Women we admire: Cecilie Vinde
Interview with Cecilie Vinde
Co-founder of the Danish skincare and makeup brand Lavinde
Cecilie Vinde is co-founder of Lavinde Copenhagen, a beauty brand created from a passion for exclusive products made with the purest ingredients. Together with her partner, Fillip Løwén Nielsen, she founded the brand in 2016 to fill a gap in the market for high-quality beauty products.
Today, Cecilie plays a central role in Lavinde Copenhagen, where her focus is on branding and marketing, while she and Fillip share a strong passion for product development. Through their strong partnership, they live and develop the brand’s identity every single day.
Read her interview here on the page.
What is the biggest risk you’ve ever taken, and what did you learn from it?
The biggest risk has definitely been starting my own company – and doing it together with my partner.
It has without a doubt made me who I am today. There’s almost nothing that can knock me down anymore, because I know there is always a solution – you just have to stay solution-oriented and not panic too much.
Trust me, I panicked a lot in the beginning, but I’ve learned so much from all the crazy situations we’ve been in.
Which habit or mindset shift has had the greatest positive impact on your life?
I’ve always been very aware of the importance of stepping out of my comfort zone from time to time, because that’s where I learn the most about myself.
I also don’t believe you can survive as an entrepreneur without a strong mindset – and without continuously working on it.
Who has been your biggest inspiration, and how have they influenced your journey?
Since I was a teenager, I’ve always looked up to other strong women. It could be in the workplace or people I meet in everyday life.
It has always been a clear goal of mine that one day I would be one of them – someone who is comfortable in themselves and inspires others.
If I have to mention one well-known woman I follow, it would be Maria Hatzistefanis, founder of the beauty brand Rodial. I’ve read all her books and can highly recommend them.
Looking back on your journey, is there any advice you wish you had received earlier in your career or life?
I think I wish I had invested earlier in getting help to work on myself. I now do Body SDS, and I should have started that many years ago.
I needed to clear things out and make more space for myself. In that way, I probably would have found my inner strength earlier, and it would definitely have made some things easier.
If you could change one thing for women globally, what would it be – and why?
It breaks my heart that women’s rights are still almost non-existent in several countries. I wish those countries were even half as far along in the journey toward women’s rights as we are in the Nordic region.
