing at one point and social impact rolling up into me. For me, it was this ability to be versatile and adaptable that made that role successful for me and vice versa.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Yeah. And what did this journey teach you about yourself as a leader?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

So that I am highly adaptable. I can change with the changing direction of the company, the changing times, but also that whatever is sort of thrown on my plate, I can take it, figure out how to navigate it, and bring whatever project it is to life.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Yeah. And so now I want to zoom out a little bit into the business opportunity of Femtech here. You chose a very interesting category that has now, as you said, grown tremendously. And it's almost non-negotiable when you get into a call it a CVS or Walmart, Target, that's something that you see on your shelf that wasn't there before.

Tell us a little bit about why you were so intrigued by this, what the size is, right? What was the TAM and why is it that it's taken so long, frankly, for women to get funding in this area that truly is a multi-billion and possibly multi-trillion opportunity?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

It's one that we've thought about a lot, especially because it was actually not that easy for us to get funding when we were looking to raise. The reason that it's not been looked at for all these years is because of the historical position of women in society. Women's health has been under-researched and underfunded for decades, and it's really only very recently that Femtech has even become a thing.

What was it… in 2021? I think we saw about $2 billion, a little over $2 billion of investment coming into Femtech, and that was up from about a billion the year before. But if you look ten years ago, it's nothing. And again, it's because of this historical position of women in society, historic, systemic oppression that has led to the state of affairs that we're in right now relative to women's health.

And this is why Biden's initiative on women's health is so important. We need to essentially get more funding in the area so that we can have women be researched in clinical trials so that women can have better outcomes ultimately. Sometimes when I tell people about period space that I say, oh, there hadn't been any innovation in this space for 30 years since the menstrual cup back in the 1930s.

People are like, What? Back in the 1930s? Firstly, people thought menstrual cups were invented more recently. They weren't, it was back in the 1930s. But since then between 1930 and the 2010s, nothing. And so again, we go back to this question of why this is just sort of an example of one area, right? But many other areas of women's health have experienced the same fate, where the lack of investment in the space has led to no innovation and has led to, therefore bad outcomes for women.

So think about diseases that affect either only affect women like endometriosis, or that affect women differently. Women have had very poor health outcomes. So even things like cardiovascular disease that affects women differently. But it hasn't to your point, it just hasn't been the effect of cardiovascular disease on women specifically has not been properly studied and researched to be able to provide better outcomes for women.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

This leads me to my next question What needs to change? As someone who has been operating in this space, you are building and undoubtedly, as you said, the most supposedly progressive city in the country and yet faced resistance. What needs to change for women to really progress in the capital spectrum in getting that innovation funding? What do you see to be the bottleneck here?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

I think it's funding. It's belief in female founders, the amount of funding that is going in to female founders. We need to change that 2% number. That's what needs to change and I think it needs to happen with any kind of systems change. It needs a cross-sectoral effort, right. So it needs you need private capital, you need government to step in, you need philanthropic capital, you need academia.

So you need this cross-sector collaboration to be able to move any systemic agenda forward, whether it's climate change or women's health or any of these things. I think we need to see more of that in the women's health space. We've started to get a little bit of capital. President Biden's initiative is a really good step in the right direction. But we need, again, more cross-sector players to collaborate on this issue to really move it forward.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

So bringing it back down to the founders lens, right, because you are really on the founding team one. The first few employees and I recall, I think started being a Kickstarter campaign as a means of funding. What were some of the rejections that funders were giving all of you in terms of bringing your product to market there? Just do have a sense about why we're still at the 2% number?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Yeah, I can only speak for sort of the latter part of when we were trying to raise funds in our series A and even in the seed, it was very difficult to find people that thought that this was a real issue because we were in many cases speaking to all male teens that just didn't understand what the opportunity they thought.

This is really niche. This is something that not very many women are going to adopt and we'd often get comments like, Well, I asked my wife if she would wear that and she said no. And so this is not something that we think is going to go beyond a really niche audience. And really the only ones that believed in the potential for this were players that were already in the space that were watching this space very closely.

So your traditional CPG players, right? They already had their eyes in the space. They were already reading all of their white papers around the market research white papers around how this category was. Now this particular format period on the way it was taking market share from their formats, pads and tampons and that made their ears book. So that's what was really interesting from a funding standpoint.

Those who actually were in the space could see it happening and therefore became interested in it. But if you were not in the space and you were relying on your wife to tell you this, that it just people couldn't really understand the potential.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

They're fascinating. So did you go on to take sort of a white labeling approach? Was there or still a B2B model with what you were doing or was it just purely D2C?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Yeah, we thought about it. It was both D2C and retail. I mentioned the first phase of the company before when I talked about our early adopters, innovators and early adopter customer segments. But then we needed to get to the early majority. That's really when growth started to happen, and getting to that early majority meant getting into Target, Walmart and so on.

And so we developed a lower price point product to get into those channels by 2021. We were a mix of both DTC as well as retail and mass retail, but specifically mass retail was so important for us because we wanted to make this product accessible, we wanted to make it ubiquitous, and the only way to do that was going to be to get into mass retail.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

And were you part of those negotiations with the big names that really took on your product?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Yeah, so some of them and it was interesting because we had two offers on the table for a launch into retail. One was giving us a better margin than the other and we decided to go with the one that was actually giving us not as good a margin. And the reason is because of brand alignment, because we felt that by going with Target, that Target had already taken a lot of DTC brands into retail.

