Entrepreneur Association of Tokyo
"Ines Ligron"

“The Beauty Business - from the Beauty Queen Maker”
Ines Ligron, President of IBG Japan Co. Ltd. and National Director of Miss Universe Japan.

Ines Ligron calls herself passionate and ambitious, but after listening to her seminar at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan on November 6, most EA members would probably add captivating to that list. Since being appointed National Director of the Miss Universe Japan by the owner, New York real estate mogul Donald Trump at end of 1997, Ines has rejuvenated pageantry in Japan, in the process producing three top 5 Miss Universe finishes with Miyako Miyazaki finishing 5th in 2003, Kurara Chibana finishing as the 2006 Miss Universe 1st Runner-Up, and Riyo Mori claiming the title of Miss Universe 2007. Where did she start and how did she get here? Read on.

From her first business to mixing with celebs
While Ines says that she “was not born with intelligence or intellectualism,” she was always aware that she had been born with “this little spice that other people didn’t have.” Instead of trying to make herself look smart, Ines knew she had a talent for making other people look good. And that is exactly what she began doing when at 21 she opened a cosmetic center on a franchise from Yves Rocher with the goal of “creating something unique” and with the backing of her parents who mortgaged their home to back their daughter.

With a newly-arrived baby, a divorce on the horizon and the need to pay back her parents to keep a roof over their heads, motivation was never an issue for Ines in the early days, but five years on and now with five employees, helping old ladies with their wrinkles had left her needing a new challenge. The result? She sold up at the peak of her business, paid back her parents and had enough money to move on to work at a cosmetic surgery in Spain where she got her first taste of working with the rich and famous and learned something special - the secret to looking like a celebrity…”It’s simple! You just don’t eat so you are skinny and with the money you save on not eating then you buy clothes and you look fabulous.” Fabulous is a word Ines uses a lot.

Tanning and super models
After remarrying and moving to Hong Kong, Ines was not going to let her husband pay for her “to be fabulous,” so she identified a niche and began importing tanning machines and placing them in 5-stars hotels across China. The business was a success, and just as she was planning how and where to invest her profits, opportunity came knocking when she was scouted by International Management Group (IMG), the same company that looks after superstars like Tiger Woods, to be the Asia-Pacific Director of IMG Models on a freelance basis in Hong Kong. The position allowed Ines more freedom in her private life and allowed her to take more risks and be more innovative in business than she would be in the confines of a normal position, something which naturally suited her ambitious and self-proclaimed “unrealistic” outlook.

Once Ines had begun working with supermodels at IMG, she says she “realized the attraction of beauty in life,” which lead her to “want to create women that have beauty…not to sell people who are already created, who are already made because they were scouted at 13 years old and are already famous.” Three years after she had joined IMG, an opportunity presented itself for Ines to do just that.

Miss Universe
After seeing Donald Trump being interviewed on TV one evening, Ines was woken in the night by a phone call from The Trump Organization, only to hang up thinking she was dreaming. When they called back several minutes later, it was obvious she was not. Just a few weeks later and Ines was on a plane to Japan as the National Director for Miss Universe Japan, although she definitely wasn’t planning to stay for 10 years. “I negotiated a lot of money and with that money (I thought) I will do it for one year. You know, beauty competition - that’s not my thing, beauty queens - I hate them. I’m going to do that for the money and then I can move to something else,” Ines said. “And here I am 10 years later talking to you because I got hooked! I think it’s fascinating. I got my dream, I can create.” Creating beauty is exactly what she has done in bringing unprecedented success to Miss Universe Japan, but also she created a trend, and she gets to implement a big social event each year.

Q and A
Dave Mori, EA-Tokyo NPO: When you first had to move here, you had two weeks to come to Japan, you were all alone. Tell us about that initial phase of trying to get sponsors and just start a new life and a new career in Japan, because I am sure a lot of us in the room have felt that kind of ‘whoa! What’s going on?’ Tell us a little bit about that initial phase.

