Monica Glenny – A Journey From Data To Beauty

Monica Glenny, an accountant, turned beauty consultant, shares her story of supporting women in business. She started with a clear goal in mind; however, she had to wait 20 years for the right opportunity to help people in need. Her vast knowledge, deep experience, and strong will to help others undeniably reserve her a place on our Women’s History Month list.

Lack of fempreneurs

Monica Glenny graduated from Northern Illinois University as an accountant. In between taking rigorous exams to become a certified professional, she took a part-time job at DataCraft, an Illinois-based company that operates at the intersection of accounting and data management. 

Monica decided to stay with the firm as a public accountant and held that position for five years. Although she moved on after that, her career path led her back to DataCraft once again. However, this time, she intended to work with small businesses due to her previous experience and family relationship with SMEs. 

“I particularly wanted to work with small business owners who were women.” – shared Monica her intentions, which unfortunately rarely matched reality, as there was a lack of women-owned businesses and businesswomen in the region throughout her 20 years at DataCraft. “I was working with small businesses, but I wasn’t helping women as I wanted to.”

Enter Mary Kay

“I got into Mary Kay only to bond with my daughter and do make-up together.” The company, Mary Kay, gathers people interested in beauty and provides them with tools to become beauty consultants. At this point in 2015, when Monica realized an ample opportunity was landing on her doorstep, she was the president of DataCraft. She bought out her co-owner and sold the company, which eventually closed. 

Monica always felt close to the entrepreneurial world but wanted to help women in parallel. So when the opportunity Mary Kay arose, she completely reinvented herself. Monica didn’t put aside her highly acclaimed work and experience just to be a junior cosmetic consultant. Instead, she became so much more: she worked her way up in the Mary Kay group to become a role model within the organization. 

The company provides her with the tools to help other women become entrepreneurs, whether they want to add a few dollars to their monthly budget or have the goal of pursuing beauty consulting full time. Monica helps women become more confident and businesswomen to join Mary Kay and build a team under them.

“We all at Mary Kay had to pivot in a big way because our business has always been a face-to-face business. We had to go virtual with all of our services.” Her goal for 2021 is to use the newly found digital channels to reach women in every state in the US. “My goal is to make a woman feel more beautiful, powerful, confident, and courageous.” 

Monica is now a young grandmother, with beauty care and supporting other women being her two passions. She has been given a great opportunity; she has stepped up and shown how to do it with dedication.