Raising $1M: How Victorine Sarr Awuah Did It.
The Peswa PodcastPlay episode
Show notes
In this episode of The Peswa Podcast, we sit down with Victorine Sarr Awuah — Founder & CEO of Lyvv Cosmetics — to unpack an incredible journey from Dakar to Paris, from Apple to L’Oréal, and eventually to building one of Africa’s boldest clean beauty brands.
Victorine shares what it was like working at Apple in Paris during the Steve Jobs era, learning inside one of the world’s most iconic companies, and later leading and developing multiple African markets for L’Oréal. She opens up about corporate excellence, leadership, branding, and the realities of navigating global companies as an African woman.
We also dive into her life-changing YALI Mandela Washington Fellowship experience, meeting President Barack Obama, and how those experiences pushed her toward entrepreneurship and pan-African impact.
One of the most powerful moments in this conversation is when Victorine explains why she started Lyvv Cosmetics: seeing how global brands made billions from Africa while barely creating products truly designed for African skin, African consumers, and African realities. She speaks passionately about being a pan-Africanist, building African-owned brands, and creating products rooted in African ingredients, African identity, and African excellence.
This episode is about ambition, identity, leadership, beauty, entrepreneurship, and building globally respected African brands from the continent itself.
Topics Covered:
• Working at Apple in Paris
• Interacting with Steve Jobs
• Building markets for L’Oréal across Africa
• Meeting the Obamas through YALI
• Pan-Africanism and entrepreneurship
• Why Africa needs African brands
• Building Lyvv Cosmetics
• Clean beauty for melanin-rich skin
• Leadership, confidence & global business
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