Ines: When I came, after meeting Donald Trump in New York and finalizing my agreement, I took a plane and came here…then I needed cash because to do this event I needed cash to put it together, so I had to find one sponsor. I’m not so smart, but I’m street smart, so that always worked for me. I just started asking people around ‘what is the best company right now?’, ‘what is the company spending the most money on marketing?’ and I sat on the subway and at that time I saw Amway. Amway, Amway, Amway everywhere. Amway was everywhere because they were sponsoring the Nagano games (Winter Olympics) and I thought ‘that’s it, I am sitting on my sponsor. I have to call them.’ So, I tried to find out how to reach them and I was lucky again that I had dinner with a friend of mine who knew the son of the president and he gave me his number and name. I called and that day changed everything.
When I called him I said - you know I am French and I am a woman - 'Allo, I would like to speak to the president’ and of course I got transferred to the president. I told him that I work for Donald Trump and Miss Universe, blah, blah, blah, and I want to do an event very soon and then he cut me off and he said 'Do not talk to anybody and come and see me. Can you come tomorrow?' I said 'actually I am on a plane in one hour’ and he said ‘well…,’ and I thought ‘ooh’ that ‘well’ is like a guillotine. So, the next day I went to meet him and he said 'you know, I used to be the president of Pepsi Cola in the Philippines and we have brought the Miss Universe world competition to the Philippines before so I understand exactly how much money we can make with that…How much money do you need?’ I said ‘umm, I need 10 million yen’ and he said ‘is that all?’ and I am like ‘damn!’ I should have asked for much more. Every time when you ask for money, ask for three times and if you see the face go then say that half would be ok, but never ask for too little because I was stuck with that later.
After that, I spoke to the president of the Park Hyatt. I didn’t know anybody there, I just made a cold call and I made my deal again and got the venue for free - the Park Hyatt – and with my 10 million yen I put up a stage and hired a DJ and put on an event. And then I bought a motorcycle I went scouting around and got some girls and then I had 30 girls on the stage. That’s how I did it.

Peter Harris, Japan Inc.: A simple question. What’s next?
Ines: …what I want – and it is the dream of any entrepreneur – is selling my company when it is at its peak. So, that answers the question. But, I think I will be here for a while. I think I will sell my company but, bingo, what happens is that I will be selling myself as well so I will have to be still running the business because if I leave, I don’t know. Not that I feel I am indispensable, I’m not irreplaceable, but I don’t think that a Japanese person can do my job. Maybe somebody, another foreigner, can do it, but I have learned so much in ten years and I know the secret to win. It is just based on my personality as well and I transmit that to the girls. It would have to be somebody like me. The best scenario would be for me to get an investor willing to financially help me bring my business to the next level. I am not done yet! There are so many projects coming up soon.

Cindy Mullins, 4M Associates, Inc.: Journalists of course are going to give you a really hard time and they are going talk about ‘it’s not just beauty,’ ‘we have a spirit within us’, you know, ‘if the outside isn’t your ideal of beauty, what happens?’ and I think about these 18-year-old girls who come from the countryside and then they get rejected, can you tell me what they gain from this?
Ines: What they gain is confidence because they got the guts to come and meet someone like me. That is already a big step in their life. And there is no rejection; it’s like “next year”. I never say ‘no’ to one girl. I tell her, not this year, next year, just follow my blog, read my interviews, work on yourself, buy fashion magazines, read newspapers and watch NHK more – all of them leave with a solution. Because the problem for women today is that aspiring models are rejected. They just come, they turn, they leave, and then they are told by the agency ‘no,’ but they never know why this person at the casting said ‘no’ initially. That’s horrible, because that’s why you get these girls with very low self confidence and anorexia, after five castings and they are thinking ‘what is wrong with me?’ Instead, when I meet the girls I see them in the group and I say ‘yes, yes, yes’ ‘no, no, no,’ and the ‘no’ I keep. My staff talk to the 'yes' because I know I will see them again. I go talk to the ‘no’ and I tell all of them something that is unique about them. It can be their shoulders, their personality, their communication skills, their aura, their unique smile or it can be their eyes, I don’t know, but they all leave with my view of what is great about them and also what their weakness is so that they can work on it for the next year. I think that is so important because I have been myself rejected so many times. We all get rejected somewhere. You go and interview for a job, you don’t get it and you always wonder why you were not hired, but it is important if someone tells you why you were not hired, you know, at least you have an outcome? So, I make a point to always tell the girls.

Keiko Fujii: What is your definition of how to make beauty?
Ines: Beauty is confidence. Beauty is happiness. Beauty is health. Beauty is personality. Beauty is when you walk into a room and everybody wants to talk to you - that's when you are beautiful. Because you are striking, you catch the eyes, but at the same time you are friendly so people want to come to talk to you. I think this is the definition of beauty.