“For a very long time, I had a certain reluctance to write
chef
business. I now assume to feminize my titles. Paradoxically, it came about by losing my femininity during treatment against my breast cancer, ”Isabelle Guyomarch analyzes. For the president of CCI Productions, manufacturer of cosmetics made in France, this femininity once "encumbered" her. The businesswoman and mother of two, readily agrees that she associated it with a "weight" that held her back from success. “However, I do not like to be slowed down,” smiles the boss of the flourishing industrial group of 250 employees (80% of whom are women). During business trips, she envied her male colleagues who left, them, devoid of guilt "telling themselves that at home, a woman took care of everything", explains the boss. Yes, she envied this carelessness,this freedom in spite of the happiness that "set out to conquer the world" gave him. A freedom that she has finally won.
This femininity, today, she claims it as a right for all women, in particular for those affected by the disease. As was the case for her in 2013. A right that she promotes thanks to her “other child” who continues to grow in France and in Europe. Three years ago, she created, within her group, the Ozalys Laboratory, to produce a range of treatments intended for women affected by the disease. After being established in early 2021 in pharmacies in France, the brand is currently continuing its development in Germany, England, Belgium ... On the shelves: products suitable for cancer treatments so that the toilet does not turn into a more pain. She knows what it's like to gag from toothpaste,not to put up with a cream on skin that has undergone radiotherapy ...
It bought a subcontractor on the verge of bankruptcy in 2008
“I want to solve this impossible equation of illness and well-being, insists Isabelle Guyomarch, in her book“ Combattante ”(Éditions du Recherches Midi). That in the most painful moments of their treatment, women can tell themselves that they are still women. Even without breasts, hair or nails. Women, despite everything. Something had to be done about his fight against his aggressive stage 3 cancer, Ozalys is his answer. Continuing to control her destiny was the course of action for the one who has never ceased to pilot her factories of cosmetics and perfumes for luxury brands, even in the darkest hours. Even when her associates try to take advantage of her illness to sell their shares to Chinese investors, which she ends up buying with the help of her daughters.Even when it is confronted with the doubts of its financial partners and the gaze focused on disease in business, and in particular on this cancer so much associated with women.
She has seen others. With an accounting degree under her arm, she joined the pharmaceutical industry for a meteoric career. Not counting her hours, she rose through the ranks to become commercial director of the biotech giant, Amgen. At 40, a change of course. She feels that she is made to manage. She wants to be autonomous, free, so why not a business owner? And why not in cosmetics? It thus bought CCI, a subcontractor on the verge of bankruptcy in 2008, just before the financial crisis. A project that she keeps afloat despite everything. “I have been through almost all wars: the crisis, the cancer and now the pandemic. I didn't shut down during my chemo, I wasn't going to do it for the Covid. We continued to work by protecting the most fragile ”, launches, bravache,this 54-year-old Norman who received the knight's decoration of the Legion of Honor in 2017. The company is its “buoy”.
"I knew the She will not succeed"
According to INSEE, only three women for seven men are at the head of private companies.
And the more the size of companies increases, the fewer bosses there are at the top.
Such a profile like that of Isabelle Guyomarch is still rare.
“Of course in my career I have known this kind of condescension because I was a woman, the suffering of the meetings at 6:30 pm, which do not exist at home, the
She will not make it
.
I myself had the feeling that the jacket was too big and then it became fitted, ”Isabelle Guyomarch quipped.
At a time when two to three out of five employees lose their jobs within two years of being diagnosed with breast cancer, she has also set up, with her teams, a school workshop allowing, through adapted schedules and cadences. , maintaining or returning to work. “
The aftermath
is more terrible than
the during
. Around you, we say to ourselves
She is alive, now we must turn the page,
breathes the leader
.
I felt terribly alone and I was only good with sick people or ex-sick people. The cancer survivor. This sorority helped me a lot and Ozalys was born from that. "