Vicky Tsai

As a young infant, Tsai's parents moved to the United States from Taiwan, settling in Houston, Texas. From a young age, Tsai became aware of seemingly unattainable Western beauty standards and was one of the only Asian students at her school.[4] She struggled with her identity as a result of feeling underrepresented and isolated as a minority in the early '90s of Texas.[5]

Tsai married Eric Bevan (co-founder of Tatcha) at the Gamble Mansion in Boston, Massachusetts May 29, 2004. The couple shares one daughter, Alea, and a husky-pit bull mix named Lola.[1]

Tsai studied at Wellesley College where she received a BA in Economics[6] and Harvard Business School where she received an MBA and later led research on the state of AAPI women in business.[7] She found her first corporate job working for Starbucks in Shanghai, which focused on its expansion into the China market. Her team pitched and executed a strategy to launch consumer products in China in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which housed the bottled Starbucks Frappuccino.[8] Tsai worked in corporate America as a financier for a decade and spent her twenties traveling globally for work.[9]

Left disillusioned, experiencing acute dermatitis, and riddled with corporate burnout, in 2008, Tsai traveled to Kyoto, Japan.[3][7] There, she met with a modern geisha who introduced her to time-tested ingredients based on a Japanese diet.[9] She not only discovered cultural remedies for her skin, but also felt the experience begin to heal her spirit.[7] When she returned to San Francisco, where she is based, she was unable to replicate and emulate what she found while abroad. This sparked the creation of Tatcha, an entrepreneurial endeavor she describes as a "necessity".[7] Tsai explains "Tatcha brought me a gift: the ability to recognize the beauty and power of the Asian heritage I had struggled to see in my youth".[4]

In 2009, Tsai approached retail partners for the business, but was told Tatcha was "too niche" and "too exotic" for the Western woman.[4] After struggling to secure funding, Tsai sold her engagement ring, car, and furniture, then worked from her mother's garage. She spent 9 years without a salary.[7] In 2017, she received funding from private equity firm Castanea Partners.[10]

Despite many years at the company, the business was sold to Unilever in 2019 for $500 million, and Tsai stepped down shortly afterward.[4]