The 21st-Century Entrepreneur Redefining Corporate Responsibility: Inside Vicky Tsai’s Visionary Shift

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There is an old adage about a protagonist setting out to heal the world, only to find that the journey heals them in return. This certainly holds true for Vicky Tsai, founder of Tatcha, a luxury skincare brand inspired by ancient Japanese wisdom. Over almost two decades, Tsai built a brand around the Japanese concept of “hinou dokon”– the inseparable connection between skin and mind–a concept that also fundamentally transformed her approach to life.

Though she runs a skincare company, Tsai understands that true dermal health is intrinsically linked to mental and emotional wellbeing, and is more than skin-deep. “Now I think of my skin as my partner, a mirror reflecting my inner world,” she explains while pouring me herbal tea over an omakase lunch. An example: she still develops hives around her throat when not speaking her truth, which disappear as soon as she voices her thoughts. 

Tatcha ultimately emerged as the creative byproduct of Tsai’s exploration of her mind, body, and spirit. This year, the company is celebrating an 11-year partnership with Room To Read, donating over 10 million days of school to girls around the world. This philanthropic project is meaningful to Tsai as it deepens the mind-body connection integral to Tatcha’s mission–as girls’ education helps develop confidence and life skills to carry them through adulthood. With her own daughter in mind, Tsai sees this work as a powerful way to help girls recognize their worth beyond appearances – possibly even countering the beauty industry’s long history of tying value to how the world sees them.

A PATH REIMAGINED

In 2008, Tsai found herself at a pivotal crossroads, feeling disillusioned by her corporate life. She left her unsatisfying career as a credit derivatives trader, deciding to find her passion instead. “I choose happiness,” she says.

That’s how she found herself on the West Coast exploring different career paths: she interned at SK-II, took a corporate role helping to launch Starbucks in China, and worked at a sustainability-focused startup—GoodGuide. There, she met environmental scientist Dara O’Rourke, a thought leader and professor at Berkeley who exposed working conditions at Nike sweatshops. O’Rourke had left academia to create the app GoodGuide, which gave consumers information about the environmental, social, and health impacts of their purchases through a scan. The app, which Tsai describes as ahead of its time, eventually folded in 2020. 

Here, she learned harrowing truths about the cosmetics industry—a revelation that deeply resonated with her personal struggles. “I was horrified by what I learned,” she recalled. This awakening was reflective of Tsai’s own health struggles. Having dealt with severe dermatitis for years, she had been reliant on a cocktail of steroids and antibiotics, with Aquaphor as her sole beauty product. The onset of pregnancy forced her to seek healthier alternatives. Armed with the knowledge she had gained at GoodGuide, the quest for gentler, more effective skincare solutions led her to an unlikely destination: Kyoto, Japan.

A CULTURAL EPIPHANY

In Kyoto, Tsai was introduced to geisha traditions, their rituals steeped in respect for the body and the natural world. She also discovered the magic of Japanese blotting papers – thin sheets that absorb facial oil – which would become Tatcha’s very first product. This cultural immersion helped her understand a holistic approach to wellness. “Every time I spent time with a zen monk or a philosopher or a geisha, they would give me insights on how they would take care of their minds and bodies,” Tsai noted.
Tsai found profound resonance in the Japanese maxim “hinou dokon” – “skin and mind, same root.” This ancient wisdom has roots in human biology—in embryonic development, the brain and skin emerge from the same cellular pathway. The link emerges when someone blushes with embarrassment, gets goosebumps from fear, or gains a pallid complexion when depressed. “Instead of thinking of my skin as a meatsuit that gets more messed up and wrinkly with time, I started thinking about it as a reflection of my mind,” Tsai says. She started to think of the skin as not just a protective barrier, but a dynamic, communicative organ intimately connected to our emotional landscape.

This realization was transformative for a woman who, by her own admission, had grown up steeped in Western paradigms. The contrast between these worldviews became stark as she recalled her corporate days: “I got frustrated with my body that it couldn’t keep up with the workload that I needed it to do.” Now she lives by the notion: “don’t treat your body like a rental car, you only get one in this lifetime.”

NAVIGATING ENTREPRENEURIAL WOES

Tsai’s paradigm shift didn’t occur all at once. Initially, she says she didn’t take a vacation for the first 10 years of running her company. Her fixation on productivity consumed her as she spent most of this time still living and working out of her mom’s garage.

