Rethinking SPF, Building SONNI, and the Future of Sun Care with Megan Black and Eliana Field-Marsham

#32. We all know we should wear sunscreen every day—but why do so many of us still skip it?This week, Kate sits down with Megan Black and Eliana Field-Marsham, co-founders of SONNI, a skincare-first sun protection brand reimagining what mineral SPF can look and feel like. Built around high-performance, dermatologist-tested mineral formulas and elegant textures, SONNI is tackling one of sun care’s biggest challenges: creating products people actually want to use every day.Before founding SONNI, Megan spent nearly four years at Estée Lauder leading global online strategy and omnichannel initiatives before earning her MBA at Kellogg. Eliana began her career at McKinsey before joining Little Spoon, where she gained firsthand experience scaling a modern consumer startup, and later earned her MBA at Stanford GSB.In this conversation, Megan and Eliana share how a personal frustration with sunscreen became the foundation for SONNI, how their longtime friendship evolved into a co-founder partnership, and why they built the brand with retail and omnichannel distribution in mind from the very beginning. They also unpack the science behind mineral SPF, what today’s increasingly educated skincare consumer expects from brands, and the lessons they’ve learned building a company from the ground up. In this episode, we discuss:How Megan’s own experience with sunburns, and her sister’s melanoma diagnosis, inspired the idea for SONNIWhy sunscreen has an experience problem and how SONNI is working to make SPF feel more like skincareThe science behind mineral sunscreen and the formulation challenge of eliminating the traditional white castHow Megan and Eliana’s backgrounds at Estée Lauder, McKinsey, and Little Spoon shaped the way they built SONNIWhy they designed the business for omnichannel distribution from day one rather than thinking purely DTCHow their 15-year friendship evolved into a co-founder relationship, and why clear swim lanes and deep trust matterWhat they’ve learned about building consumer trust in a highly regulated, science-driven categoryWhy dermatologist relationships, med spas, and trusted skincare professionals play an important role in SONNI’s growthHow Kellogg and Stanford GSB changed the way Megan and Eliana thought about entrepreneurship, leadership, and company cultureThe unexpected reality of becoming a generalist as a founder and learning every detail of the businessSONNI’s vision for expanding beyond traditional sun care into a broader ecosystem of skin protection and recoveryWhy increasingly educated consumers are raising the bar for science, efficacy, and transparency across beauty and skincareFind Sonni here: https://sonniskin.com/