Want kick-ass career advice for an amazing professional? Meet Amy Shecter.

Shecter is currently working as the Chief Executive Officer at Ever/Body, a company looking to provide tech-driven, personalized, natural skincare experiences to consumers.  

Shecter has had a plethora of incredible work experience as a top level executive, including working as the CEO of Glamsquad, CEO of CorePower Yoga, President of C. Wonder, VP Global Retail of Tory Burch, VP of Marketing at Footlocker and more. 

Shecter sat down with The Fit Magazine, sharing her tips on how to gain multiple experiences as a professional, build your personal brand and gain confidence to take risks. 

Question: What has been the most fulfilling part of your career so far? 

Amy Shecter: That’s an interesting question because I fall in love with every brand I’m a part of since the early days. Going all the way back to (when I worked at Lady Footlocker) it was such a fun concept and such a great brand and to be apart of. (It was) this whole new generation of the female athlete was something that was very inspiring. I loved CorePower Yoga which was such a cool brand, bringing yoga to the masses, and Glamsquad and now I’m a Ever/Body which is a really interesting concept to bring cosmetic dermatology into the storefronts and locations of everyday consumers, making things like facials and botox accessible to more women and a diverse group of women is something that is very exciting.

Q: What is your advice for gaining experience with multiple different companies as a professional? 

AS: What I would say is first and foremost you have to think about yourself as a brand and you have to start really young when you do that. I think you have to start in highschool and you have to think about if you were a brand how do you want to resonate to the world professionally? Every single post that you put up on Instagram, Snapchat, anything that can be seen by others to me is an expression of your brand and it’s critical that you put a lot of thought into that because you never know who is going to see it. As you think about yourself as a brand, it’s critical to think that every decision you make as a professional is building your brand momentum. If you take a job and you are doing really well and you love it, but you are interested in something else, if you think about yourself as a brand, how you can be more valuable as a brand? Maybe getting a different kind of experience would be good for you, so instead of being afraid of the risk of jumping, think about the benefits it will add to you as an executive. Even though I have been with a lot of brands and a lot of companies, every single thing that I did added value to who I am as a senior level executive. I went from marketing to merchandising to operations to brand building and each one of those things allowed me to gain a breath of experience that would make me more valuable as an executive. I personally think that if you don’t get new experiences with new people and new companies that it’s very difficult to really grow and fly.

Q: Can you tell us about your experience working at Glamsquad? 

AS: When I joined Glamsquad it was about a year and a half into the development of the business. My job was to take it to a tech platform into a beauty lifestyle brand and the way that we did that was by leveraging the technology while building out the consumer experience. We built up the consumer experience by developing products, so we developed Glamsquad branded hair care, as well as makeup treatments for the face and lip balm. We did a strategic partnership with CVS. With CVS we developed a product line that was developing a younger drug store consumer. It is called GSQ by Glamsquad; it’s super super young and fresh and targeting the drug store consumer that didn’t have a lot of options that looked like innovative beauty brands that are more expensive. We did this partnership with them to allow the younger consumer to have access to a spunky, irreverent, diverse regime consumer base. 

Q: What is your advice for young college students looking to break into the professional world? 

AS: What I would tell people and this is an important golden nugget, don’t be afraid to reach out and ask. Don’t be afraid to knock on someone’s door.

I have an 18-year-old daughter and I encourage her to take risks and reach out to people if she wants to work for them, if she wants to talk to them, if she wants to be mentored by them. You would be surprised how willing people are to help when they’re asked. A lot of people are afraid to ask, especially when you are 18, 19, 20,  21 in college or just graduated from college. People are nervous about that and what I would say is don’t be afraid. Being afraid gets you nowhere. Go out there, take a risk, be bold and have confidence.