e.l.f. Beauty CEO Tarang Amin: What helping run my father’s motel taught me about risk

My first job taught me three lessons that have stayed with me ever since: how you treat people matters, the power of conversation, and the importance of taking risks. These lessons began when I was 14 and my family bought and ran a motel together in Alexandria, Virginia. To understand the impact of this job, let me first take you back to 1935 in Vaso, Gujarat, India, where my father, Pramod Rambhai Amin, was born. My father faced hardship early in life. Both his father and brother passed away when he was young and much of the responsibilities of supporting the household fell to him early. He paused his college studies to take care of the family farm, yet he remained determined to create a better life for himself and his family. He earned a law degree, practicing law for a while, before he shifted his focus to the business world. His career at an Indian gas company took him from India to Kenya, where I was born. When I was a child, we immigrated to the U.S., where he continued in the gas industry and later in educational publishing. When I was 14, my parents took every penny they had to buy the motel. My father had spent years traveling for work, and he wanted a change where the family could all be together. It was a dilapidated property, but we felt confident we could turn it around. And we did. Everything I know about the fundamentals of business, from cash flow to economic profit, came from helping my family run the motel. And more importantly, I learned what leadership looks like in practice. My father instilled in me that when you treat your employees with care and respect, they in turn create a meaningful experience for the customers. Every day, we rolled up our sleeves to clean rooms, working alongside staff, creating zero distance between owners and employees. I saw firsthand that how you treat people makes a difference. We attended weddings for their children of our motel managers and celebrated milestones together. Working with my father also taught me the