Sephora North America’s CEO has a leadership style informed by growing up an outsider

Diane Brady joins in for the pre-interview chat. This is Lev-Ram’s last episode of Leadership Next. Brady takes the mic full-time starting with next week’s show.

Listen to the episode or read the transcript below.

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Transcript

Diane Brady: Leadership Next is powered by the folks at Deloitte who, like me, are exploring the changing roles of business leadership and how CEOs are navigating this change.

Michal Lev-Ram: Welcome to Leadership Next, the podcast about the changing rules of business leadership. I’m Michal Lev-Ram, and today is my last episode. But I am really excited to pass the torch to Diane Brady, who joins me now.

Brady: I’m getting emotional here, Michal. It’s an honor to take over. I’ve loved the one conversation that you and I did together, and I’m going to do my very best to fill your shoes. And of course, Alan Murray’s as well.

Lev-Ram: Well, it has been such a pleasure working on Leadership Next. And I’m thrilled to have gotten to do it with you, and, of course, with Alan Murray, and I am so excited to listen to future episodes. You’re going to be great, no doubt about it. Speaking of great, today’s conversation is with Artemis Patrick, who is the president and CEO of Sephora North America. And Sephora, as I think we all know, is one of the biggest players in the beauty space. We had a really wide-ranging and fascinating conversation about the rise of influencers in the beauty space, how to make beauty products more inclusive, making the beauty business more environmentally friendly, and I think I also mentioned how much money my daughters spend at Sephora—it’s a lot—so that got in there, too.

Brady: We could outcompete each other on that one. But I also think, you know, she has such a fascinating and poignant background, that’s great conversation. I’m sorry I missed it.

Lev-Ram: She’s basically grown up at Sephora. She’s been there throughout most of her career. And believe it or not, she’s the first woman heading up the North America side of the brand.

Brady: That is hard to believe for all the wrong reasons. Look, what can you say? She’s there now. It’s a great interview. Michal, you’ve done such a great job hosting this podcast. You’ve spoken to so many incredible guests. Any advice for me?

Lev-Ram: Well, I have had so much fun doing this—with you, with Alan Murray. And I think that’s kind of the key is just to have fun. You know, I feel like what interests you and what leads you to different questions and topics intersects really well with what interests listeners. And so, that’s all I would say, is have fun. And I am so excited to listen to future episodes.

Brady: Well, listeners, we will let curiosity be our guide. And thank you again, Michal.

Lev-Ram: Thank you. And with that, here is Artemis Patrick, CEO of Sephora North America.

[Interview begins.]

Thank you so much for joining us. I want to start by actually asking you to tell us a little bit about you, because I think listeners will be familiar with the Sephora brand, but they may not be familiar with you. So Artemis, if you could just start out, give us a little bit of a summary of your career leading up to the CEO role.

Artemis Patrick: Yeah, for sure. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me here. I’m super excited to be here. Yes, so I actually, I was born in Iran. I immigrated to the U.S. in 1979 when I was seven years old. And at that time I didn’t actually speak any English. It was very difficult for my family and I. And then my mom went back to Iran, and, unfortunately, this was during the Iranian hostage crisis. So she got stuck there and my father wasn’t able to take care of me. So I ended up moving into a group home and then grew up with foster parents since I was ten years old. And so I really think that very much shaped who I am, not just as a person, but as a leader. And especially as you think about the world of beauty and historically, how there was one definition of beauty, especially when I was growing up in the eighties and I certainly did not fit that mold. So it has really, really guided how I think about beauty, how I think about belonging. And I think that that’s always sort of been my North Star.

But eventually moving in with foster parents who are still in my life today in Northern California. So shout out to the Bay Area here. I know you’re here as well. Did my undergrad at UC Santa Cruz, went to graduate school at San Francisco State. And while I was there, I actually met someone who was working at DFS, the duty-free shops, that’s an LVMH-owned company as well. And I started as a merchandising planning assistant. I was buying wine and tobacco. So that was very interesting. But I really got the retail bug at that point and also got introduced to LVMH and what an incredible organization they are. But it was the late nineties and it was the whole dotcom boom and in Northern California and especially Bay Area, so, you know, everybody wanted to work somewhere that had stock options, whatever that meant. So I started on my e-commerce journey. I worked at a couple of different retailers, including Restoration Hardware. And then in 2006, I went to Sephora and I was lucky to have had knew a few people there from my LVMH DFS experience, and I started as the director of dot com merchandising.

