Founders Unfound

Megan Graham - Ries

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Episode notes

Megan Graham is the Founder and CEO of Ries, a new brand addressing single-use plastic waste in the beauty industry with refillable, reusable travel-size bottles designed for beauty.

Megan spent her formative years in Atlanta, where her father was an anchor for CNN. She attended Florida State University, choosing to major in Textile Science and Fashion Merchandising. Megan translated this into a career in media and fashion, ultimately helping to run beauty marketing at Vogue. Her roles over those years involved extensive travel. And it was this context that led to her insight around wasteful plastics in personal care items, particularly those used on-the-go. She would discover that 150 billion pieces of plastic are created by the beauty industry annually, and 30% of single use plastic ending up in the landfill comes from personal care and grooming products. So, as the saying goes, she thought there had to be a better way. And so Ries was born.

Megan was part of the inaugural cohort of the Sephora Accelerate. Ries has gone to be carried by Sephora and Goop, and be recognized by Glamour and Cosmopolitan magazines as one of the hottest innovations in the industry.

Megan has a great story. You’ll want to listen in.

In this episode Megan and Dan discussed:

The realization that she appreciated looking at fashion more than creating
The growth the comes from hard environments
How Ries ended up featured at Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop
Why success for her is defined by pushing the industry forward in sustainability
What a trend forecaster actually does

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