A coffee date with - Thrive Global

Guna Meldere is a 30-year-old brand stylist and mother. Guna is a Latvian girl, living a dream in Scotland with her family. An artist in soul raised by her grandparents and mum, who most of the time is in pain due to a rare health condition. And yet, even though she wasn’t in the best position to take care of Guna, she still did – and she managed to bring up a very confident and passionate daughter. She instilled in her the values that have made of Guna the incredible entrepreneur that she is today.

In school, Guna was interested in art, dancing, sports, health, IT… and even fixing cars! She always knew at one point she’d want to have a business of her own.
As soon as Guna was old enough, she registered her first company and got her official bank account. Her first marketing consultancy, that she opened while at uni, didn’t turn out so well. She left her entire life in Latvia to move to Scotland with her husband and her baby girl without even being able to speak English well.

I create visual identities and web pages as well as do coaching.

Now Guna is a very successful Brand stylist, that helps entrepreneurs find their voice and stand out in the online world.

RC: What is this BRAND STYLISM about? This sounds like an amazing job description, what do you exactly do?
GM: I create an art for entrepreneurs to feel proud of their message and make more impact, by ensuring they have a kickass visual identity, a webpage that sells and the best strategy aligned with their brand. I have had 7 businesses and have been doing it over a decade. It started with different businesses {photo studio, marketing company, event agency, design shop} which lead to business I have now.

RC: As a mother and an entrepreneur, which would you say are the advantages and disadvantages you face?

GM: Benefits of being a female – people perceive me as an intuitive, emotional and oriented to detail, which helps in my business
Benefits of being a mum – relatable to other mums entrepreneurs, responsibility Disadvantages of being female – people perceive female as not very techy person, which is opposite of who I am, I am very logical and IT is very close to me
Disadvantages of being a mum – people might think that mums are less organised as they have kids around, which is absolute opposite as building a business around lifestyle means that we are very organised.

RC: What specific challenges is your business facing at this moment. Have you faced particular challenges due to your gender, gender identity or sexual orientation?

GM: If I am honest, Regina, my biggest challenge at this moment is to find the best people to outsource tasks.

RC: Oh, ok. Makes sense!
GM: I have faced challenges before when I was working more offline, working with bigger companies, run by a man, usually took more time to prove myself, where same position man was treated differently.

RC: If you could go back in time, what would you tell your younger self?

GM: To go out of my comfort zone more. Learn more languages.

Being multi-passionate is as much of a blessing as it is a curse. Those of us who are “blessed”, we can’t afford not to experiment. – Guna Meldere

If you’d like to know more about Guna’s work and magic skills, check her out