Celeste Gudas, Founder and CEO, 24 Seven Inc.

An Eye for Talent

By Caroline Cox

Celeste Gudas is passionate about diversity at work – and has the headlines to prove it. The founder and CEO of leading talent recruitment agency 24 Seven, specializing in fashion, retail, beauty, marketing, advertising and entertainment industries, received The National Minority Business Council’s Dena Coye Outstanding Woman Entrepreneurship Award earlier this year. The award is presented annually to woman business owner with a strong entrepreneurial spirit who is working to advance workplace diversity. Her company has recruited talent for brands like Polo Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, H&M and Gucci.

Aside from running her 11-year-old business and winning awards, Gudas is a married mother of three and partial caregiver to her aging parents. She’s also a lover of sports and has a soft spot for canine companions.

Here, she talks to PINK about the importance of workplace diversity, goals she’s still working to achieve and why she sometimes feels like the Wizard of Oz.

PINK: What’s the secret to your success?

Celeste Gudas: It’s critical to love what you do. That allows for the long hours, the trying days and all that goes into building and running a company. But you also need to be in tune with what you’re good at. It’s important to know what you don’t want to focus on operationally in the company. I love directing the clients, the brand and the visioning work. But I’ve learned that I don’t gravitate toward the more operational side of the business, so it’s critical to surround myself with people that do that well.

PINK: Can you give an example?

CG: Two years ago, I brought in a strong COO. He’s been able to help us scale the business financially to go after the next thing. In running a company and building a company, you’ve got to bring that strength in around you. I think that’s probably what I’ve taken away so far in my career.

PINK: What’s your hiring strategy?

CG: We’re in the recruitment business ourselves, so we have to provide a model for many of our clients. I always tell clients that good hiring requires a lot of discipline and you really need to formalize in the hiring process. We have a multi-stage hiring process that we’re continually working on. It changes as the business grows, but everything from starting out to getting your company in order before you start recruiting is vital. You need an understanding of what your company culture is – not what you think it should be – and what your vision and values are so you can communicate them. I think a lot of companies miss that in the beginning stages, because before you start recruiting you need to think about these things.

PINK: What’s the next step?

CG: Then you start the recruiting process, and the most important thing is the training. How someone performs in the first 90 days is so significant. We have a very high retention rate at 24 Seven: we’re over 78 percent women and many of the folks that started with us 11 years ago are still with the company. You really need to be able to grow their careers as the company evolves. It’s great to watch an employee who started 11 years ago evolve to a senior role on a flexible schedule that allowed her to have some balance between her personal and professional lifestyle.

PINK: What can companies do to advance workplace diversity?

CG: An interest in becoming a more diverse company has to come from the top. Then, work a process into defining the company culture and the hiring process. With the changing nature of business, more global expansion and the need for transparency, not having diversity is not a good business decision, let alone good corporate responsibility. The changing face of business is really going to push companies into greater diversity.

PINK: What’s the biggest issue for professional women right now?

CG: Redefining balance. Everyone speaks about balance and giving equal time to work and your personal life. It’s unrealistic to expect both sides of the equation are going to get equal time. It’s about being balanced in the moment. I have three children [Ellie, 11 and twins Jack and Kate, 10], two dogs, two turtles, a husband and parents. At various times, personal life will require more attention than professional life.

PINK: How do you manage your Life/Work balance?

CG: I always try to be 100 percent present in the moment. If I’m at work, I rely on my support staff at home or caregivers and then give 100 percent at work. If I’m at home or on vacation with the kids, I try to put the BlackBerry away. You’re never completely balanced, but you’ve just got to try to give 100 percent where the attention is needed at that moment. That’s tough for women right now, because the stereotypical roles of what a woman does and what a man does haven’t changed completely. It puts women in a tough position.

PINK: What’s the biggest concern for business owners right now?

CG: Navigating the rapidly changing landscape. When you think about technology and social media, it’s all happening in a rapid fashion. 24 Seven is moving into a much more global focus. That’s the way I see businesses moving, and creating talent around the world is something that the brands that we work with are relying on us to do. It’s a question of how to move toward these new technologies.

PINK: What’s the best advice you’ve received?

CG: A financial advisor once told me to think on a grand scale, but executive conservatively. You never want to limit the potential for the company, but executing conservatively is something I had to learn over the years, and to really watch the bottom line on any new changing growth.

PINK: What inspired you to start your company?

CG: I graduated with a degree in economics from Smith College, and then I went on to their school of economics, but I always loved art and creativity. Early in my career, I worked on the product development side of fashion. I had a lot of success, but I knew if I wanted to stay on that track – which required a tremendous amount of travel – it was going to be hard to start a family. So I started 24 Seven, which was really a vision to innovate how the fashion business approached staffing. There were no companies that really focused on the fashion industry – everything was done really haphazardly.

