20 Questions With Cherissa Kell, Founder and CEO, NeoTEIN

Cherissa Kell is the founder and CEO of NeoTEIN, a company that provides effective recovery products. She’s also a Women in Retail Leadership Circle (WIRLC) member! In this member spotlight, we asked Kell a series of questions about both her professional role and personal life, including the woman that inspires her, her leadership style, her advice for the next generation of female leaders, and much more, so that you can get to know her better.

1. What’s the best book you’ve read recently?
   “The China Study”.
2. What is a tip you have for productively leading a WFH or hybrid team?
   Have weekly meetings with pre-set agendas, stay on track during those meetings to respect peoples time, and then make sure to set aside one-on-one time during the week for team members that need to discuss work-related topics that aren’t appropriate for group meetings. Having structure, I find, actually helps people be creative because they know they have a foundation to base their work off of.
3. What’s a mistake you made early on in your career?
   I second guessed myself a lot, it was really tough to transition from “I am going to try to break into this space” to “I deserve to be in this space.” The confidence I have had and my willingness to take smart risks has grown drastically since I changed my mindset.
4. What’s the toughest part of being in charge?
   I take a lot of ownership of the happiness and effectiveness of my company and when I make an error in judgement that negatively impacts others, that is something that is hard for me. Forgiving myself has gotten easier, but it is still not easy.
5. What’s the best way you motivate team members? 
   By giving them freedom to take chances, bring ideas, and make mistakes.
6. What woman inspires you right now and why? 
   Meghan Markle. It takes a lot of courage to talk about what she and Prince Harry experienced, perhaps you may not agree with what they did, but I think it is incredibly brave to challenge the status quo and speak out about the truth about the challenges she faced and the toll on her mental health her experiences have had on her. I appreciate through all of that she still fights for a better life for her and her family.
7. What are you looking forward to the most for the industry over the next year? 
   I am excited to be a disruptor in the industry I am in. There are not a lot of small supplement companies that were founded by women. I want to inspire women to continue to take risks and watch myself and other women continue to challenge and change the status quo.
8. What is one thing you look for when interviewing a potential candidate?
   Their humanity, their adaptability, and their grit. I want to work with people that do not shy away from challenge and who realize it might take 100 tries to get the result you are looking for.
9. What’s something that you learned about yourself in the past year? 
   That my gut is really great. I have spent decades working, research, learning and growing, so my gut is a culmination of decades of experience, and when I feel something is “off” or should be done differently, but I cannot articulate why, and as a result I call it my “gut,” I have learned that it is my decades of knowledge and experience assessing the situation and telling me what to do. I need to trust that gut.
10. What’s your favorite podcast? 
    “What Just Happened”. I really love the diversity of topics and how Christine Russo digs into the nuances of what she is talking about.
11. What values are most important to you as a leader? 
    A good culture creates a good bottom line. For me a good culture is founded on three pillars: honesty, competence, and empathy.
12. What’s the most important thing people should know about you? 
    I don’t give up. I have faced adversity the entire path forward, and instead of letting the hundreds of “No thank yous” discourage me, it just fuels me to find a way to be successful.
13. What practices or boundaries have you implemented in your personal life to create more work/life balance? 
    I schedule my day, my husband and I have coffee together every morning, it is in the schedule and it is sacred, I take my kids to school, it is in my schedule and sacred, I have scheduled office hours that I focus just on tasks that are boring but necessary, scheduled workout time and family time and social media and sales, I schedule it all, this allows me to make time for my kids and my husband and know I can put my phone away and focus just on them, and then when I am working I can focus on work without feeling guilty.
14. How would you describe yourself in a single sentence? 
    I am an amalgamation of all the great people that have poured into me.
15. What’s your favorite app? 
    For business, Asana 100%. We love it for project and program management. For my personal life I am a tad bit addicted to Spotify. I love to have a podcast on in the background while I am doing busy work!
16. What do you do to recharge? 
    Run (preferably outside), sauna, shakti mat, yoga, sunshine, a great cup of coffee. Basically, anything that takes me out of my day and forces me to be in my moment.
17. What is your biggest accomplishment? 
    Filing a patent and then launching a brand-new product-based business during a pandemic while raising my boys (without outside help!) and still qualifying for the U.S. triathlon national championship. That was an intense year.
18. What advice would you give to the next generation of female leaders? 
    To surround yourself with people who will propel you forward. People who discuss ideas, not people, and who focus on personal and professional growth and strive to be better in both.
19. What gets you up in the morning? 
    On most days it is my excitement that I am in the middle of doing something that I have always wanted to do. Honestly, on some tough days, it’s the dread of failure.
20. What do you like most about being a member of Women in Retail? 
    I love being able to connect with other like-minded women in the industry who are doing incredible and inspiring things. Being an entrepreneur is lonely, especially as a woman, and it is so incredible to be surrounded by women who can make me better and women I can make better.