In an interview with Insights Success, the Founder and CEO of Glowee, Sandra Rey shares the key insights over her organization’s journey and its specialized solutions and services. She has also broadly discussed about company’s core competencies and how the company is establishing its foothold in the global market. Considering these influential and inspirational aspects, Insights Success recognizes Sandra Rey as one of the influential marketing leaders to watch in 2019.
Below are the highlights of the interview conducted between Sandra and Insights Success:
Can you give us a brief overview of your background and the evolution of your career towards being a recognized industry leader in biotech?
I came up with the idea for Glowee when I was a design student. I pursued my studies with a Social Entrepreneurship degree. When I graduated in 2014, I decided to enter the lab and see what bioluminescence could bring. I created the company in December 2014, and have been growing my business since then, through constant R&D, building a great team of talented people and successful partnerships, with the objective to revolutionize the lighting industry thanks to nature.
Pertaining to your leadership experience, how according to you, do the changes in technology utilization, volatility of the market and talent recognition, affect the overall development of any business/organization?
As the leader of a young company, I try to include people that are bringing skills I may not have to the team. Hiring talent can be stressful, but I believe in judging people on their accomplishments before anything else. What we need before everything in a little startup like mine is people who believe in our ability to change the world. What according to you are the vital attributes that a business leader should possess? As the leader of a team, your only role is to inspire the team and give them this power to act. This is where being passionate about what we do is absolutely crucial.
In terms of market competency, how do you strive to sustain your organization’s leading position?
As Glowee is a unique offer on the market, our strategy to maintain our position relies on 3 mains things; first R&D, to stay ahead of potential newcomers. Second, educate people on the way we can use bioluminescence and become solution prescribers for all the stakeholders. Third, I spend most of my time listening to clients and getting feedbacks on our product, trying to find what would be the most valuable innovation that we can bring them. Not keeping what we do and accept to evolve and grow is also key in this process.
Considering the necessity of encouraging women to take up leadership positions, in what ways according to you, can this be achieved?
In my opinion, the more role-model women will have, the more being a women will not even be a question. Education plays also an important role as women tends to have less self-confidence, and thus sometimes, taking a position that does not allow them to stand up and be a leader. In my opinion, working on women’s self-confidence from a young age so that there is no question to be asked later is more important than educating on gender equality.
What would be your advice for the aspiring/emerging business leaders?
The best advice I can give is don’t be afraid of what you don’t know. Passion, determination and motivation will be enough to achieve what you are looking for. When you have that, you can convince talented people to do what you cannot do, and you can convince clients to follow you. Then, my advice would be to not be afraid of talking about your project, to anybody, as more as possible, don’t keep it for yourself. It will bring you feedbacks and make you evolve way quicker and further that you would have imagined.
How you have envisioned your future with regards to your career as well as your personal growth?
For now I am entirely focused on the growth of Glowee, we want our light solution to revolutionize the way we think about light, to be a sustainable answer to huge environmental issues. As my project is really something that makes me wake up in the morning, the energy provided by this exiting project, helps me create this perfect personal/professional balance.
About the Leader
Sandra Rey is the Founder and CEO of Glowee, who revolutionary makes biological lighting systems using bioluminescent marine bacteria to produce their own light. Today, Glowee offers inspiring and relaxing experiences of bioluminescence for the well-being industry. Rey’s radical light sources could reduce a major cause of energy and natural resources consumption in the future. Sandra holds a master’s degree from the French Design School of Strate and took social entrepreneurship courses at the business school ESCP Europe. During her designed studies, she has imagined an alternative to traditional lighting using biology and living micro-organisms. As the founder and CEO of Glowee, a Paris-based startup, she’s betting on a future powered by bioluminescence. She has been recognized as an Innovator under 25 by the great MIT technology Review.