So in 2006, by then, I was an expert in e-com because, seven years in and all of a sudden you’re an expert because it was such a new, new field at that time. So it was the combination, I think, of my experience and also just the explosion of Sephora as a retailer. Also the fact that we were really, really early in our e-commerce journey. We launched our website in 1999, so I think that really accelerated our business and I was able to oversee e-com merchandising for about six years and that was really a great experience. Our business just exploded during that time.

And then around that time we also had the partnership with J.C. Penney, which was really wonderful, very revolutionary for its time. So I was asked to be the general manager of Sephora inside J.C. Penney and at that point really got the P&L experience, came back to merchandising after a few years and then ran global merchandising. And then last year when our CEO at the time, Jean-André [Rougeot], decided to retire, I was asked to become the president and then succeeded him about a month-and-a-half ago as CEO.

Lev-Ram: I want to go back before we dive more into the kind of evolution of both retail and the beauty industry. I want to go back to your description of your earlier years and your childhood. And in addition to the opportunities that it enabled for you down the road, I’m curious to hear about how it shaped you also, because you had to deal with a lot of adversity and adapt to a new language, new country, new family under very hard circumstances. So in what ways has that shaped you as a leader today, now that you’re CEO?

Patrick: I definitely think it has shaped me as a leader in terms of how I think about belonging, how I think about inclusion, how I think about hiring. I think it’s critical that as a leader you hire people that have different points of view than you do. You need to surround yourself with people who know things different from you, who know more than you on certain topics. And that’s always been a part of how I live my life is, is just a curiosity. Taking it all in and understanding, to your point, from not even knowing the English language to graduating from college and going to graduate school, really at the encouragement of my incredible foster parents. I am super, super cognizant of the sliding doors. You know, it could have gone either way, and I ended up with incredible foster parents and I took that opportunity and I ran with it. So I think it’s definitely a combination of being open minded to diverse thinking, to different ideas, but also not taking anything for granted. I really have a deep sense of gratitude for every day because, like I said, it really could have gone either way.

Lev-Ram: Obviously, Sephora is an incredibly strong brand. I have 12- and 14-year-old girls, so I, I live it and fortunately or unfortunately we have two Sephoras walking distance from our house, so there’s that. But I’m curious, like how would you characterize this moment in time in which you’ve stepped into this role that, there’s been so much very fast evolution in the retail space, in the e-commerce space with tech over the last few years and different consumer trends that seem to be evolving so quickly. So how would you characterize where things are today for Sephora?

Patrick: Yeah, I mean, I have a 13-year-old girl, so I feel you and I totally get it from that perspective. And, you know, I would say what’s incredible about beauty is it’s always had this tactile feeling of connection and belonging and being able to try new things. And I’m sure you have memories as a child. I certainly have memories as a teenager and wanting to try new, new forms of beauty. And certainly I remember when I went to my first MAC counter and I was just blown away. I was like, What is happening? This is so exciting. And so I think I would be doing what my daughter is doing if there was a Sephora when I was 13 years old. So I think the inherent love of beauty among every generation across all ages has always been there.

Obviously what has evolved is access and social media. And I do think this idea and understanding of specifically skin care. I know that I probably did not take the best care of my skin when I was younger, and I see my daughter packing up her Supergoop! in her backpack and that’s exciting. But that’s because of TikTok and YouTube, and other forms of social media. And the speed at which things come to light is just, it’s mind boggling. And I have been at Sephora for 18 years so I’ve seen different evolutions of this. Certainly I remember when Instagram first launched and I remember contouring, like I was thinking to myself, How many contour kits do people need? Right? And so we’ve seen it before. It’s not new in that sense, but it is in terms of the speed and the democratization of it all and just the access to all the information, especially around ingredients and a deep understanding of what people are putting on their skin, on their hair, on their body.

Lev-Ram: So talk to us a little bit more about how these trends emerge and how Sephora stays on top of them because like you said, they’re moving so quickly.

