Taking parental leave—and finding the right way to return to work from it—is a delicate balancing act under any circumstances. But for independent beauty and wellness founders, stepping back from the companies they lead, even for one of life’s biggest moments, presents much bigger dilemmas: offloading critical tasks, maintaining product development and marketing, ensuring the right staff are in place to guide the business, and leaving behind clear guidance on what issues to escalate. At stake are the success of upcoming launches and, for smaller, scrappier brands, sometimes the entire company’s momentum.
Family leave benefits at larger, more established American companies remain limited, offering little roadmap for brand founders hoping to do better for themselves and their families. According to the most recent numbers from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 39% of workers in management, professional and related occupations had access to paid parental leave in 2023, compared to 27% of workers overall.
There are some encouraging signs. Fathers appear to be increasingly participating in postpartum caregiving, with the share of fathers taking no leave dropping from more than 50% in the 2004–2013 cohort to 35% in the 2014–2022 cohort, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 Survey of Income and Program Participation. For mothers, access to paid leave has risen modestly over the same period, from 42% to 49%.
Many beauty and wellness brand founders are creating their own versions of parental leave that allow them to keep scaling their companies, honor postpartum bonding time, model supportive practices for their teams and build the kind of workplaces they want to see in the world. Still, it takes considerable effort to prepare for leave on their own terms, and even the best-laid plans can be quickly derailed.
To learn more about their parental leave experiences, for the latest edition of our ongoing series posing questions relevant to indie beauty, we asked 10 beauty and wellness founders: How did you make it possible to take parental leave while remaining at the helm of your brand?
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Megan Graham Founder, Ries I realized very early on in my pregnancy that I would need a serious game plan for maternity leave. Around the same time I realized I was pregnant, I was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum. I hate the term “morning sickness” because it sounds so trivializing, but HG is a very extreme version. I was ending up in the hospital weekly for IVs due to severe dehydration and wasn’t able to do much more than answer one email a day.
It became very clear to me that, if I had to step away from the business for any reason, not just maternity leave, there was no blueprint on how things were being run. Once my hyperemesis was being managed, I started working on the archetype of who would best fit the role and what a job description would include. It was also important that I’d work together with this person. I couldn’t see myself having zero contact with the business for more than a couple of days.
To create my maternity plan, I bucketed the responsibilities into two categories: business operations and creative management. First, I tackled day-to-day operations. These are things that I could create a process or workflow in a Google document months ahead of time. This included things like shipping guidelines, invoicing wholesale accounts and a master folder of important corporate documents.
Every time I did an operational task, I took time to write out the steps, including screenshots, links, any necessary log-ins and who to contact for troubleshooting. It was a heavy lift to do this for tasks that were second nature for me, but I knew creating the manual now would give me extra hours with my newborn later.
The other part of the role was harder to wrap my head around. As a founder who has been at the helm of my brand since inception, how do I give someone the keys to creative decision-making? So, I did months of creative preparation. I worked with my social team and graphic designer to build every social post, SMS and email campaign months ahead of time. Building your holiday campaign a year ahead of time might be the norm at larger brands, but for a brand of our size we’re often doing campaigns only six weeks (or six days!) ahead of launch.
For each campaign, I outlined copy, links, launch dates, assets and reference imagery in a Google Sheet separated by month. Each team member was tagged with their responsibilities and any missing details were highlighted (for example: a product page link for an upcoming launch on Sephora or images from a shoot) so everyone knew exactly what was needed or what would have to be gathered before deployment and where to find that missing information (i.e., a Sephora key contact or campaign photographer). With my creative team briefed from the beginning of the project and a very clearly outlined calendar, I felt like the right candidate could guide themselves through each launch or know exactly when to reach out to me if something needed more oversight.
Throughout my leave, we did have a one-hour phone call each week to discuss any decisions that needed my input or guidance. This planned check-in helped me preserve boundaries, despite the fact that I love what I do and wasn't interested in not touching the business for months.
