Female Founder Stories: Carolina Guthmann, Manima
Hanna: Carolina, it’s so great to have you here with me. Let’s talk about how you founded MANIMA. You had a remarkable career in the pharmaceutical industry working with global brands like Procter Gamble and Bristol Myers. What inspired you to switch career paths and start the company?
Carolina: Sometimes you feel that something is not exactly how it should be. You say ‘Okay, I need to listen to my intuition because something’s telling me that what I’m doing is not making me feel happy. I thought I had something more to
give back, especially because I had to fight a lot in a very masculine world, so I wanted to empower women here [in Sicily].
Hanna: Wow. And your co-founder and husband Piero, I just want to highlight his amazing career. He has had an equally fascinating career in television as a journalist.
CAROLINA: Yes, he was a news journalist, as well as being an anchorman. I think he had the most incredible years of his life. He traveled the whole world to interview heads of governments, presidents including Clinton, Bush and Chavez. He had the most amazing experience.
Hanna: So, you have this amazing career in the pharmaceutical world and Pedro was in a world of politics and journalism, and you met and you both have this passion for artisans in Sicily?
Carolina: Well, we had a passion for artisans in principle but [I wanted] to do something to help female artisans thrive. We did research and said there was embroidery. We started looking for embroiderers and we found that Sicily had the best ones. They were the masters and owners of the most incredible techniques. I thought we could bring that to life. We could create a virtuous circle that brings in money that we can reinvest in creating work for these women.
Hanna: Amazing. So how do you think your previous careers have influenced the work that you do in Manima?
Carolina: At Procter and Gamble, the very early experiences were everything because I did marketing there. Later in my career, in general management roles, I also got into finance and executing business plans, [which means] I can understand deeply the implications of strategies looking forward. It means that I have a good view of everything.
Hanna: There’s an article on your website, which discusses embroidery as a means of emancipation for female artisans. It’s just amazing to see a company that honors the cultural impact women have had. How did you come to be interested in embroidery?
Carolina: It was a process. In the beginning, I had studied it theoretically, but then when I saw these women, I still get goosebumps. Every manual work has something special but embroidery has this slow, intuitive gesture that continues to repeat itself thousands of times. That is something sacred to me, per se.
Hanna: Beautiful. How important were the community-building aspects of Manima when creating the company?
Carolina: Of course the embroiderer’s capabilities [are important] because having been in so manycultures, they have learned so many techniques that you don’t have in other regions in Italy. [However], the other thing is that there is 70% unemployment rate in Sicily. Girls did not really have a higher education in the past in Sicily.
So, many of these women who nowadays are 60 or 70 had a very basic education. Even now, there are few opportunities. Girls who have a good education go to university and then they leave the island. Those who do not have an academic education are very often left behind. Like my chief embroiderer, she had four or five different jobs, just to make ends meet. So, it’s critical to our business to build community. They have contracts that pay them appropriately and make them feel part of something special.
Hanna: So, diving deeper. We know that every entrepreneurial journey has its challenges. What were the biggest challenges that you encountered in the creation of Manima?
Carolina: For one, raising funds for a thing whichis completely different from any other kind of startup. People were like “What are you doing?” So that was that part. That forced us to think deeply about the model and to see how it could really work. What it required in terms of technology, modernization, etc. for it to work. That was the challenging part of it.
Hanna: Do you think fast fashion threatens the kind of slow and high luxury work that you do?
Carolina: I think both will always be there. It is going to change because the way they have been producing is not sustainable. Clients who appreciate what we do are not those clients who want the mass produced. It’s about finding the right people who understand what you’re doing in your business. We know all our clients, we know what they love and what they want. Regenerative luxury is not exploiting and paying people what they deserve to be paid and not what you want to pay.
Hanna: Let’s talk a little bit about your collaboration with the acclaimed artist Kazumi Yoshida. Kazumi has created luxury items with French luxury brand Hermès for several years. Can you tell us a little bit about how this partnership started?
Carolina: Kazumi had a beautiful exhibition here and we were invited by Hermes to the opening. We went to dinner and I told him how much I loved his paintings. A week later, he wrote to me that he thought we could collaborate. He’s a very bright, shining person. You can see it in his paintings. Working with him is a very fulfilling thing.
Hanna: You’re in a partnership with your husband. How do you feel your journey is different from even him as a man in a male-dominated industry?
Carolina: This is a very male world but this is such a female project. My husband is an Alpha man, so of course he would like to have his way of doing things and commanding. On the news, he had to make decisions on the spot. But he has learned that there are other ways. he’s learning a lot from how I deal with things, which is not commanding. Sometimes, of course, you have to say ‘This has to be done’ but most of the time, you’re trying to make people understand why. I am not fighting now in a world where I have to demonstrate I am something. That’s the beauty of doing something that I can connect with. In the world (corporate) I was in before, I even had to work triple to be recognized. Now I can be a woman and I can be who I am and work with that.
Hanna: Manima is known for its innovative digital assets. How do you think we will see technology and craftsmanship intersecting in the future?
Carolina: I think that we’re already seeing some examples out there in the world and I think that technology is used to help our designs, not replace them. AI is only helping us understand even better how we can evolve the platform so that women, even though they’re distant from each other, feel that they are connected.
Hanna: As a co-founder, what do you think is the key to a successful professional partnership?
Carolina: Choose your battles. Our guiding principle is ‘Kalos Kagathos’, which is from Ancient Greece and means ‘only what is good can also be beautiful.’ So as long as that principle remains untouched, there are many things where every day I have to make decisions and think ‘ Okay, I can change my mind on that.’
Hanna: What advice would you give to other people who are on the path of rebranding?
Carolina: First of all, find the thing that really makes them feel passionate. Go into yourself and find out what makes you feel good, then do your homework. See if in some way you could make this a reality.
Hanna: Wonderful, it was such a beautiful time having this conversation with you Carolina. Let’s share with our readers and listeners where we can find information about your brand.
Carolina: Right now this is not a shopping website (www.manimaworld.com), but it will be possible to buy them there during the season of course. You can contact us through Instagram @manimaworld, anytime because that’s how most clients do. We do lots of custom work.
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