Jeunesse Global - Woman of the Year

Company: Jeunesse Global, Lake Mary, FL, USA
Company Description: Jeunesse is a billion-dollar global direct selling company with a mission to positively impact the world by helping people look and feel young, while empowering each other to unleash their potential. The company’s skin care and nutritional products are made exclusively for Jeunesse and form a comprehensive Youth Enhancement System. Jeunesse operates in over 145 markets worldwide.
Nomination Category: Management Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Woman of the Year

Nomination Title: Wendy Lewis

Wendy Lewis, Founder and COOof Jeunesse has always had the heart of an entrepreneur, starting at the age of 8when she launched a summer camp from her parents’ back patio, charging neighborhood kids to make arts and crafts projects and participate in lawn games. Later in life, as a single mother who began her career as a math teacher, Wendy faced countless challenges on her entrepreneurial path. However, her work ethic, unrelenting determination and willingness to invest in her ideas has successfully seen her through many challenges.
https://jeunesse.wistia.com/medias/lo4y0ruhf0

Today, Wendy applies her analytical and problem-solving skills to overseeing the day-to-day global operations of the billion-dollar company she founded ten years ago with her husband Randy Ray. As COO, Wendy oversees IT, Customer Services, Human Resources, and Logistics for the global youth enhancement company.

It’s abundantly clear — 2020 was a year no one imagined. COVID-19 upended the way the world does business, and Jeunesse was no exception. The virus caused major disruption in world markets and challenged the ability of the company’s relationship-marketing business model to connect people in a world locked down and socially distanced.

Live, in-person events are key revenue drivers for the company and Jeunesse holds approximately 300 of them annually, with attendance ranging from 100 to 15,000 per event. With the pandemic putting a halt to in-person events, Wendy and the team had to quickly reimagine this critical aspect of their business.

The result was JeunesseEvents.com— a global virtual events platform designed to connect people from around the world in real-time. The platform was constructed within 30 days and supports simultaneous translations in up to 21 languages, in high-quality 1080p resolution broadcast on a gated viewing platform integrated with the Jeunesse ticket holder database. The platform also integrates with the Jeunesse mobile app. JeunesseEvents.com has reached more than 2.7 million people and has forever changed the way Jeunesse does business.https://jeunesseevents.com/events/0000/

Since Wendy oversees company operations, she was directly responsible for managing the monumental task of transferringnearly 800 employees working in offices around the world to working safely from home. Under her direction, the Jeunesse IT Department was able to quickly make this transition to allow employees to continue working in a safe manner. New policies, processes and protocols were established to ensure employees had the business tools and access needed to maintain productivity levels and key performance indicators established by each employee prior to the pandemic. Increased use of technology (like Teams and Zoom meetings) continues to make a huge difference in work output and productivity.

Wendy worked with HR to increase in corporate communications to all employees (including employee team-building participation initiatives) to optimize team morale and ensure employees felt connected while working in remote locations. Jeunesse even implemented virtual fitness and yoga classes to continue to support the health and wellness of our employees around the world.

In addition to keeping remote employees safe, Jeunesse implemented increased safety precautions for those working in areas where remote work was not possible, such as in Distribution Centers. Procedures implemented to reduce the spread of COVID-19 include purchasing thermal scanners for temperature checks, introducing new self-certification technology (for contact tracing considerations), social distancing guidelines, and mask wearing at all times.

As the head of worldwide Human Resources, Wendy makes it a point to create a work environment where everyone has the chance to thrive. Her efforts were rewarded in 2020 when Jeunesse was chosen as one of the Best Places to Work in Direct Selling (for the fourth time), an honor which is based solely on anonymous employee satisfaction surveys.

Summary:
-Achieved $8 Billion in cumulative worldwide sales
-Experienced significant growth worldwide, with average growth of 70% among the top 3 markets, and 25% to 84% growth in the top five markets.
-Jeunesse LIVE virtual events platform reached more than 2.7 million people and has forever changed the way Jeunesse does business.
-The Jeunesse EXPO 2020 Vision: Global Virtual Event reached more than 330,000 people. In 2019, the in-person EXPO tour stopped in five international cities and attracted an audience of approximately 50,000. All were fee-based events.
-Maintained top 20 ranking on the Direct Selling News Global 100 list of the industry’s top companies
-Ranked No. 14 onDSNGlobal 100 and was selected as one of the “Best Places to Work in Direct Selling” for the 4thtime
-Celebrated 11thAnniversary
-The company’s nonprofit foundation Jeunesse Kids gave $2.4 million in grants
-Garnered 184 corporate awards