The Decision to Own your Name

Sometimes putting your name on something is more than a signature. It is a decision about what you are willing to stand for.

A conversation with Elisabeth Visoanska, founder of Visoanska, about her decision to give her name — a Polish name, difficult to pronounce internationally — to the luxury skincare brand she was creating in France.

Not exactly the obvious marketing choice.

But Elisabeth was choosing more than a name.

She was choosing to make herself visible. To assume responsibility for what she created. And, perhaps most importantly, to place her origins at the centre of a professional identity she was building far from home.

What appeared to be a question of branding turned out to be a question of belonging.

Because sometimes the friction we try to remove is the very thing that gives something meaning.

Elisabeth had left Poland at a time when the country was still emerging from communism. She built her life elsewhere, became part of another culture, and created a distinctly French luxury business.

She could easily have chosen a name that concealed the distance travelled.

Instead, she put that distance on the bottle.

Her name became both the most personal and the most foreign element of the brand.

And wherever Visoanska went, a question followed: Where does that name come from?

Poland entered the room.

The decision behind the decision

Perhaps the decision was never really about naming a company.

It was about whether success somewhere else requires us to become less visibly where we came from.

Elisabeth chose the opposite.

She built something new without making her past disappear.

Years later, she would be recognised for representing Poland internationally.

There is something almost circular about that.

The name that might have been considered a branding inconvenience became the very thing that carried her origins into every new market.

Perhaps that is what makes certain decisions so consequential.

Not because they change the direction of our lives, but because they reveal something we are no longer willing to leave behind.

Sometimes, moving forward begins with deciding what we refuse to erase.

Click here for the full conversation

The Decision to Own Your Name — with Elisabeth Visoanska

The Decision Behind the Decision — Conversations with Decision-Makers