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Resilience, determination, and perseverance are three skills that Sarina Godin ‘91 learned at CESJDS. They have helped mold her into the person she is today and have led her through an illustrious career in the cosmetic industry. Currently, Sarina works for True Botanicals, a clean, luxury, and efficacious skincare brand, as the Chief Product Officer and Senior Vice President of Operations and Wholesale.
Attending University of Maryland after graduating from JDS, Sarina received a degree in Family Studies. She began working in a runaway shelter counseling teenagers and their families. Although she felt really good about what she was doing to help these kids, it did not give her the motivation she wanted to experience in her career. Sarina decided to move to New York City to be closer to some of her college friends and landed a job at a cosmetic company assisting the head of marketing and product development. “From there it was luck… or being strong, resilient, and confident in my abilities to push the boundaries,” Sarina explains.
Sarina gained experience in the cosmetic industry and moved to Los Angeles to work for Hard Candy Cosmetics. “It was a small company where each employee could wear many hats. I worked on everything from product development to marketing to sales to customer service and really learned about the business on many levels.”
It was Sarina’s expertise and insight which then took her to Bare Escentuals as Director of Product Development for 11 years, and then to Butter London in Seattle where shortly after the company started, she was asked to take on the President role. “This was a small company and I had to learn very quickly a very different side of the business overseeing the full operation of the company including operations, sales, and finance. Again, having to wear many hats allowed me to understand what it takes to make a business successful and how to operate in this ever-changing world of things going from in-store shopping to digital.”
Finding the pressure of this position to be real, and striving to find a better work-life balance, Sarina left the role of President and moved to Atlanta with her wife and their three children. Here Sarina took a role as Chief Product Officer with a company that created cosmetic and skincare tools. “I missed wearing many hats and being on the brand side and so two years after moving to Atlanta, we moved back to San Francisco so I could take my current role at True Botanicals. Every day is exciting. I love overseeing three different areas of the business. And for me, hands-on experience has been everything.”
Sarina knows that JDS gave her the tools to work hard and be dedicated to everything she has chosen to do in life but she really loved her time at JDS for the friends that she made and the connection to Jewish culture all around her. “My three children go to a Jewish day school and it’s important for me that they have the understanding of our rich Jewish history and the connection of community. It's really about the why. Why we celebrate the holidays, why we practice certain rituals, what about our history has led us to be where we are today, and why we need to accept all people regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, etc.”