When asked who her female business role models is, Suzanne Jackson points to Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx who stepped down as CEO earlier this year.
So it's perhaps not surprising that the entrepreneur took a leaf out of Blakely's book when she decided to step down as CEO of her hugely influential SoSu brand empire, a bombshell announcement she made just two weeks ago.
"For quite some time now I wanted to bring in a CEO, but it had to be the right person", she tells RTÉ Lifestyle at a media lunch this afternoon. "And Caroline was the first person that I went to about the job. So when it happened, it just felt like the universe was aligning us."
Caroline Dalton, who Jackson met eight years ago, previously held the position of Head of Buying at Primark across a number of categories for 13 years. If Jackson is the Sara Blakely in this business, Dalton is the Emma Grede – the mind behind many of the Kardashian businesses.
For Dalton, it sounds like it's been a bit of a baptism by fire, but one she can handle with aplomb. "This is a new world for me", she says.
"I've just hit the ground running and we've been really busy in the office. So I've just been straight into work and what can we do and start to kind of try and clarify and problem solve different things that we can start to get working on. Because we really want to start 2023 as a fresh new year with all the objectives that we want to do.
"It's four weeks and it feels like five months."
"It just immediately alleviates all the stress and strain and worry from me, because they're just the areas of business that I just don't know how to problem solve, basically. It's been like a weight off my shoulders."
As she noted in her initial announcement, Jackson will still be involved in marketing, branding and the product itself. "I couldn't run it forever, but we were staggering and I don't have no shame in saying that", she says. "I want more growth, so now you need to obviously invest in new people."
For her, she's looking forward to getting back out in front of shoppers and fans. "I really enjoy connecting with my followers and working with brands and I love doing events. You cannot do all that when you're obviously in the office as well."
Another priority, Jackson says, is "more family time".
"I used to be plugged in 24/7. So even though you're there with [your family], you're probably not even listening because you're on your phone and your emails, you're never there. So more of being present. I think I've been trying to work on that for the last 12 months and fruition is starting to happen."
Jackson and Dalton are clearly united in their focus on SoSu brands being firmly female-led. "I come from working in retail, which on the outside you would assume is all about women, but it's actually all about men and it's men in suits and they're all standing around deciding what we should buy or what we should sell to women", Dalton says.
"That ship is slowly moving and shifting, but that is historically the way it was built. So it's great to see more women in business. Irish women support other women in business, as well."
As for what the SoSu customer will be getting from this new generation of the brand, it will be much the same as the customer demand hasn't changed much since it's foundation, Jackson says.
"I definitely think the customer has never changed in terms of what she wants. She wants multi-use products. She wants to buy something she just throws in her handbag and she gets lots of use out of. People are getting less and less time these days, so multi-use products are definitely something that we always had. We may not have marketed it that way, but there were always multi-use."
More than that, she says, "she wants value for money, and that's something we won't move on as a brand".
"Price increases happen across the board at the moment, but we definitely are affordable luxury and we try to not pass the cost onto the customer as much as maybe some other brands might."
She also intends to maintain the connection she's built with her customer base: "Now being an influencer, with many others who own their own brands, is a voice directly to the customer. Once you have a voice directly to your customer, I think that's just key."
