The WIN Member Spotlight is a knowledge-sharing initiative designed to capture the experiences, insights and lessons of women within the WIN community.

This spotlight features Effie Asafu-Adjaye, Founder and Director of Beautiful Sparks and a marketing strategist to global beauty and lifestyle brands. She spent 15 years building brand value inside houses like LVMH and Jurlique, and at agencies including Landor and Interbrand, before a restructure and a global shutdown turned her into a founder she hadn't planned to be.

Her story isn't a bold resignation followed by an overnight launch. It's a practical one. About the savings buffer that carried her through uneven early months, the financial benchmarks an MBA didn't quite prepare her for, committing a share of her profit to women and girls while still building, and the compounding graph she wishes someone had shown her straight out of uni.

The Conversation

You spent 15 years building value for some of the world's most recognised brands. When Beautiful Sparks began, what was the financial reality of that moment, and what hadn't you anticipated?

I didn't quit my job to start a business. After a corporate restructure, I found myself without a job, and soon after, the world shut down in 2020. My plan was to find another full-time role, but several of the opportunities I was pursuing disappeared in their own restructures and hiring freezes. So I took on freelance projects as a sole trader, out of necessity. It was only later, because I was enjoying the work so much, that I incorporated and committed to it as a business.

The financial reality was that I'd built up a savings buffer in my corporate roles, and it was the cushion I absolutely needed. Everyone's journey is different, but while I was still figuring things out, I had brilliant months and harder ones. Without that buffer, I wouldn't have made it through.

What I hadn't anticipated was how much my financial priorities would shift. Catching up with friends still in corporate roles, I noticed the conversation often turned to annual leave and the next trip. I was in a different headspace. I wasn't planning a Euro summer. I'd rather invest in business training, or in projects that would evolve the business. The maths is different when you're building something, and paid annual leave isn't really part of the picture.

Your work is about helping brands understand and articulate their own value, so they can charge what they're worth. When did you turn that same lens on yourself and Beautiful Sparks, and what did you find?

It's been a journey. Over the years there's been an evolution of offers, of pricing, and of going after bigger deals.

The biggest gap at the start was that I had no idea what gross margin and operating profit benchmarks looked like for a professional services business. I'd done an MBA years earlier and learned about P&Ls and financial management broadly, but building something from the ground up showed me a knowledge gap I hadn't expected.

Confidence to charge a premium matters. But it only counts once you've packaged and articulated your value compellingly enough to justify the price.

A big part of charging what you're worth can also come down to shifting your focus to a slightly different customer within your market. One with more to spend, who's willing to pay for something exceptional.

You've made a formal commitment to give 1% of Beautiful Sparks' profit to causes that support women and girls. That's a financial decision, made while building a business without external funding. What was behind it?

It's simply an expression of my values. Contribution has always been one of my big ones, and giving, even modestly from what you already have, is something I've believed in and practised since I was young. It felt completely natural for the business to become an extension of that.

Business is the economic engine of the world, and businesses solve problems every day through innovation. But there's another layer of challenges, from social and environmental issues to inequality, that the market doesn't always solve on its own.

So it makes sense to me that businesses play a part there too, and direct some of what they generate towards closing those gaps.

You describe yourself as an introvert who has built an international profile as a speaker and commentator. What has visibility actually been worth to your business?

Speaking has won me some new business, and led to interesting conversations and coffees that turned into work down the track. But the bigger value is in the preparation. Getting ready to speak forces me to dig into where my industry is heading, and to know the market inside out.

Visibility builds brand and credibility, but honestly, it's the hours you pour into the prep that give you a different level of fluency and confidence in your category. Over the years, that's what differentiates you in client conversations, and it's what helps you close more deals.

You work with beauty and lifestyle founders every day, often women spending significant money on marketing without a clear foundation underneath it. What's the most financially costly mistake you see female founders make, and why do you think it keeps happening?

Without the right brand foundations, the cracks eventually start to show. When your positioning and message aren't clear, every dollar of ad spend amplifies something that isn't quite right, or doesn't land your true point of difference. And as the business grows, your team and agencies all interpret the brand slightly differently. It becomes a nightmare, where the founder always has to jump in to make things right.

Part of why it keeps happening is that short-term tactics feel productive. You can launch an ad, run a promotion or post the content and see something happen straight away. It scratches the itch of making progress. Brand foundations are the opposite. They're harder to measure in the short term, so the work never feels urgent.

But brand is a long game. Until those foundations are in place, you're spending real money to prop up a message that was never quite right in the first place.

Brand is a long game. Until those foundations are in place, you're spending real money to prop up a message that was never quite right in the first place.

Set the business aside entirely. What's the financial conversation you wish someone had with you personally, about your own money, your own security, your own future, earlier in your career?

I actually opened an investment account with some savings when I first started working full-time out of uni. But no one really explained it to me, and I didn't know enough to ask the right questions. I just knew I wanted to invest something. I didn't even fully understand what I was invested in.

I really wish someone had properly explained compounding to me back then, ideally with a graph in front of me, so I could see what I might build and why it mattered to keep adding to it. At the time, I felt no urgency to grow the account or even pay attention to it. It was set and forget.

When I think about all the money that went on throwaway fashion from Supré, Valleygirl and Dotti, I now think about how even a little of that, invested consistently, would still be growing today. Oops!

Key Takeaway

“Knowing how to build value for others doesn't automatically mean you know how to build it for yourself. Learn your numbers, price with intent, and start investing early, even in baby steps. Consistency does the rest.”

Quick Fire

• Best financial advice received: Investing even the smallest amount consistently counts. Baby steps beat standing still. It came from a financial planner I met down the track, and I took it. It changed things for me.

• The money conversation creative women need to have: Pricing strategy and profit margins. Those conversations should be commonplace.

• Before leaving a corporate salary: Have a big cushion saved up.

• Knowing your own worth means: Saying no and closing the door on some opportunities, so you can say yes to the ones where you can add the most value.

The WIN Member Spotlight is a knowledge-sharing initiative. Where the Masterclass Series provides structured education, the Member Spotlight provides lived experience. Together, they help WIN become a platform for learning.