The only trans CEO in the Fortune 1000 understands why consumers stick by the beauty industry in tough economic times

– Big beauty. When Sue Nabi became the CEO of Coty in 2020, the $5.3 billion beauty giant had had five CEOs in five years. Nabi had spent much of her career at L’Oréal, where she was the president of the Lancôme brand, had founded a vegan, gender-neutral skincare brand called Orveda, and came up with the L’Oréal’s famous “You’re worth it” campaign.

So when she got up in front of her Coty employees for the first time, she talked about beauty. Starting off with her perspective on the industry earned the respect of a workforce starved for that kind of understanding of their work; recent CEOs were all beauty outsiders from the world of consumer-packaged goods. “This was the first time the CEO spoke to them not about the P&L, what we need to do next week, next quarter, and so on, but about a vision, a passion, and how intuition is essential in our business,” Nabi remembers.

Courtesy of Coty

Nabi spoke to my colleague Phil Wahba in an interview last month. At Coty, she has spent the past few years finding new markets for struggling older brands like CoverGirl as well as trying new ventures, like Coty’s stakes in Kardashian-Jenner family brands KKW Beauty (now SKKN by Kim) and Kylie Cosmetics. Some have gone better than others; the sisters are reportedly looking to buy back those stakes. (Nabi says Coty has “very well-established and highly successful relationships with both teams.”)

In tough economic times for consumers, Nabi has leaned into her passion for the industry. “[Beauty] is resilient because beauty makes you feel better in general and, therefore, look better,” she told Phil. “Beauty is the face you show to the world.”

Nabi knows how important beauty can be to identity. She is the only trans CEO in the Fortune 1000; her closest peer is Martine Rothblatt, the founder and CEO of biotech company United Therapeutics.

“I love saying to people, ‘Judge me on what I do rather than who I am,'” she says. Read Phil’s full interview here.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe

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PARTING WORDS

"I have a huge platform, and if I can share my outfits, I can also share things that make people feel less alone."

—Gabrielle Union on her own menopause journey