When Sally Obermeder called her sibling with an idea for a wellness website over a decade ago, she was undergoing breast cancer treatment and caring for her newborn baby. Her sister, Maha Corbett, was at first ambivalent. As Obermeder recalled, her response was “Just focus on getting through”.

But Obermeder was already thinking about what getting through might allow her to do. Her world had suddenly been contracted to appointments, treatments and days survived – imagining a business gave the future some dimensions again.

“If you know Sally, once she has an idea she believes in, it is very hard to stop her,” Corbett told Inside Retail.

Corbett, then in a senior corporate HR role, began helping her sister around her existing job. Obermeder understood audiences, content and the products women might respond to, and Corbett understood people, the art of negotiation and how organisations functioned.

In 2015, a wellness and advice blog became something they were building together, although, resigning meant giving up the reassuring apparatus of a salary and clear career path. “Eventually you have to decide whether you believe in the opportunity enough to take the risk,” Corbett said. 

The blog soon turned into a brand formally titled “SWIISH” which gave advice and sold fashion, accessories, beauty products and homewares.

By 2016 the brand pivoted to wellness and launched its years in the making of Supergreen powder. Corbett found that studying psychology at university and her senior HR work had prepared her for leadership and building an astute team.

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