Patrick: I go back to the beginnings of Sephora when I think about that question and when Sephora entered the U.S. market in the late nineties, we were virtually an unknown. A lot of the big, big [beauty brands] didn’t want to work with Sephora, really. It was about department stores. And so just by sheer survival, Sephora started incubating these little baby indie brands and brands that today are household names. But you forget 26, 27 years ago really didn’t have a way to tell their story. So brands like Too Faced and Tarte and Urban Decay and Stila, you know these brands, Dr. Gross has actually been with us for over 20 years. And just by again, by sheer survival, we had to incubate these indie brands. So it’s very much in the DNA of our merchants.

So when you talk about trends, we don’t have an incubation department, we don’t have a trend department. It really just [seeps] into every single thing that our merchants do. So that is partnering with brands very, very early. We call it “in the kitchen,” you know, very early on. I mean, I remember the first time we met the Rare Beauty team years ago, and it was goop in a jar and it was an idea and it was a passion and a belief and a really good team and really good product. And over the years, you know, it really is like family building and developing and having that dialogue. So, yes, we of course we go to trend shows and we’re on social media and we’re doing all those things. But really, I think it’s that deep relationship with our brands that help us to think through trends and frankly create trends. I remember years ago when one of the merchants and one of our brands came to me and they were like, there’s this thing called dry shampoo. And I’m like, What? What? Do you use it in the shower? And it was this idea was born. And then we essentially together created this category. So that happens often and it’s really exciting to see. And I would say it’s really the secret sauce of Sephora.

Lev-Ram: I’m curious to hear also when it comes to brands, you know, you mentioned some brands that Sephora helped incubate and that have really grown. But I think about like my mom’s generation and I remember my mom had like one bottle of Clinique perfume that she kept for like 10 years. And she would put some on for special occasions. She was very loyal to one brand for many, many, many years. This younger generation now, Gen Z, Gen Alpha has a different relationship with brands. So how does that work? Like how does it manifest itself? Do they are they loyal to brands? What do they care about when it comes to brands?

Patrick: I think there’s always a certain sense of loyalty. And I do think there’s a loyalty to brands, not just on product today, but also that have values that reflect their own values. And I think that is more important than ever as you’re thinking about your brand and your brand DNA and that connection to the founder, to the story, to sustainability, to whatever is authentic to that brand. So I do see a loyalty. At the same time, they’re absolutely willing to try new things. And I would push to say that it’s not just the younger generation. I would say that we are seeing more Gen Xers try new beauty, right, thanks to their kids and also I think just an evolution. So yes, it’s partly generational, but I also think it’s just sheer access and information and not going to the same counter that you used to go to and having these open cell environments and specialty [stores], I think it’s just I think it’s an evolution of beauty in general.

Lev-Ram: And what does the data show about your customer base today? I mean, you have such an intergenerational and diverse customer base in all senses of the word, mostly women, of course, but very diverse within that demographic. Generationally has there been a big shift? Because I don’t remember kids shopping at Sephora, you know, several years back and now it seems to be like a big story.

Patrick: Yeah. For sure there’s a younger consumer because again, they’re more a lot more educated and have access to information. But we’re seeing it across the board and it is very generational. And I think our secret source besides our product is our stores. So you just have to walk to the stores and you see it’s not — yes, around 3 p.m. on a Friday, you might see more kids — but if you go on a weekend or you go Monday through Friday and during the day, it is very generational. It’s moms, it’s grandmothers, it’s daughters, it’s the gift shoppers. So I think it’s become really a place where you explore together. And I do think it’s very much also what’s happening in general. I think that, yes, it’s true that current research has shown that 85% of Gen Z prefer shopping in-store, but they’re not just going by themselves. They’re also bringing moms and they’re bringing grandmas and bringing aunts and uncles. So it’s pretty exciting. It’s almost a form of entertainment, I think for a lot of people and it’s almost gone back. Isn’t it funny? Everything is cyclical. I think back to when I was 13, 14 and going to the mall and I’m dropping my daughter off at the mall. And I remember a few years ago thinking, is that ever going to happen again? And it is. It’s happening in a big way.

Lev-Ram: And you said 85% of Gen Z?

Patrick: Of Gen Z prefer to shop in store. They do their research online, for sure. But the tactile, the connection, you think about the generation, right, and what they’ve been through. So it’s not surprising. They like the people part of it.