Another major prep move I made during my pregnancy was the decision to move 3PLs. I don’t necessarily recommend taking on a big project like this six months pregnant, but, while building my maternity plan, I realized we were spending far too much time in back-and-forths with our shipping partner. I needed a partner who would not only take responsibility but would also do things right the first time. I’d spent years of my time and money in a stressful partnership, and I didn’t want to hand over the stress to a new team member. It was one of the best decisions I made during the pregnancy!
Finally, I opted to select a maternity fill-in to steer the ship in my stead while I was on leave. Since one of the most important parts of our business is our relationship with our wholesale retailers, I knew I wanted someone who had experience working for or partnering with a large beauty retailer. Experience in the startup world or wearing multiple hats was also important. Going from troubleshooting a package stuck in customs to deploying a five-part social media campaign is not an easy thing to teach or tackle.
I ultimately found my perfect candidate. Not only did she have experience in both the startup world and at large beauty brands, but she also had an 8-month-old. She’d recently gone through the motherhood transformation herself and could be empathetic in ways I knew I couldn’t plan for. Now that I’m transitioning back to the business full-time, she’s staying on to help run our operations. I was able to take the maternity leave I’d hoped for and found an amazing new team member in the process.
- Divya Gugnani Founder, 5 Sens and Concept to Co
I've been a founder through all three of my pregnancies, and each taught me something different about what maternity leave actually means when you're building a company. Interestingly, I was founder of two brands during my third pregnancy, Wander Beauty and 5 Sens, and the contrast between those experiences taught me everything about what works and what doesn't.
With my third pregnancy while running Wander Beauty, I was simultaneously preparing for our sale process, arguably the worst possible timing. I lost a key longstanding team member right before delivery. I was due May 4th, but delivered March 15th, nearly two months early. My daughter spent a month in the NICU, and I spent eight days in the ICU. There was no clean handoff, no perfectly prepped team ready to step in.
Meanwhile, I had started 5 Sens as a passion project and was minimally involved until after I sold Wander Beauty and completed the post-acquisition transition. The difference during maternity leave was night and day. 5 Sens ran seamlessly because I had made two critical decisions from the beginning:
I invested in the best talent I could afford from day one. Not good enough for now hires, the actual best people I could bring on board. Then, I got out of their way. I built systems and processes designed to sustain the business without me from the get-go. This wasn't a maternity leave plan, this was the business model.
Here's what I learned across both experiences:
Build redundancy into your leadership structure before you think you need it. The biggest mistake founders make is waiting until they're pregnant to realize they're a single point of failure. You need multiple people who understand critical relationships, processes, and decision-making frameworks. Not just one backup but multiple layers.
Invest in exceptional talent early, not eventually. With 5 Sens, I made a conscious choice to hire senior-level talent from the start, even when it felt like a stretch financially. With Wander Beauty, I had built up to that over time. The difference in how each business handled my absence was stark. Great people don't need you to function, they need you to give them context and then get out of their way.
Systems beat heroics every single time. At 5 Sens, we documented processes, automated workflows, and created decision-making frameworks before we needed them. At Wander Beauty, I was often the system. When you're taking video calls from a hospital bed during recovery because certain decisions genuinely can't wait, you realize the cost of being irreplaceable.
Build a village of trusted partners before you're in crisis mode. Your vendors, investors, advisors, and agency partners can become an extended support system. When you're transparent about your situation, you'd be surprised how many people step up. During my NICU stay, our key partners became an informal advisory board helping guide my team through critical decisions.
Accept that founder maternity leave is fundamentally different and give yourself grace accordingly. There's no corporate HR policy for this. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act doesn't protect you when you're the one writing the checks. I had to redefine what "leave" meant. It wasn't absence, it was reprioritization. Some days that meant being offline completely for hours. Other days it meant calls nonstop while I was recovering and my daughter was in the NICU.
The hard truth? The time to prepare for maternity leave isn't when you find out you're pregnant. It's the day you start your company. 5 Sens ran smoothly during my leave because I had built it to run without me from day one. Wander Beauty was more challenging because I had built myself into the infrastructure over years.
My advice to founders: Don't wait to hire great people. Don't wait to build systems. Don't wait to document processes. Build organizational resilience into your company's DNA from the very beginning. The goal isn't to make yourself replaceable, it's to make your business sustainable regardless of what life throws at you.
