Rachel Polla, CEO Forever Laser Institute, LGB 2000

Rachel Polla

La Grande Boissière, 2000

CEO Forever Laser Institute

Switzerland

Learn more about me :

• Website
• Instragram @foreverinstitut and @forever.boutique.beaute

I come from an Italo-Swiss family and have four sisters. Family is of utmost importance to me. I will soon be 40 years old. I have a 13-year-old daughter, and two stepdaughters, who are older. I was the rebel of the family and never really did anything “by the books”. However, I am a true family person and although my father tried to force me to leave Switzerland to study abroad, I wasn’t ready for it at the time. And then life happened… and I never left my home city. I joined my family’s business, a medical spa founded in 1997 by my father, Dr Luigi L. Polla, about 6 years ago to become its CEO. It has been challenging in quite a few ways: first of all, I had to find the right way of working with my father, who is my best challenger – alongside my sisters. I also had to build my credibility and my own natural authority, to become more than the “daughter of”, even for the staff who knew me since I was a child – as some of them have been working with us for over 30 years. Lastly, I had to make sure that I developed the beautiful heritage I received. It has been a beautiful human adventure, and I have learned (and keep on learning) a lot about myself! 

I have many Ecolint memories, as I did all my schooling there apart from four years. I loved the school and was happy there, even if I was quite wild. I appreciated the fact that it had so many different nationalities, as well as the fact that it valued as many creative options as more classical ones (such as languages or mathematics). I loved my theatre classes and my biology teacher. Weirdly enough a strong memory (but not the best) is when my biology teacher caught me cheating – I had copied my oldest sister’s project instead of doing one of my own. She gave me a life lesson, which I still remember today: she told everyone in the class, and then allowed me to start again. She noted me objectively and I didn’t get such a bad grade…aside from the humiliation which made me never cheat again, I learned that I should trust myself a little bit more – it is still something I’m struggling with today! 

My experience at Ecolint has helped me in numerous ways. I believe it has helped me to better understand cultural differences and mentalities. I also believe that my leadership style has been influenced by Ecolint’s American-style education, i.e. one that praises successes and allows for mishaps – to the contrary of the typical French style, which rather undermines you. 

If I had to do it all over again, I think that I would have chosen to do law school rather than International Relations. I wasn’t scholar enough to believe I could be successful in law studies, but they were in retrospect my favourite – and most successful – classes. Apart from that, I must admit that being my super positive mother’s daughter I don’t live in regrets or in a “coulda, woulda, shoulda” mood. I believe in destiny, and in the principle that everything happens for a reason. Who knows where I would be if I had changed something? 

To young adolescents, I would say: be nice(r) to each other and hang in there, it’s just a tough path to go through – resilience is key, as is to never forget that “it does not rain forever”. Believe in yourself, and work for what you think will make you happy and passionate – never forget that success is 90% work and 10% chance. Life isn’t linear and is full of surprises, so learn also to embrace the unknown and make it an ally. And lastly, keep the American word for failure in mind: “a nice try”; indeed, we learn so much more from our “nice tries” than our successes, so embrace them and any constructive criticism you may receive – and just make sure to learn from the experience.