#WCW: Skin Care Executive Brenda Wu

Our weekly #WCW feature celebrates our favorite female beauty influencers and experts — like Carol’s Daughter founder Lisa Price, Dermablend’sEmily Rejouis and Essie’s Julie Kandalec. Up this week is SkinCeuticals General Manager Brenda Wu — an optimistic leader of the advanced skincare line that many people swear by for healthy, beautiful skin.

Ahead, discover the full interview with Wu about her role at SkinCeuticals, her favorite skincare products and what beauty means to her.

Can you tell us about your position at SkinCeuticals? As the head of SkinCeuticals for the U.S., I work with my team to create a vision for where we want the brand to be and strategies on how to get there. Ultimately, to grow SkinCeuticals we need more consumers to know, try, and use us, which takes every aspect of the business. I lead each aspect — new product launches, marketing campaigns, digital, social, community management, medical affairs, sales, finance and operations — and facilitate collaboration while soliciting feedback and course correcting when beneficial. We all play our part in reaching one unified goal. What moment in your career are you most proud of? Undoubtedly, right now! The premium skin care market is large, and the medical aesthetic industry is taking off, but professional high performance skin care has historically been an underdeveloped market. I am so proud of what the SkinCeuticals team has done to grow the brand and the category as a whole, which benefits physicians and end consumers — and we are just getting started! What’s your favorite product? Is there one you can’t live without? Vitamin C, for sure. Humans lack the ability to produce this critical antioxidant, and we know that there are measurable positive benefits when we have the optimal level in our bodies and on our skin. I use either our C E Ferulic or Phloretin CF every morning! What does beauty mean to you? I have always loved Maya Angelou’s quote, “try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.” Doing that takes real confidence in one’s self, and feeling beautiful enables people to grow their confidence and connect more meaningfully with others. Personally, I believe human connections are the foundation of life and fulfillment, and feelings of beauty and confidence are powerful tools to help create that. What do you do for fun? I love exploring Manhattan with my family — I have three young children. We pick a new neighborhood, chart out on a map how we will get there and then discover new playgrounds, parks and restaurants together. New York is so compact; you can discover a new community every few blocks! We recently explored Pier 25 for the first time. It was amazing — we got to play miniature golf, catch fish, touch sea creatures, paint watercolors and eat delicious food at Grand Banks all at one park in Manhattan! What else is new at SkinCeuticals? We are known for the best skin care in the industry, have offered medical-grade chemical peels since 2010, and this year we launched a new medical-aesthetic treatment, CryoCorrect Precision! The CryoCorrect Treatment is a non-invasive dark spot corrector that uses cryotechnology to gently freeze away unwanted aesthetic age spots and sun spots. It takes about five seconds and is nearly painless. So far consumers and physicians alike have been loving it!