And if you're already pregnant and realizing you're a single point of failure? Start documenting everything today. Hire the best operators you can afford. Give them real decision-making authority. And know that whatever you plan for, life will probably throw you something different, so focus on building a team that can adapt and solve problems when you physically cannot be there.
- Babba Rivera Founder and CEO, Ceremonia
When I first started maternity leave, I prioritized taking two months to myself and my newborn while still needing to operate the business. In order to do this, I decided to not take any meetings or engage in proactive work. I wanted to fully take the opportunity to work of my own accord and when it suited me versus having to be on call/on a schedule and make commitments that I knew didn’t honor me at the time.
The newborn phase is so unpredictable, and I wanted to create a space for myself to have room and flexibility to attend to my baby's needs first. When I felt like I had a minute to use my creative energy, I would take the time to check Slack and respond to any needs from my immediate team or hop on an ad hoc call with my director of business. By operating like this, I was able to keep things moving and avoid any bottlenecks while still allowing myself the space to focus on breastfeeding, ensuring skin-to-skin contact and spending time with my baby.
After those two months, I transitioned back to a reduced schedule of meetings, only attending the most crucial ones. During meetings, I would have my baby sleeping in my arms to get as much skin-to-skin time as possible. Many Zoom calls featured my baby as a special guest.
My first motherhood journey happened to coincide with COVID and the revolution of remote work, a silver lining in an otherwise difficult time. It allowed me to spend more time with my baby. For example, if she needed to breastfeed, I would just tilt my camera up so only my neck and above were visible. So, I was able to tend to her and take a call simultaneously.
To my surprise, I also found myself having a lot of creative energy during the post-partum period. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to work from home and having a little extra snuggle time with my baby. After years of being afraid of pregnancy and motherhood, I finally found myself doing it and realizing it wasn't as scary as I had thought it needed to be.
I felt almost supernatural. If I can create life, what can't I do? That soon became my mantra, and I really enjoyed a period of surprising myself and dismantling many limiting beliefs I had around motherhood. It brought me a great sense of purpose to rewrite the script for myself.
- Nisha Phatak Co-Founder and CEO, Lion Pose
I approached maternity leave the same way I’d prepare for an acquisition: If I stepped away, could Lion Pose run without me? That mindset pushed me to build real systems, document processes, hire the right backfill, trust our existing team and step back from the day-to-day. Returning to a company that not only ran smoothly but grew in my absence gave me confidence that we’re building something built to last.
What people don’t talk enough about is that returning to work can be even more challenging. Reentering full-time work with a two-month-old who still feeds every couple of hours and wakes multiple times a night is a completely different test of endurance. Pumping during meetings, on planes and at conferences, and doing it all while sleep-deprived has honestly been harder than the two months away from the business.
- Sarah Lee Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Glow Recipe
To create the space I needed for maternity leave as a founder, I built an intentional, controlled communication system that streamlined my role to only the decisions that truly required me while balancing the responsibility and genuine passion I still felt for my “first baby,” Glow Recipe.
Internally, I’ve always championed fully uninterrupted parental leave for the team. For myself, I made an intentional distinction for myself. For the first two weeks I was completely offline, checking in only with my co-founder for urgent, high-level issues or major brand or design decisions or any spend above $50,000.
After that initial two weeks, I shifted into a more strategic rhythm. We created a simple, department-by-department document outlining context, key decision needs and timelines so I could review efficiently.
I also opened two to three windows a week primarily for my leadership team to handle essential live discussions, including collaborative product or brand brainstorms, key candidate interviews and cross-functional decisions that benefited from real-time exchange. I continued to test formulas and review packaging samples as they came in to keep decision cycles moving. Finally, I stayed reachable via text for emergencies and time-sensitive calls.
After the first month, I set up weekly afternoon touchpoints with each department head while keeping my mornings dedicated to my newborn. By month three, I gradually returned to managing the business, but focused my limited working hours on high-impact areas: key retailer partnership decisions and meetings tied to our Q3 and Q4 launches that year.
This system of structured access kept us moving forward, ensured critical decisions were supported and allowed me to stay close to high-level strategy while still fully embracing early motherhood.
