Babba Rivera on Building Ceremonia While Pregnant, the Motherhood Penalty, and Living Life at Full Volume

We sat down with Babba Rivera on set for our 2026 Changemakers campaign. Babba founded clean haircare brand Ceremonia, the first Latina-owned haircare brand on Sephora's shelves. She raised over $11 million, and did it all while becoming a mother of four. In this conversation, she talks about pitching investors while heavily pregnant, the comment that sent her sobbing from a Zoom call, raising her daughters between Swedish and Chilean traditions, and why there's no such thing as perfect timing.

We're so excited to honor you as a 2026 Changemaker. You built Ceremonia into the first Latina-owned haircare brand at Sephora and raised over $11 million, all while becoming a mother. What do you want people to understand about how you got here?

I really want people to understand that there's no such thing as perfect timing. Life is now. This is life. So instead of postponing my dreams, I try to live life at full volume.

You grew up with two cultures: Chilean roots and a Swedish upbringing. Now you're building a life in New York. How has becoming a mother changed how you hold all of those identities?

Becoming a mother has brought me back to my heritage in a way I wasn't always focused on. I really want my children to feel Swedish and Latina at the same time, so I'm the annoying mom who goes all in for international week at school, and we celebrate every holiday at full volume. Last weekend we celebrated midsummer and danced around a Swedish midsummer pole we built ourselves. The kids had the time of their lives.

You built Ceremonia during your pregnancy, and a lot of the brand's mission was shaped with your baby in mind. What did you want to build for her?

When I was building Ceremonia, I was pregnant and more cautious than ever about what I was putting on my skin. I thought it was crazy that the haircare aisle was a free-for-all when it came to toxins. Ceremonia came out of a desire to do better for myself and to create products that are effective but also safe. I've been pregnant back to back through the entire Ceremonia journey, and when I haven't been pregnant, I've been breastfeeding. So being pregnancy-safe and having this ethos of cleanliness has mattered since day one.

You're now a mother of four daughters. What does that feel like day to day, and is there a version of this that looks like balance?

I think about balance on a weekly basis. I don't think there's a perfect balance every day. At least, I've yet to experience a perfectly balanced day! But I try to fill my week with the things that truly matter to me. Motherhood and family life, and my ambition and career, are my two top priorities right now. Every day looks different because of that, but when I zoom out on the week, I want to make sure I'm giving equal importance to both.

You fundraised as a visibly pregnant founder. Did you ever feel the motherhood penalty in that room, and how did you handle it?

I was fundraising in 2020, so I was heavily pregnant but pitching over Zoom. In most conversations you couldn't tell I was pregnant. I felt like I should tell investors I was expecting, but it was hard to navigate. It had nothing to do with the topic at hand, but I didn't want anyone to feel I was withholding information.

Two experiences really stood out. In one meeting, the investor was talking about his own children, and I remember feeling so inspired: "A family man, he'll understand." I hadn't told him yet that I was pregnant, and he asked, "Do you have children, by the way?" I said no, and before I could finish the sentence, he said, "Good. You should definitely wait at least five years to have children if you're serious about this business."

That was not where I was going next. Looking back, that partnership clearly wasn't meant to be, but at the time I was devastated. I hung up the Zoom, started sobbing, and went for a run to clear my head.

The other encounter was equally eye-opening, but in a very different way. The founder of the Female Founders Fund had already invested before I found out I was pregnant, so I felt I had to tell her. After that first meeting, I assumed it would be bad news, because investors clearly seemed to think pregnancy equals bad news. I was so nervous. I said, "I have something I need to tell you. I'm pregnant." She said, "Oh my god, congratulations! So what did you want to talk about?" I said, "No, that was it." She said, "You're calling to tell me you're pregnant? I thought you had bad news! Have you looked at our portfolio? All of our founders are mothers. Congratulations! Have fun!"

It was so enlightening to realize there are so many different schools of thought. The good thing is that you don't need to partner with everyone. You just have to pick the ones who are aligned with you.

If you could sit with yourself in those first few weeks postpartum, launching a brand with your first newborn, what would you say?

I'd tell myself to soak it all in. I was doing that, but it's almost like you can't soak it in enough. I still call the twins "the babies," but they're two now, walking and running around. It goes by so fast. It's the biggest cliché, and you think you get it, but I don't think anyone can fully understand how fast it goes. I keep telling myself, "This too shall pass." That's true for the tough times, and it's also true for the really beautiful ones. So going back to my earlier point: this is life, this is the moment, and this is the time to really live it.

What do your children think your job is?

My oldest, Alma, is five, and she's the closest to understanding what I do. She's come to the office with me, helped me organize our store, and even designed a Mother's Day box for us. After her own name, I think the first word she learned to write was Ceremonia. She practices writing it and then draws our bottles. And I think Selma thinks my job is more glamorous. She's the little fashionista in our house. She calls herself a stylist and loves walking into my closet to style me. So she probably thinks I work in fashion, even though I tell her I sell hair products.

What do the first 10 minutes of your morning look like?

Complete chaos. There's always someone screaming "Mama!" from some corner. Gone are the days of "I wake up, journal and meditate." There's no time in the morning for that kind of peace and quiet. Even if I woke up earlier, my kids would sense it. So the first 10 minutes usually means walking into the twins' room, taking off their night diapers, and heading down to the kitchen to start the day.

What's your favorite way to treat yourself?

Massages, and anything spa. Spa is my love language. I love a good facial, a good scalp massage, lymphatic drainage. I don't get nearly enough time for it, but for me, self-care is a form of spa, which is honestly why I started Ceremonia: to bring that spa feeling to haircare. The biggest luxury for me is alone time, and I have very little of it.

What does rest mean to you right now?

Rest right now is sleep. I find it really hard to carve out rest during the day, but I recover well at night. My superpower is that I can fall asleep within five minutes, anywhere, any time. If I lay down now, I'd be asleep. According to my Oura ring, I'm extremely resilient to stress thanks to my nighttime recovery. I just need to work on my daytime recovery.

What are you most hopeful about for the future of motherhood?

I'm most hopeful about motherhood having the space to look and feel however women want it to. There's so much pressure to be this or that, and sometimes there's tension between working moms and stay-at-home moms. At the end of the day, what matters is that it works for you. I really hope for more diversity of thought, and for mothers to be free to do whatever feels right for them in that chapter of their lives.

What does being a Changemaker mean to you?

Being a Changemaker means living life on my own terms. I try hard to ask myself, "Is this my dream, or am I living someone else's?" It's about striving for your own dreams, not the ones that have been projected onto you.

Read more about the Changemakers here.