Congrats to Betsy Olum, Sephora's Senior Vice President, Marketing!

Every year, four women are honored by the CEW at their industry luncheon held at NYC’s lovely Waldorf Astoria. This year at Sephora, we raised our glosses to our very own leading lady, Betsy Olum, for scoring a 2008 CEW Achiever Award. Yay!

Along with our fearless leader, Cristina Carlino, Executive Chairman and Founder of Philosophy, Jane Hertzmark, President of BeautyBank and Cheryl Vitali, Senior Vice President of Maybelline New York/Garnier, were also awarded. Each of the winners gave a heartfelt speech that wooed the crowd and even had them shedding a few tears at times.

But once Betsy was introduced by her BFF (and CEO of Too Faced), Jerrod Blandino, the energy in the room kicked up a few notches. When Betsy revealed her “a-ha” beauty moment, everyone let out a chuckle and felt a sense of familiarity: “At Charles of the Ritz, I was sitting in my office surrounded by nail polish, and I had painted every nail on my hands and feet in different colors. As I sat thinking about names for each of the shades and timing how long it took to dry, it hit me: ‘Oh my gosh! I’m actually getting paid to do this—sit in my office and have a mani/pedi. I LOVE my job and I love this business!”

Well, Betsy, we love you—thanks for being an inspiration to us all!