Lev-Ram: Yeah, it’s a throwback. So sticking with the topic of kids shopping and so far there has been some concern over what young girls are putting on their faces. Like, do they really need retinol? Do they really need some of the stronger products or anti-aging stuff like that. What’s Sephora’s response to that? And what do you see as your responsibility for educating younger shoppers?

Patrick: Well, I believe we have a huge responsibility, as well as our hundreds of brands, to educate the consumer on what is right for their skin, regardless of their age and where I think that we have a competitive advantage is our beauty advisors. We have 25,000 incredibly well-trained, unbiased, non-commissioned beauty advisors across the United States and Canada. And again, for over two decades we have invested massively in education and training for these beauty advisors. It’s really been part of the core tenet DNA of Sephora. So it’s actually been a really easy pivot for us to focus those educational moments of which we have many, specifically on skin care and skin care ingredients. So that is where we are seeing a lot of the chatter and the noise and making sure that they know, yes, you need at a certain age, you need to wash your face, you need sunscreen and use moisturizer, but no, you don’t need retinol, and making sure that we share that information. At the end of the day, there’s only so much a salesperson can do. We can educate. And then beyond that, it really is the responsibility of the consumer. But I feel that we are very well poised to at least be able to share our knowledge on that and make sure that they understand what they’re buying.

Lev-Ram: And you mentioned TikTok and obviously there are other platforms where younger shoppers are getting in tune with some of the trends and are learning about different products and brands. TikTok obviously is a very, very, very popular one. The most. And I just wonder, not asking you a geopolitical question here, but, you know, there’s obviously a lot of talk about what happens if TikTok is eventually banned in the United States. What happens to all of these trends that kids are picking up on? I mean, do you think these influencers just go to other platforms or continue kind of over-indexing on other platforms instead of TikTok? Or does it do anything to your business, basically?

Patrick: Of course, it’s something that we think about where I feel we will pivot and we’re always pivoting because again, as I mentioned, the Instagram situation that happened and Instagram is still huge for our consumers. But really in terms of the shift of beauty from Instagram to TikTok and before that, by the way, Facebook. So we really do think of it as a portfolio management. So yes, while TikTok is definitely a big, big form of medium for especially the younger consumer, we are everywhere we are and YouTube shorts and we are on Instagram. I’m seeing some movement in Pinterest with a younger generation which is super, super exciting and there’s all kinds of ways to content great on our site as well as for user generated content. So for us it is, it’s a watch, but it’s also portfolio management. And again, having been at Sephora for almost two decades, I think the consumer always pivots.

[Music starts.]

Alan Murray: I’m here with Jason Girzadas, the CEO of Deloitte US, who had the good sense to sponsor this podcast. Jason, thank you very much for joining me.

Jason Girzadas: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Murray: Jason, the majority of Fortune 500 companies have made commitments to reach net zero to address climate, but it’s still unclear how they actually get there. What’s the role of technology in meeting those ambitious goals?

Girzadas: There’s a broad recognition that the cost of climate change is far greater than the cost of not investing in it. Organizations will continue to utilize technology to move on the journey towards a decarbonized future and a more circular economy. We’re already seeing the benefit of technology through an increase in alternative energy sources. The advances in battery and storage technology are evident. You’re seeing the growth and increased performance of EVs at lower price points. So the impact and value of technology is being felt already, and that’s only going to continue. It’s pretty clear that climate change requires innovations that don’t exist today. But we do think that there will be new opportunities for innovation to be further accelerated through the development of ecosystems around emerging technologies.

Murray: There’s clearly a lot to do on this front. You talk to a lot of CEOs about this. Do you feel there’s a real sense of urgency on meeting these commitments?

Girzadas: The urgency is there. The call to action around climate change and the path to sustainability is there, and the impact of climate change is real. I think the narrative is shifting one from it being a cost and an inconvenience to decarbonize our economy to one where it’s actually a opportunity. The climate organizations that we serve are in their own way, charting a path to a sustainable future.

Murray: Jason, thanks for your perspective and thanks for sponsoring Leadership Next.

Girzadas: Thank you.

[Music ends.]

