\nLydia Schoonderbeek is the founder and CEO of Source Beauty, the first e-commerce beauty site in Egypt and North Africa.<\/p>\n
Founded as a blog in 2016, it transformed into an e-commerce platform two years later.<\/p>\n
What is the best way to start your day?<\/strong><\/p>\n With coffee!\u00a0I\u2019m usually up at around 5.30am \u00ad\u2013 I am very much a morning person. I love the silence while the house is still asleep. It\u2019s really my only \u2018me time’. I\u2019ll review social media and emails in bed. I\u2019m always on the lookout for new ideas that we can introduce to the Egyptian market.<\/p>\n I live between Cairo and London. So, in London, I\u2019ll either take our dogs for a walk in the wide open spaces of Richmond Park or go rowing with my husband on the Thames before the work day starts. I love to be by the water, whether it\u2019s the Red Sea or the river; it has a really calming and grounding effect on me.<\/p>\n If you could be any character from a movie, who would you be?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, my favourite character is Melvin Udall, played by Jack Nicholson in the film\u00a0As Good As It Gets.<\/em>\u00a0I guess I associate with his battle to overcome reclusiveness and his obsessive-compulsive behaviour! It\u2019s heart-warming to see how he softens after having to look after his neighbour\u2019s dog. My two golden retrievers keep me sane.<\/p>\n What is your greatest achievement?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think it must be finally finding real balance in my life. Building Source Beauty has been all-consuming and I\u2019m immensely proud of what we\u2019ve achieved as a team. But I\u2019m really proud of getting to the point where I can balance Source Beauty with the truly important aspects of my life \u2013 having a happy son, husband, stepsons and dogs, and making a lovely home for us all.\u00a0 It\u2019s not always easy to juggle everything but I do feel that my life is now more in balance than ever.<\/p>\n What advice would you give your 13-year-old self?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The best piece of advice to a younger self that I\u2019ve come across is to value, take interest in, and invest in the people you meet and \u2018click with\u2019 through your early years, through university and your early work life. Those people could become your greatest lifelong friends, allies and supporters. It\u2019s too easy when you\u2019re young and in a hurry to not appreciate those important connections.<\/p>\n If you had 24 hours left on Earth, what would you do?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019d have a wonderful dinner with my family and loved ones, and celebrate the great times we\u2019ve enjoyed. Sitting down together for an evening meal is the only time in the day we get to be in one place as a family to talk and truly connect, so it\u2019s a sacred time for me.<\/p>\n Who or what is your biggest inspiration?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Dame Natalie Massenet, founder of Net-a-Porter has been a huge inspiration.\u00a0The idea of selling high fashion online just wasn\u2019t appealing to designers and investors, who couldn\u2019t imagine selling goods without a physical retail outlet.\u00a0With Net-a-Porter, she transformed the way designer fashion is retailed, paving the way for so many successful female-led start-ups in online luxury and retail.<\/p>\n What would you like to achieve in the next 10 years?<\/strong><\/p>\n We have ambitious and exciting plans for Source Beauty and ECC, so delivering on our growth strategy will be a great achievement. At the same time, encouraging our children through education and into careers that they love, living happy and fulfilled lives, would be a great accomplishment. Although I\u2019m dreading the \u2018empty nest\u2019 when they\u2019ve left home, I do look forward to spending more time with my husband to travel and share new experiences.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CEO and founder of e-commerce site Source Beauty Lydia Schoonderbeek shares her innermost aspirations and her role models<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":18606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3937,154,4106],"tags":[934],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18645,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18644\/revisions\/18645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}