Nicola Kilner, the 32-year-old CEO of the quirky, science-based multimillion-dollar beauty empire Deciem, was nursing her 3-week-old daughter when she found out via a press inquiry that the founder of her company—and dear friend—was dead.
Kilner’s ties with Brandon Truaxe, her partner at Deciem since its inception, ran deep. They had become friends during her time at Alliance Boots—her first job out of Nottingham Trent University—when they had run off in 2013 to do something seemingly absurd: try to launch 10 beauty brands all at once. Truaxe and Kilner spent five years building a lab-based, affordable beauty product idea into what is now a near half-billion–dollar empire with stores across the globe, including in the U.K., Canada, Australia, South Korea, and the U.S.
In the year leading up to Truaxe’s tragic passing, the numbers point to a success story. Deciem had landed a major investment from the Estée Lauder Companies, and it was opening its first store in the U.S. One of its brands, the Ordinary, was flying off the shelves at Sephora, and the company was struggling to fill orders. Truaxe and Kilner’s startup had, quite suddenly, turned into a booming business.
Yet, internally, everything was spiraling.
There were the erratic Instagram posts from the corporate account, the sudden termination of key partnerships, and the instantaneous firings and C-suite resignations. There were press reports of drug abuse and hospitalizations. Truaxe tried to fire Kilner on several occasions in 2018, Kilner tells Fortune; he only officially had the authority to do so once, and he asked her to return a few weeks afterward. Truaxe reportedly denied he struggled with mental illness.
“He quickly pushed away anyone who was close to him,” Kilner says. “He ultimately didn’t want anyone who loved him or cared for him challenging his behavior or wanting to get him help.”
It all escalated in October 2018, when Truaxe, unbeknownst to the rest of the executive team, posted from the company Instagram page that Deciem was shutting down. Investor Estée Lauder stepped in and filed a lawsuit in Ontario, which ultimately removed Truaxe as the company’s chief executive and formally severed his ties with the company. Mere months later, Truaxe fell from an apartment in Toronto. His passing absolutely shook the company, but it took a uniquely devastating toll on the woman who had been quietly assembling Deciem by Truaxe’s side, but always in his shadow: Nicola Kilner.
As part of Estée Lauder’s lawsuit in fall 2018, Kilner, the longtime champion behind Deciem’s sales growth and retail partnerships, would now be responsible for saving it.