So they had a proven model and they were very much brand aligned with us. And so we felt like they were the right partner initially for a launch.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Yeah, that's interesting. I mentioned I met with Wells, who has now I believe her latest product in Target is travel luggage bags. And she was explaining to me the whole how complex it actually is to get your product into mass retail. And I was curious to hear from you for those that are listening in to startup founders, a lot of our founders, if she had the 1 to 10 and retail is definitely a tipping point, what lessons can you share that sums of strategically thinking who the right players are, what their best partnerships are to take your brand forward?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

I would say that it really depends on the brand and the product. Like I said, for us, we felt that this was the right brand partner for us, even though we were not getting the same margin as potentially some of the others that we had spoken to. The reason is because we knew that they had certain capabilities. So that's something that I would say you need to really understand.

What capabilities are you lacking that you're looking for? What is that other person going to bring to the table and how is it going to complement your brand and your company?

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Got it. So, after seven and a half years at Thinx, you decided to move on. Why then, and I think this is always a classic question, right, for founders or top performers, when do you decide to move on and when does the right time and why and how would you do it?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

So for me, it was really just this sense of achievement, right? Like I came in here to do these particular things and for me it was really catalyzing the mass adoption of this type of product in this category that's dominated by disposables. And I felt by the end of my tenure that we had done that, and that was a big moment for me.

So I felt that sense of sort of like achievement and it felt like the right time. What's really odd with this thing is like, I don't know, I feel like you can, you know, right? When it's, when it's the right time. There's sort of like intuitively you feel like, Oh, I've come to the end of that chapter and that journey and now I want to go do something else.

I know that's not a very scientific answer, but there is something about this sort of feeling that you have. And for me, that feeling was the sense of accomplishment of like, okay, now I can take a breath because I have achieved the thing that I wanted to achieve with this company and managed to hand it over to a large CPG that was going to be able to take that mission forward.

And so for me that was the end, really felt like the end of the chapter and wanted to then pivot and think about, well, what's the next area where I can do something like this?

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

So I love to dove a little bit deeper that because we're or all about frameworks here. But what would be, I guess, the three questions you would ask yourself to make this hard decision because stepping away from your baby, especially if you're in the founding team, is tough, right?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Yeah. So I would ask, have you achieved what you wanted to achieve? I would ask, are you and the company growing at the same rate? And then the third thing I'd ask is, is your heart still in it? Do you still feel as passionate about it as you once did, or has the company changed substantially enough that you no longer feel aligned with its mission on or longer feels, even if you're aligned with its mission, but no longer feel attached to it in the way that you once did.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Love that. Well, there’s so much more that we can go into, Shama. Okay, Billion Dollar Questions are rapid fire questions, for you to think about as you reflect upon your journey. So first thing is, what was most unexpected about your journey to leadership?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

I’d say that I didn't take the traditional academic path to leadership. I did a bachelor's degree in business in the UK and in France and then jumped into my first role. I could have probably gone back and done an MBA, but it would have broken my Thinx journey, and I didn't want to do that. So I'd say I didn't have the traditional academic path to leadership.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Describe your leadership style in one word.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Grounded.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

That's a good one. A habit you picked up that changed your life.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

I took out caffeine.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Oh, I did not know that.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Since Last three years. Yeah, so I only do decaf now. Morning and afternoon. Only decaf. And the reason is sleep. I found that caffeine was really affecting my sleep negatively and so I just removed it and it's really helped.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

So what's your energy booster?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Look, I have. Yeah, just like the general hustle bustle of life.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

That's all you need. A crucible moment in childhood that still shapes you today.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

I can't think of one distinct moment, but I will say that I grew up amidst a civil war. It was a long civil war. It lasted 26 years. I was born into the war and I left before it ended. And I do still think about that today because I think about how lucky I am to be where I am today, living in the US with my husband and my kids and having the life that I have. So it's probably that.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

What's your biggest insecurity you feel?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Public speaking.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

I know you’re going to say that! Oh god, okay, what's an opinion you have that most people don't agree?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

With that parenting gets easier with time. I think it gets much harder and much more complicated as children grow.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

A book you recommend and one key tenet from that book you love.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

A Ministry for The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. My favorite bit is actually in Chapter 40, where he talks about Jevons Paradox, which essentially this idea that as you become more efficient at using a particular resource, you use more of it, right? So like we become more efficient at mining coal and therefore we use more coal. This was really interesting to me was because he uses this to describe how we've gotten to this place of exploitative consumption that we are in today, and that essentially just because something can be exploited doesn't mean that it should be exploited in the name of efficiency.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Oh, I love that. That's a powerful one. And so well, that brings me quite nicely to perhaps a hint about what next, when next for you, Shama?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

I want to stay in this space of using business as a force for good, so very much around those principles I just described right now. I do some board work and consulting work with these types of businesses.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

And last word for an investor who's tuning in and is eager to hear from someone like you who has been in the trenches working in Femtech. What would you say to them?

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Believe in it. Do your research and this is a massive opportunity. There are so many startups in the femtech space that have proven why it's important to invest in this space. And it's not just for the good feels right. The benefit is actually it's so believe in it.

Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Yeah, love that. As I always say, investing in women is the smartest thing that you can do right now. So thank you, Shama. And we are holding on with bated breath for your next billion dollar move.

Shama Amalean Skinner:

Thank you so much.