During that time she obsessively focused on quantifiable outputs: maximizing emails sent, meetings attended, and tasks completed, often at the expense of her own wellbeing. “I was treating myself as if I were a machine,” Tsai reflects, acknowledging the irony of advocating self-care for others while neglecting her own.

“While I’m telling people to take care of themselves, I was not doing it because I am a woman of color who could not raise money to start a business, so I had to work 10 times as hard,” Tsai says of that time. This approach ultimately proved unsustainable. In her second stint as CEO, Tsai tried something different: “I learned that you have to optimize for energy. When you optimize for energy, productivity follows.” This realization marked a transformative change in her leadership style and ultimately led Tatcha to become the impactful brand it is today.

PURPOSE BEYOND PROFIT

Now Tatcha is a global brand with retailers including Sephora and Ulta, and worn by countless celebrities including Jennifer Aniston, Kim Kardashian, The Duchess of Sussex, Camila Mendes, and Selena Gomez. Though it was sold to Unilever for a reported $500 million, Tsai is not only focused on generating profits. Instead, she has used the power of her brand to pursue her social impact agenda, “If I go into this industry, I know I have to make it a Trojan horse because that is the only way I know I want to grow it,” Tsai reflected. in her own life, Tsai was driven to give back. “The only reason I have any opportunity in my life is my education,” she says. “I’m not smarter than anyone else, I’m not harder working, I was lucky enough to be born into a family where girls should get an education.” The birth of her daughter also inspired her to double down on girls’ education as a core mission. This personal conviction led Tatcha to partner with Room to Read as soon as the company began generating real revenue. 

Room to Read CEO Geetha Murali adds, “Vicky Tsai is a force of nature: a visionary leader, compassionate changemaker, and steadfast global board member. Her commitment to girls’ education hasn’t just shaped Room to Read’s direction—it has propelled our mission to new heights.” She explains, “Through Tatcha’s bold partnership, tens of thousands of girls now have the tools and confidence to shape their own futures. Vicky shows us that when business is led with heart and conviction, it becomes a force for generational change.” Through the Girls’ Education Program, Tatcha aims to create lasting change. As Tsai explains, “When you educate a generation of girls, they will lift their community out of poverty in two generations because educated girls become educated mothers of educated children. They have lower birth rates, lower infant mortality rates, better family health, start companies and the money goes back to their family and community. Educating girls is one of the most efficient ways of dealing with some of the world’s most complex problems.”

Tsai, who counts Little Women as one of the books that profoundly influenced her growing up, sums up her perspective on privilege and responsibility: “My hardest day will always be easier than their easiest day. It was always about perspective, and they always kept me in perspective.” This understanding fuels Tatcha’s commitment to using business as a force for positive change, making education not just a personal passion for Tsai, but also the most efficient path to broader societal transformation. 

VISION FOR THE FUTURE

Now, Tsai believes that any startup today lacking a path of social enterprise is, “missing the basic table stakes,” a responsibility she believes all businesses must shoulder. Her pragmatic optimism shines through as she surveys the current landscape. “Corporate profits are at an all-time high, interest rates are coming down, the economy is strong,” she muses, “yet big companies are still run by a specific demographic focused on short-term profit for personal gain, unwilling to put money behind real change.” 

The challenges in tackling issues like sustainability, equal pay, and diversity are not lost on Tsai. “These are hard things to get done quickly, and they’re getting done slowly because no one wants to do the hard work of taking the short-term hit for the long-term benefit,” she acknowledges. But for those starting a company from scratch, unencumbered by the “outdated way of thinking” of shareholders and boards, Tsai sees a path forward – one where they can “do it in the right way.” 

As Tsai begins anew again as a philanthropist and investor for female entrepreneurs, she personally is embracing the “non-duality” of life’s experiences. “There’s no such thing as good or bad experience,” she says firmly, “there are just experiences that lead to growth.” 

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Vicky Tsai is honored as part of The Shift’s “90 Plus One” list, which recognizes influential women shaping contemporary culture. With Gloria Steinem featured on the inaugural print cover, the list pays homage to her 91 years of activism by highlighting a powerhouse community of women shifting culture.