How the CEO of The Ordinary skincare lost control of her company
The CEO of The Ordinary, a successful skincare brand, opened up about how she lost control of her billion-dollar company. The emotional Nicola Kilner was interviewed by Steven Bartlett on the 'The Diary Of A CEO' podcast.
Nicola Kilner is a successful entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of The Ordinary, an international skincare brand.
After university, she met Brandon Truaxe, an Iranian-Canadian cosmetic computer scientist. They joined forces and co-founded the skincare brand.
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The Ordinary became an overnight success but in 2017 everything changed.
Truaxe began to display strange behavior which caused major problems for both the brand and Kilner.
"We spent so much time together like we didn't do drugs, he was just high on energy and happy...he's just drinking diet coke and eating fries with ketchup type person," Kilner told Steven Bartlett on 'The Diary Of A CEO' podcast.
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"Towards the end of 2017, he'd become intrigued I think by magic mushrooms and just kind of this idea of you know can you access different parts of your brain," she continued.
Kilner revealed that Truaxe became a different person and had a "coldness" in his eyes.
Later, Trauxe took over the company's social media platforms and things took a wrong turn.
Trauxe also started sending rude emails to staff, partners, investors, and clients. He went on to fire employees and Kilner.
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It was later discovered that Trauxe was addicted to drugs.
Legal action was launched to remove him as co-chief executive and Kilner was left as sole CEO.
Just a few months after being removed as co-CEO, Truaxe died as a result of a fall from his Toronto apartment.
Kilner is still the CEO of the successful skincare brand.
Watch the full interview below: