Exploring Life and Business with Maria Del Rio of ÚNICA™

 

Today we’d like to introduce you to Maria Del Rio.

Maria, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I am currently the CEO of ÚNICA LLC, and my experience has been built for over 25+ years behind Global and Regional Strategic Marketing & Commercial roles, driving brand innovation and delivering record revenue growth for start-ups and Fortune 500 organizations. The projects and training I got from working at Procter & Gamble, The Coca-Cola Company, Kimberly Clark, and Molson Coors helped me get a go-and-get attitude, striving and consistently creating outstanding results in complex project executions, transforming businesses, and unlocking brand growth.

As a CEO of the ÚNICA™ start-up operation, I’ve been responsible for launching and scaling a portfolio of wellness brands from ÚNICA™ in the US, building the company from the ground up. Each of these brands, Cascabel™ and Remedios Maria Juana™, are not only excellent products but have been created with the utmost attention to detail and are based on relevant Hispanic human insights.

We all face challenges but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As a Hispanic Woman, the road has not always been easy. A significant part of my career has been in Latin America. I was lucky enough to be part of a generation that saw great success based on merit and results, even in the middle of male-dominated teams. I owe my training to the great leaders I was lucky to have at Procter & Gamble and The Coca-Cola Company. However, in the US, things are a little different, and at times you’re stigmatized by your origin, your accent, and the fact that you’re a strong woman leader. To overcome this barrier throughout my career, I’ve always focused on what is possible and how I will add value. I focus on removing obstacles to get results, ensuring strong alignment with my team, ensuring that I’m always authentic with no hidden agendas, and building capability and trust around my team.

When I became the CEO of ÚNICA™ in July of 2021, there was a vision and an idea for a brand portfolio from an incredible male-dominated investor team. They trusted me with their vision, which I had to transform into a concrete plan with actual consumer products, bring to life the brands, and structure a commercialization plan. As with every project I’ve put my hands on, every part of our plan had challenges. Early on, I partnered with best-in-class companies for manufacturing, sourcing ingredients, formulations, design, marketing, distribution, and, finally, a solid and accessible legal team. I’m proud to say that these efforts helped the organizations I partnered with further to understand the category challenges and the growing Hispanic community.

Together with my small team and the manufacturing operation here in Colorado, we spent a lot of time perfecting formulations and packaging to appeal to our Hispanic target audience. For example, we considered the Hispanic Consumers, with textures and flavors that Hispanics like without alienating the general population. Together with marketing agencies, we designed our product packaging with Spanish and English copy to purposely ensure we were inclusive and addressing the Spanish-speaking Hispanic community. With my entrepreneurial team, we’re creating unique social media and a narrative that draws attention to our brands, reflecting insights from our Hispanic audience. Ultimately, we’re now cracking how to significantly expand into the marketplace, especially in Hispanic retailers and geographies with large concentrations of Hispanics. I’m confident we will get great results, albeit not without significant challenges ahead.

As you know, we’re big fans of ÚNICA™ LLC. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about the brand?
ÚNICA™ is dedicated to creating products to help consumers and their families be their best selves. ÚNICA™ is the parent company of a family of brands specializing in CBD-infused products: Cascabel™ and Remedios Maria Juana™. The founders of ÚNICA™ are Hispanic entrepreneurs with CPG experience in Mexico and worldwide. We, together, saw an excellent opportunity to use this knowledge to develop products that benefit from the properties of CBD.

As an entrepreneur, I’m in charge of guiding my team, responding to my investors, and leading a suite of agencies and best-in-class suppliers in a complex legal and regulatory environment. Our brands have been sold in the West of the US since June 2022, and we’re beginning to expand towards additional states on the East Coast and Mid-West.

Have you learned any interesting or essential lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
I think the Pandemic put many things into perspective and changed us forever. From a family standpoint, the lockdown brought my husband and daughters together, which was priceless. There were at least ten years since we had spent time together, day in and day out. And it was fascinating to rediscover what this feels like. I now want to ensure that we continue to value every moment we spend together, even if they are far apart.

I also used part of the time to learn new skills and to reinvent myself and my team to emerge stronger after the Pandemic. Since 2019, I have dedicated some of my free time to a not-for-profit organization, an orchestra based here in Denver, the Arapahoe Philharmonic. The crisis was a perfect test for our organization, as we had to reinvent how we ran the operation. As part of this, we evolved our artistic responsibility by responding to our musician members and organizations/donors that support us financially. Our team is now dedicated much more to the audience experience and the enrichment of the community aspect of our mission.

The Pandemic also accelerated trends that perhaps we would have seen ten years from now, such as hybrid and remote work, more Livestream, a complete digital transformation, and reinventing the how of what you do for a living, whether it affects your consumers, your audience, your community, or your family.

For ÚNICA™, we’re developing an enhanced omnichannel experience for our brands. We aim to have a strong presence in retail, where consumers interact with store managers to aid their decisions. At the same time, we want to provide a richer digital experience through an optimized user journey as they navigate through our assets in social channels and digital stores.

Contact Info:

• Website: cascabel-brand.com, remediosmariajuana.com
• Instagram: @cascabelcbd, @remediosmariajuanacbd

Image Credits
Antonieta Pereira Third Ear Agency Randy Parietti Photography