The chief executive of St Tropez on why self-tanning isn't fake

Old habits die hard. Just ask Michelle Feeney, who for the past three years has been using her well-honed marketing skills to convince us to drop the term "fake tan" and all its connotations for the words self-tanning and skin finishing.

As chief executive of self-tanning company St Tropez, she aims not just to grow market share and sales, which for the year ending April 2010 were up 24 per cent to £50m, but on repositioning the brand. "I think St Tropez has got more potential than Crème de la Mer [the cult product Feeney helped Estée Lauder launch in 1994]. It's got an amazing name that's synonymous with glamour and beauty. On top of that, there's the strength of the product."

Feeney has worked in the beauty and cosmetics sector for 20 years. She's led high-profile rebrands (for Bumble and bumble), product launches (for Estée Lauder) and knows what it takes to get people to sit up and notice. She took a key role in promoting the MAC Aids Fund, signing up celebrities such as Elton John to support it. But it is her St Tropez role that has defined her as a director. "Having the opportunity to reshape St Tropez, grow it, put a management team in, put process in, that's been an extremely challenging time. Three years into this, as an individual I feel I've truly become a director," she says.

Feeney says her ambition has always been to take St Tropez from being a local company—its headquarters and warehouse are located in Nottingham—to a global one. "We are performing extremely well and we're up there. Where the investment could be better is in technology improvement, but that only comes from being a big boy, because to purchase technology costs a lot of money. I think we're the best we can be right now."

St Tropez's private equity owner, Lloyds Development Capital, has lined up the business for a sale, but Feeney wants to maintain morale among the 80-strong workforce. Her experience of working in the US helps. "I have a very direct way of managing—honest, open, direct. What I think I've brought here is that [American] can-do attitude. We decided when we put a handbook together to be brave, to be global, to think bigger, wanting to be the best."

Does she miss the glamour of American corporate life? Feeney says she prefers the buzz of running an SME. "Going from 0-60mph, I like that thrill. Then to see it go from 60-200mph is the exciting bit. With St Tropez, it's at that next level where momentum is interesting; the energy and the 'talkability' about the product are good."

Part of that entails working with the Prince's Trust. "They asked me to chair a new division called the beauty leadership group," she says. "We need to come together and tell the story of how successful the UK beauty business is. The Americans are very good at solving issues as an industry, even though they're competitors. The charity aspect of the trust has enabled me to get people around the table to tell government that we are valuable. We still manufacture in this country on a lot of levels, and we can provide jobs and inspiration for young people."