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Proof that Serena Williams has a natural winning instinct on and off the court, the tennis great said she was concocting a tinted moisturizer decades before she even knew the name of the product. Don’t worry it’s the $1.89 billion category today.
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Williams took the stage at the 2024 Essence Culture Festival in New Orleans on Saturday to share her journey in beauty entrepreneurship and the joy of helping others achieve their goals.
Wearing blue eye shadow and an updo, Williams tapped into the autumn lady trend by wearing a white tweed jacket with black trim and a matching mini skirt from Gucci’s pre-fall collection. Williams accessorized the classic look with a bright Gucci horsebit loafer, fishnet stockings, pearl drop earrings, a pearl necklace and a tennis bracelet.
Williams ends her professional tennis career in 2022 with 23 Grand Slam women’s singles titles, but the slowdown is not about her. “I didn’t necessarily retire. I guess I’m a little too young to retire. But I evolved into a different life,” she said. In 2023, she and her husband Alexis Ohanian welcomed their second daughter, Adira River. This year, Williams launched Wyn Beauty, a comprehensive makeup line six years in the making. She teamed up with joint venture partners Good Glamm Group and Ulta to introduce the vegan, cruelty-free line in April.
As an athlete playing an individual sport, Williams was the center of attention throughout her 27-year professional tennis career. “I’ve always tried to represent myself the best I could on the court, and that wasn’t always easy,” she said. Wyn Beauty is her solution to the challenges she experienced in finding makeup that suited her skin tone and could last through “three sets at Wimbledon, pouring sweat and rain delays ,” she said.
And motherhood will endure. “I like the word ‘active beauty’ because at first, there are so many people in the beauty business right now and I was like if this is what I want to do, what speaks to me? What is authentic to me and what would I actually use? And I’m like, well, I’m a very active individual. I love working out, but my life is much more active now than it was because I’m also a mom,” she said. “I don’t necessarily want to wear a full face of makeup, but I want to wear something that I can wear every day and that will last.”
Wyn Beauty’s early success is behind a diverse team. “It’s really important to get women involved in the back,” Williams said. “If you look at the best companies, there are women and men. Everyone is involved in the back as well as people who are passionate about what they do, people who share my passion, and people who understand my idea of active beauty, which is fresh and unique in the market. For me, it was just finding the perfect mesh of people who could come together and work on that vision.”
Williams brings this ethos into Serena Ventures, the venture capital fund she founded in 2017 to support founders of underrepresented early-stage startups.
“My goal was to invest in women,” said Williams, recalling how the idea for the VC came from a statistic Caryn Seidman Becker, Clear’s CEO, heard at a conference eight years ago. “She said less than 2 percent of all VC money went to women. And I thought she was mistaken, I thought she was wrong. But it turned out she wasn’t.”
While the number hasn’t changed significantly, Williams said it’s moving in the right direction. “I felt that the only way to change that number is to be the person who writes the checks,” she said.
In 2022 Serena Ventures announced that it had raised $111 million, and just like with her makeup line, Williams is taking a comprehensive approach to how funds are distributed. “With our fund, we invest in everyone. I truly believe in diversity, that everyone has a seat at the table… Investing in other women, investing in men, investing in people of color, investing in everyone was a lot of fun.”
Gucci Cotton Tweed Jacket
Gucci Tweed Skirt
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