For all the talk about giving women a seat at the table, the chairs in boardrooms have been consistently monopolized by men. This is especially true for privately owned companies, where just 14.2% of board members are women, per a recent study by Bolster. But the Women on Boards (WOB) Project is pushing companies—particularly in the consumer space—to go back to the drawing board.

Since its debut in February 2020, the nonprofit has worked to increase representation and says it has helped place 35 women on boards thus far (over half of whom are first-time board members).

• In February, ear-piercing startup Rowan announced two new board members: former Delia*s CEO Tracy Gardner and former Beautycounter COO Ana Badell.
• Julep Beauty founder and former CEO Jane Hyo-Sung Park said she would join Glo Skin Beauty’s board in January, while Perfect Day CMO Allison Fowler took a board seat at Copper Cow Coffee last October.

One of the “key observations” that kicked off the WOB Project was recognizing that a lack of boardroom diversity doesn’t stem from a shortage of women suitable for these seats, noted co-founder and Executive Director Cassie Burr.

“That whole framing is really problematic,” Burr told Retail Brew. “There’s not a supply problem—there’s more than an ample number of amazing women. And the phrase ‘board ready’ is also really problematic. It’s like this magical threshold that you’re supposed to achieve to now be considered for boards. And that’s just not true.”

• The WOB Project is also pushing against the idea that board members can only be retired CEOs, noting that boards are increasingly interested in candidates with “deep functional expertise.”

Connect the dots: Burr said the group’s “secret sauce” is a “white-glove approach,” given its breadth of industry connections. In addition to Burr, talent partner at PE firm VMG Partners, WOB’s co-founders include former Clif CEO Sheryl O’Loughlin, Siddhi Capital General Partner and co-founder Melissa Facchina, and VMG co-founder and Managing Director Kara Roell, who died last year.

• The nonprofit partners with PE firms like L Catterton, TSG Consumer Partners, Encore Consumer Capital, and CircleUp—who have “a position of influence,” Burr noted—to work with their portfolio companies on changing board composition.

Adding a board seat is an effective way to put a woman in a power position without replacing someone in the C-suite, Burr said: “It’s a really powerful signal to the organization that diversity matters when your CEO’s boss is a group of individuals that better represents the consumers the company is serving.”

Click here to read more.—EC

Personalized skin care is about to get more precise. Today, precision skin-care startup Revea announced $6 million in seed II funding, led by VC firm Alpha Edison; Ulta Beauty also participated.

• The company plans to use the $$ to debut a new mobile app, which is currently in beta, later this year.

Mix and match: Revea’s tech will also be available online via a web app this summer. Until then, at its San Francisco lab (which also doubles as a manufacturing unit), the company does 45-minute to hour-long consultations, asking lifestyle-related questions and using hyperspectral imaging and AI tech to create custom formulas for consumers. (The test and the three products come to $250; the startup then operates on a membership model.)

• Revea now has 3,000+ unique formulations and everything is made “on-demand,” founder and CEO Chaz Giles told Retail Brew.

All over: Moving to a mobile experience is how Revea plans to bring its tech to more customers, but it is not without its challenges, Giles noted.

“We had to...figure out how to extend what is precision skincare and hyperspectral imaging onto the mobile phone. And so it’s not the same. A brick-and-mortar experience versus a remote experience could never be identical. But it is built on the same technology,” he said.

Moving forward, Giles also hopes to expand Revea’s footprint from its single San Francisco space to two more brick-and-mortar locations over the next 12–18 months.—JS

Today’s top retail reads.

Frontline shirkers: The hustlers and scammers who tried to capitalize on PPE during the pandemic. (The Verge)

An honor to serve: Meet the small-town mayor in Colorado who made his own food-delivery app. (Insider)

The ’naise have it: A food writer doubles down on her love for one of the first fake mayos, Vegenaise. (Eater)

Big conversion energy: Contentsquare found that conversion rates have increased by 27% since 2020. Want insights to help make the most out of all that action? Grab a copy of the 2022 Digital Experience Benchmark Report here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

The numbers you need to know.

Product shortages, driven by supply-chain struggles, are here to stay—or at least that’s what shoppers seem to think. About two-thirds (67%) of respondents called product shortages the “new normal,” while 74% believed that shortages would continue to dominate the supply-chain discourse, according to a survey of 1,000 US consumers by SAP (conducted prior to the war in Ukraine).

• Overall, 87% of those surveyed said they’ve experienced shortages.
• Almost a third (32%) of consumers halted shopping from at least one brand because of supply-chain chaos.

Rare commodities: 52% were specifically worried about getting their hands on hygiene or personal-care products, while 35% were concerned about securing prescription meds.

Some shoppers were also frustrated by how companies communicated challenges: Just 20% of respondents said that they were informed about supply-chain disruptions effectively.—JS

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• Instant-delivery companies have their sights set on beauty
• Cannabis dispensaries on New York’s legalization landscape
• Why brick-and-mortar retail should consider moving into mixed-use developments