PINK: What was the concept when you first started?

CG: We started 24 Seven in 2000 with an eye toward bringing new talent to fashion companies, but it led to other creative industries. We quickly branched out into beauty and home furnishings, which then led to media, entertainment and advertising. Now we’re in a multitude of industries. I started a family and launched a business at the same time, and I felt like the nurturing I gave to my family was the same nurturing I gave to my business. In some ways, starting 24 Seven paralleled starting my family and required a similar set of skills. It was like jumping off a cliff in both directions.

PINK: How did you acquire capital?/h3>

CG: I was already recruiting within fashion industry, so I already had a good track record. Then I really sought out the best accountants and legal help I could find in New York, where we launched. Through their networks, I was able to raise some asset-based lending. But it’s all been organic – I initially put in $250,000 of my own funds, but outside of my own initial investment, it’s been organic growth.

PINK: What’s your leadership style?

CG: When I started the company, I had a vision for the business, but I also had a vision for a collaborative workplace with a nurturing culture. There are three pillars to 24 Seven. The first is that, when we service our clients, we have to be very in tune to their changing needs. The second pillar is our candidates, because in many ways they’re our clients. We have to look at their changing needs as the economy shifts. The third is one a lot of companies don’t think about: internal employees. It’s probably the area I feel most strongly about. We need to develop our internal teams because it’s important to me that they’re able to achieve success.

PINK: So you’d describe it as collaborative?

CG: I think we have an organization that is more collaborative and less authoritarian. When people come into the company and sit in a meeting, even on senior leadership level, their reaction is, “This is amazing. There’s no fear in the room.” That’s the way I think businesses need to work. Maybe it’s because we’re a woman-led organization, so we have a more nurturing environment, but if we built an organization that’s flexible to our employees’ personal and professional goals, we’ll inspire loyalty, retain great talents we’ve invested in and continue to grow.

PINK: What’s your biggest weakness as a leader?

CG: Not recognizing fast enough that, as the company grows and evolves, it requires different leadership skills. It’s one thing when you’re in the early stages. I was fortunate enough to recognize that we needed different types of people in the business to help grow it. For all of us who start companies, you have to recognize you can’t possibly be in charge of everything. That’s a hard thing, and I see that in other companies. In many cases, the leader or founder can’t let go, even when it comes to pieces of the puzzle that could be handled by other great folks. It’s a hard thing to let go and delegate. If you want to grow, you need to acknowledge that you can’t do it by yourself.

PINK: How big is your team?

CG: Right now, there are 150 internal recruiters, account managers and business developers across the U.S. and in London. We have additional European offices opening later this year in Paris and Amsterdam. We also have about 1200 freelancers working across the U.S. and in Europe as well.

PINK: What’s the hardest thing about raising three children while working to advance your business?

CG: I rely on a network of people to help me in both areas. Sometimes I feel like the Wizard of Oz, always taking care of everything behind the scenes. Sometimes I end up not being hands-on enough with my kids or the business. But it’s just part of the landscape when you have children and run a company. You feel like you’re always orchestrating, and sometimes you just need to be present. That’s challenging for me.

PINK: Can you recall a recent time when you had to make a tough Life/Work balance call?

CG: I have a lot of focus on my kids, so of course I miss events and I’m not always able to be there. I travel an awful lot, and I think the biggest piece for me is my elderly parents who live upstate [in New York]. I’d like to spend more time with them, and that’s challenging. I’m not only balancing work and children, but also my parents, and trying to create multi-generational activities, vacations and things, which adds a whole new layer. I’m feeling a little torn and pulled in different directions, so that’s my challenge right now.

PINK: What do you do to relax and unwind?

CG: I love to spend time with my kids. We have two great dogs [a black lab, Lucy, and a basset hound, Oliver]. A long walk with the dogs is what I do on a daily basis to regroup, because it’s very peaceful and gives me clarity. The therapeutic quality of animals is tremendous. We take family vacations as well – we have a wonderful place in the Finger Lakes. It’s so quiet and pristine, so we go up frequently in the summer to regroup as a family.

PINK: What’s one thing most people don’t know about you?

CG: I’m actually a really good athlete. I love skiing, figure skating, hiking, climbing and swimming. I could be content in another life just being outside. I was also a tennis player [in college]. Also, I never tell anyone this, but I was a cheerleader for four years in high school. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but I was! [Laughs]

PINK: What’s one goal you haven’t achieved yet?

CG: I want to improve my golf score. I love golf as well. I also want to travel around the world more extensively. I’m not exactly working on those things at the moment, but they’re personal goals.

PINK: How do you define success?

CG: If you don’t enjoy what you do, I don’t think you can say you’re successful. That’s how I determine success. I really love getting up in the morning. I love parenting and all that, but I also love coming into the office – the adrenaline and the rush of the business day. I couldn’t have more in life right now.