Janna Ronert started Image Skincare with a simple premise: I can do it better.
Starting out of her apartment, she has grown Image Skincare into a nearly $100 million success story. I have several takeaways from our cover story about her:
Industry knowledge counts: Ronert is an aesthetician and had been in the beauty business about 15 years when she started her company. Her husband, the company’s president, is a board -certified reconstructive surgeon.
R&D matters: The company does clinical trials, testing and studies.
Consumers are sophisticated: Image Skincare finds customers want to know where products they use are made.
There’s an alternative to e-commerce: Image Skincare sells only through professionals and links its products with treatments.
South Florida is a great place to relocate: Ronert moved from Houston with 20 employees and has grown to 150.
I have a fondness for success stories, like Ronert’s, and we have plenty more this issue.
Our CEO Connect this month features Jeff Greene, the billionaire real estate investor. Greene’s story tells the saga of how he endured the ups and downs in the Los Angeles real estate market, created a major portfolio and then cashed in—$800 million—by betting on the decline in subprime mortgages. He talks about how bullish he is on West Palm Beach’s future where he controls a major chunk of land for redevelopment.
We also received an invitation from Bonaventure Equity and gained insight from two entrepreneurs who have made it big in consumer products and in the gas turbine industry. It turns out that South Florida is a global epicenter for gas turbines technology, partly because of the longtime presence of Pratt & Whitney near West Palm Beach.
This issue also features plenty of success stories in our third annual Apogee Awards, which celebrates eight positions in the C-suite. Our celebration and awards programs was scheduled to happen at the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale just before this issue arrives in mailboxes, so look for photo coverage in our December issue.
 Kevin Gale
