In life, we are always looking for inspiration, people who have achieved great things in industries we wanna tap into one day. Especially as women, we need to see representation and success stories of female forces who have led by example and paved the way for generations to come. While there are a lot of them out there, finding someone who is not only genuine and kind, but reachable and willing to give valuable advice is like looking for a four-leaf clover in a park. So when I got the chance to meet and interview superwoman and entrepreneur Anna Lahey, I felt extremely lucky and honored.
Anna has a way of not only seeing gaps in the world of beauty, wellness and care, but quietly building solutions for them. It all started with her company Vida Glow, which she co-founded over a decade ago, after discovering the power of collagen on a trip to Japan that reduced her severe hair loss within only two months. While collagen has been a staple supplement over there, ingestible beauty was still largely unfamiliar in countries like Australia where Anna was based. So what did she do? She did the research, she studied the science behind it and created a brand and products that would help especially women around the world. Over a decade later, Vida Glow is the world’s number one best-selling marine collagen brand.
When you go to their website, you wanna buy it all. They make taking supplements look like fun and aesthetically pleasing. I’m like: “Spectacular, give me 14 of them right now!”. When I asked Anna which product she’d recommend to start with, she suggested the ProCollagen+ and kindly sent it my way to try. In an industry where so much can feel transactional, that kind of authenticity and generosity is rare. I’ve already started adding it to my coffee every day, which makes it so easy to stay consistent, and I love how seamlessly it fits into my mornings. I’m definitely curious about the difference it’ll make over time and I will report back on it.
Looking at it more broadly, Anna has not only built successful brands that have proven to show the promised results, but she built the kind of trust with her customers and audience that has resulted in brand loyalty and genuine support. With everything Anna does, she has never over-promised and under-delivered, but educated and inspired us in the best way. From filling one gap in the world of wellness and inner beauty with Vida Glow, to conquering another in the hair care space with TYPEBEA, Anna never stops to amaze us.
As a self-titled TYPEBEA ambassador since day one, I have talked about it extensively in the past – from the growth range to the repair range – and will continue to support it wholeheartedly. How often have you been drawn in by ads and were disappointed by the outcome? You won’t find that here. Hearing Anna explain the science behind the products and why the results are remarkable, you actually know and understand what you are using in your hair and you can feel good about it while it also does what it says.
Getting to interview her in person recently, I not only learnt a lot about the incredible and innovative technology used in their new repair range, but received some great advice and wisdom from a remarkable female founder who showed me genuine kindness, appreciation and support. As an aspiring entrepreneur myself who is trying to build her career and business, any bit of real advice and encouragement means the world to me. Just like Anna, I found my niche, a gap in the media industry, and I filled it with a fresh perspective and empowering representation.
The secret behind brand longevity goes far beyond good products and great marketing. It’s about staying relatable, continuing to cater to your target audience whilst keeping up with a fast-pacing industry that reinvents itself regularly. Letting your customers in on the process and educating them on the science and story behind each range is a key factor to keep people drawn in. Personally, I have never felt as welcomed into a brand family as I have with TYPEBEA. The secret behind their success? The strong women behind it.
When you look at Anna’s success story and the phenomenal businesses she has built, you wonder how she does it all so amazingly. Watching her work ethic, being a mum of four kids and three dogs, travelling from one continent to the other while being 7-months pregnant with baby number 5, left me stunned and in awe. It also showed me that anything is possible and that you can thrive as a working mum, personally and professionally, if you have the right support system around you, strong self-belief and a bigger purpose to fulfill.
Beyond everything she has built, Anna herself carries a kind of calm, grounded energy that stays with you long after you’ve met her. She has this rare way of making you feel both seen and at ease, like you’re speaking to someone who is fully there with you, no matter how full her world is. She listens intently, speaks with intention, and carries a quiet, grounded confidence that never needs to announce itself. There is a warmth to her that feels natural rather than performed, and it’s a reminder that leadership doesn’t always have to be loud to be powerful.
Something important that stayed with me from speaking to her is how honest she is about the reality of entrepreneurship. There is often a glamorized, romanticised idea of building your own business, and while Anna admits to be guilty of it herself, she makes it very clear that the reality looks different. In her words, she described it as being a firefighter and that her full-time job is putting out fires.
Her advice for running a business successfully is to just start. According to her, you are not gonna begin with the perfect strategy, the perfect marketing plan, the perfect finance roadmap, and the overall vision will change as you grow. But a lot of people get caught up in the perfectionism of getting it just right. The reality is that failure is inevitable and it will never be perfect.
And maybe that’s Anna Lahey’s real legacy. Not just the brands, the breakthroughs, or the billion-dollar ideas, but the quiet permission she gives the rest of us to dream bigger, move smarter, and build with purpose. In a world full of noise, she chose clarity. In an industry built on illusion, she chose truth. And in doing so, she didn’t just redefine self-care and wellness – she not redefined what it looks like to lead, but has shown her kids that anything is possible.
The future belongs to women who don’t wait for space, they create it.
ROARA Magazine 