Zero Distance

Founded in 1973, Women In Film (WIF) has championed gender equity in the screen industries for over 50 years, driving change through strategic advocacy, career development and industry-leading research. Last year, WIF and e.l.f. Cosmetics launched the e.l.f. Makers program, naming five WIF Fellows as inaugural grant recipients to support their individual filmmaking careers.

Shirley Pinkson Mañas and Dr. Renee Snyder’s story started the way the best ones do, not with a business plan, but with a friendship. One introduction at UT Austin, a shared refusal to accept beauty standards that didn’t serve real people, and 18 years later, Well People, a clean beauty brand built not just on science and storytelling, but on radical honesty between two women who chose each other and kept choosing each other through all of it.

Deepali Vyas has spent her career inside the rooms where board decisions get made. Working alongside executive search leaders, sitting directors, and the small circle of people who decide who makes the slate and why. In this installment of our series, she pulls back the curtain on a process many ambitious leaders misunderstand: how board seats are actually filled, and why strong candidates can stay invisible without the right positioning.

Raelee Sweet’s journey started with one unforgettable night in drag, and keeps glowing brighter through the power of self-expression championed by e.l.f. and the It Gets Better Project. A campfire runway at Brave Trails and a hint of five o’clock shadow unlocked a lifelong truth: gender can be plural, playful, and personal, no boxes, just authenticity.

Kate Zickel shares how community, from neighbors and therapists to hobby groups and fellow survivors, helped her navigate life with cancer, proving that showing up, even small, can change everything. Community isn’t ever one thing. For e.l.f. Beauty, our community informs and inspires everything we do. It’s our co-creator, our compass and our why that fuels us to surprise, delight and give back.

The sports icon and e.l.f. family member on history, leadership and why finishing is everything. At e.l.f. Beauty, we believe that access is everything: access to products, to opportunity, to the spaces and stages that have too long belonged to too few. It’s a belief that has defined how we build our brand, and it’s the reason Billie Jean King has always felt like family. Our relationship with King runs deep.

At e.l.f., we believe the best ideas can come from anywhere and we’ve fostered that belief by leading with inclusivity. Our Board has long reflected our commitment to representation because we know that when more voices shape the decisions at the top, everyone wins. Believing in inclusivity isn’t enough. We have to make the pathway there more visible especially for the people who’ve been told (or made to feel) that a seat at the table isn’t for them.

e.l.f. Beauty CFO Mandy Fields at WWD “Trust your instincts” is one of those life mottos that we constantly dole out, but how often do we act on it, particularly when the stakes are high? When it comes to pivotal career decisions, trusting your instincts can sometimes mean taking a giant leap of faith. It can mean diverting from the traditional path forward to blaze your own trail and putting yourself in spaces and communities where you are an outsider.

Founded in 1973, Women In Film (WIF) has championed gender equity in the screen industries for over 50 years, driving change through strategic advocacy, career development and industry-leading research. Last year, WIF and e.l.f. Cosmetics launched the e.l.f. Makersprogram, naming five WIF Fellows as inaugural grant recipients to support their individual filmmaking careers.

When people hear the word sustainability, they often think environmentally first: reducing waste, cutting emissions, rethinking packaging. Those things matter deeply, and they’re a significant part of our work at e.l.f. Beauty. But sustainability is more than just our impact on the planet. It’s also about the systems we build and the people those systems serve.