UnLeadership

35Leading in Beauty

Jenn Harper is the founder and CEO of Cheekbone Beauty Cosmetics, an Indigenous-owned beauty brand paving the way in truly sustainable product development and manufacturing in the cosmetics space. The brand is known for its sustainable and high-quality color cosmetics that are clean, vegan, and cruelty free. Jenn is a sought-after speaker for corporations, businesses, and students across North America. She champions entrepreneurship, building a sustainable brand using Indigenous roots, the history of her Indigenous family, and lots more.

(Highlights from our interview, recorded June 12, 2023.)

WHEN BUILDING YOUR OWN THING, you get to choose what kind of company you want to build and how it will look and feel. Compassion and humility aren't qualities we always consider with leadership, but they should be. I'm an Anishinaabe woman, meaning I come from the Ojibwe tribe, and my people have surrounded the Great Lakes for thousands of years. I get to live and work on the territory known as the Niagara region in southern Ontario, Canada, the traditional homelands of the Haudenosaunee and the Anishinaabe people. In the early days of my business, it was just me and a dream. It takes time to evolve into the entrepreneur you want to be, so I did a lot of learning and research. I was drawn to social entrepreneurship, which was still new when we started in 2015. At the same time, I was also learning more about my culture and Indigenous teachings and was excited to ...