Meet the Mastermind Behind Jennifer Lopez’s Skincare Brand

Yasmin Nouri

Yasmin is the host of the "Behind Her Empire" podcast, focused on highlighting self-made women leaders and entrepreneurs and how they tackle their career, money, family and life.

Each episode covers their unique hero's journey and what it really takes to build an empire with key lessons learned along the way. The goal of the series is to empower you to see what's possible & inspire you to create financial freedom in your own life.

Meet the Mastermind Behind Jennifer Lopez’s Skincare Brand
Lisa Sequino

On this episode of Behind Her Empire, JLo Beauty Co-founder and CEO Lisa Sequino discusses how she transitioned from her corporate career to a more entrepreneurial path.


In 2013, Sequino landed her dream job at Estée Lauder as the senior vice president of brands. It was then, during the height of her career, managing a team of thousands, when she felt the prickling desire to get back into business.

As a 40-year-old woman herself at the time, she began noticing the lack of beauty and skincare products targeted at middle-aged women.

“I started thinking like, what beauty brands are actually serving these powerful 40-year-old women?” she said. “And I was like, nobody.

That sent Sequino on a mission — to create something targeted at her age demographic that still felt fun.

"I wanted my company to reflect something that was fun, sexy, exciting and tailored not to the 18-year-old, but to this power 35-40 year old,” she said.

At the time, a friend of hers was already working on a project with Jennifer Lopez and suggested Sequino pitch her the idea.

“We both thought it was such an opportunity in the marketplace,” Sequino said of her conversation with Lopez. “She came from a very interesting perspective with an amazing track record, and I came with an interesting perspective, and we just gelled.”

In 2022, Sequino joined Lopez in founding JLo Beauty, an El Segundo-based skincare brand aimed for the 30 and up age group.

Sequino said she doesn’t take for granted the leverage JLo Beauty had from the jump being attached to a big-name celebrity. Her main focus - and something she learned at Estee Lauder - was ensuring the brand meant something to consumers as well.

“Even if people know who Jennifer is, I want them to know what our brand stands for, and what it means to them,” she explained. “I'd say we work even harder than most brands to make sure that we're really being efficient in how we spend and how we plan our business and grow it.”

Part of that growth comes from being very intentional in what the brand does, according to Sequino.

“For example, we launched our body line this summer, which was a raging success,” she said. “It was a natural progression, but we were very singular in the way that we did it. We launched one SKU, and then we came out with two more.”

Sequino is a prime reminder that it’s never too late to redefine yourself.

“What makes life exciting is making different choices and making different steps regardless of where you are in your life cycle,” she said. “I always tell people, if you want to do something, do it.”

dot.LA Reporter Decerry Donato contributed to this post.

This podcast is produced by Behind Her Empire. The views and opinions expressed in the show are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of dot.LA or its newsroom.

Hear more of the Behind Her Empire podcast. Subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radioor wherever you get your podcasts.

Subscribe to our newsletter to catch every headline.

Starships Were Meant To Fly: Astrolab's New Jeep-Sized Rover Gets a Lift from SpaceX

Lon Harris
Lon Harris is a contributor to dot.LA. His work has also appeared on ScreenJunkies, RottenTomatoes and Inside Streaming.
Starships Were Meant To Fly: Astrolab's New Jeep-Sized Rover Gets a Lift from SpaceX
Photo by Samson Amore

This is the web version of dot.LA’s daily newsletter. Sign up to get the latest news on Southern California’s tech, startup and venture capital scene.

Local Los Angeles-area startup Astrolab Inc. has designed a new lunar vehicle called FLEX, short for Flexible Logistics and Exploration Rover. About the size of a Jeep Wrangler, FLEX is designed to move cargo around the surface of the moon on assignment. It’s a bit larger than NASA’s Mars rovers, like Perseverance, but as it’s designed for transport and mobility rather than precision measurement, it can travel much faster, at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour across the lunar surface.

Read moreShow less

Meet the Creator Economy’s Version of LinkedIn

Kristin Snyder

Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.

Meet the Creator Economy’s Version of LinkedIn
Creatorland

This is the web version of dot.LA’s daily newsletter. Sign up to get the latest news on Southern California’s tech, startup and venture capital scene.

LinkedIn hasn’t caught on with Gen Z—in fact, 96% rarely use their existing account.

Considering 25% of young people want to be full-time content creators and most influencers aren’t active on LinkedIn, traditional networking sites aren’t likely to meet these needs.

Enter CreatorLand.

Read moreShow less
https://twitter.com/ksnyder_db

This Week in ‘Raises’: Total Network Services Gains $9M, Autio Secures $5.9M

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

This Week in ‘Raises’: Total Network Services Gains $9M, Autio Secures $5.9M
This Week in ‘Raises’:

It has been a slow week in funding, but a local decentralized computing network managed to land $9 million to accelerate deployment of its new product called Universal Communication Identifier (UCID™). Another local company that secured capital included Kevin Costner’s location-based audio storytelling platform and the funding will go toward expanding the app’s content library and expanding into additional regions in the United States.

Read moreShow less
RELATEDEDITOR'S PICKS
LA TECH JOBS
interchangeLA
Trending