- David Simnick Co-Founder and CEO, Soapbox
I didn't take any paternity leave, but I also had a team that supported me while I was there for my wife and newborn son. They kept me in the loop, but I was definitely emailing from the delivery room.
- Millie Blumka Densing Co-Founder, Stakt
My maternity leave started way earlier than planned. My son arrived seven weeks early, and everything I thought I’d have time to prep went out the window. I had planned to slowly delegate and teach my team the tasks I typically own, but we had to adapt fast.
While he was in the NICU for three weeks, our three other team members stepped up immediately. They redistributed responsibilities, and instead of pinging me all day, they’d send one consolidated list of questions so I could focus on him. It made such a difference.
It wasn’t the timeline we expected, but it reminded me how important it is to build a team you trust that can jump in when life doesn’t go according to plan.
Now that I’m easing back into work, I've started blocking my calendar so I have clear windows for work and clear windows for time with him. This structure has helped me find balance as both a founder and a new mom.
- Shannon Davenport Founder, Esker
Taking maternity leave as a founder is elusive. There’s no HR manual, no moment where someone says “OK, you’re off now.” It’s just you trying to protect a tiny window of bonding time.
With my first daughter, I managed to carve out a full month. I was just launching Esker at the same time and transitioning out of my full-time job, and I had this little cocoon of support around me.
My husband took leave alongside me, my workload was intentionally light, and I actually got that dreamy, blurry bonding period people talk about. I’m still grateful I had that with her. Your first baby teaches you that nothing matters more than that early attachment.
My second daughter was born in May 2020, so everything was upside down anyway. The world shut down, but our e-comm went into overdrive without a ton of extra pushing from me. In a strange way, the business gave me space because it was finally running on its own momentum. I didn’t get a “leave,” but I also didn’t have to grind in the same way.
By the time my son arrived, I had two kids already, a busier business and zero illusion that I’d be disappearing for weeks. So, I did the next best thing: I prepped like crazy, delegated everything and set firm “only call me if it’s truly unclear or on fire” boundaries. I gave my team full authority to make decisions, and nothing burned down.
Across the three, the throughline is simple: you plan early, you let go where you can, and you fiercely protect whatever time you do get. Leave doesn’t look the same for founders.
Sometimes it’s a month of real rest. Sometimes it’s sending emails while you nurse. Sometimes it’s just giving yourself permission to be unavailable for a bit or nap when the baby naps. But the bonding time, especially with your first baby, is irreplaceable. You’ll never regret prioritizing that. The inbox, the ops, the launches, they’ll all be there when you come back.
- Laura Schubert Co-Founder and CEO, Fur
Now pregnant with my third child, I have not taken official parental leave as a founder, but only because that’s not how I feel most supported. Fur offers its employees four months paid leave.
For me, the most important thing is setting up all the help I can get from friends and family, and having flexibility at work. I definitely travel less and take fewer meetings in those first few months as I acclimate and figure out the new family rhythm.
- Sarah Hardy Co-Founder and Chief People Experience Officer, Bobbie
When I prepared for my own maternity leave while leading Bobbie, I drew directly from my first experience becoming a parent at Airbnb in 2014, when I wrote the company’s parental leave policy myself and became the first mom to return from leave. That experience shaped how I approached my offloading plan at Bobbie, identifying what needed temporary backfill and putting the right team support in place so I could fully step away.
Because Bobbie was created to support parents, and because we take into account the full two years it takes to become one, my leave plan mirrored what we offer our team: thoughtful transitions out, individualized planning and a return-to-work ramp that allowed me to reenter part time before getting back up to full speed.
Bobbie’s parental leave program TakeOurLeave gives birthing and non-birthing parents up to 12 months of leave. The leave includes four months of paid leave, with the option to take up to eight additional months. After leave, Bobbie offers a re-entry program: employees can return part-time for a short ramp-up period while keeping their full salary.
Stepping away and then returning on my own terms reinforced the culture we’ve designed to build at Bobbie, one where leave is celebrated and where the systems are strong enough that the company can thrive even when its founders step out.
If you have a question you'd like Beauty Independent to ask beauty and wellness brand founders, send it to editor@beautyindependent.com.