Lev-Ram: I wanted to ask you a few questions also about tech more broadly and tech that Sephora itself has initiated. It’s long been what I would consider a really forward-thinking brand when it comes to technology and digital. I mean, it’s very interesting to hear that you talk about this in light of this kind of younger generation trend to shop in the stores. But I guess, for starters, what kind of technology do you think has really moved the needle in the stores to create a better shopping experience?

Patrick: I would say one of the core tenets of everything we always do from a tech perspective is that it has to enhance the consumer experience. So we are not a publicly traded company in the U.S. We don’t have to worry about PR moments and launching buzzy things and things like that. So we really do focus on things that enhance the consumer experience. So I’ll give you an example of that is our proprietary skin scan, where we do almost 100,000 scans a week in our stores with a 70% conversion rate. So what happens is a consumer can come in and we have this proprietary tool and it essentially looks at the skin and it will make a foundation match. At the same time, it also goes through a skin diagnostic and tells you whether your skin is oily or dry and makes product recommendations. So that is not something a consumer will do on their own. That is a conversation starter between our beauty advisor and the client. And that to us is what is really exciting about technology. That’s how we really think about it. How do you enhance the consumer experience? How do you make it easier for our beauty advisors to have those conversations and create that really human connection? So it’s digital for the sake of human is the way I sort of think about it. And then, yes, as I mentioned, our consumer loves to shop the store, but we have enormous e-com business as well, actually the biggest prestige beauty in the world after Tmall. So for us it also is continued investment there to enhance the journey because they may want to shop online, they may want to do a same-day delivery online, or they may want to do their research online so that they can go into store and then ask the beauty advisor what’s best for them. So we really think about it as that 360 [degree] journey. And what are the digital tools? What are they doing? How are they benefiting the consumer and not just some buzzy thing to put in a press release.

Lev-Ram: And that that 70% conversion rate you mentioned with the skin scanner. So that means that 70% of customers who engage in this end up buying a product or buying a product that it recommends.

Patrick: Exactly.

Lev-Ram: Okay, that’s crazy. So what’s the role of AI here? I mean, I feel like we’re talking to everybody, of course, these days about AI, but what excites you? What do you think given everything you just said about the customer first in that you’re not developing tech solutions just for a kind of the buzziess of it all. So where does AI really fit in to what your customers are looking for?

Patrick: We always start with the business need first and then if AI can fill that business need, then that’s how we look at it. So an example will be, we have hundreds of thousands of reviews on our site. You know, this is, like I said, a very solid two decades old site. And really the first to have ratings and reviews on prestige beauty, tons of user generated content. So currently we’re actually going to be piloting this month leveraging AI to sort of pull up those keywords very early before the fold on end of the product journey so that the consumer doesn’t have to go through hundreds of thousands of reviews. What are the big words, aging, long wearing? And it pulls that up really quickly into the product page. So that’s just one way of how we’re thinking about leveraging AI. We also look at it from our consumer. Our client is also internal. So we also have business cases where we’re leveraging it internally whether we have HR questions, questions on health care and benefits and medical and things like that. So it runs the gamut and it starts again, I think with the business need.

Another is subject line testing. It sounds so simple, but I mean, I come from the olden days where you would just kind of pick a subject line you liked and then you put it into the email. But you know, it’s a huge form of acquisition still for us and leveraging AI to test subject lines to do copy in that sense. And for us, it’s not about, you know, I think a lot of people have this conversation is it eliminating roles and things like that. We don’t see it that way. We see it as an enhancement and we see it as a way to get our people to do the things that only people can do, and then leveraging AI in a way that takes away sort of a little bit of the mundane but also adds machine learning to it.

Lev-Ram: Okay. Tell me a little bit about the brick-and-mortar strategy. Now, I know you’ve got a partnership with Kohl’s. Funny, you started out earlier talking about earlier partnership with J.C. Penney. So, you know, what’s old is new, what’s new is old. But how do you, given this kind of return to in-store shopping and the in-store shopping experience, how are you looking at the brick-and-mortar strategy over the next few years, including with partners?

Patrick: So starting with the partners, yes the Sephora-Kohl’s partnership has been incredible. I was lucky enough to be part of the initial conversations on the deal and of course, leveraging my experience with J.C. Penney. But also quite different because the Kohl’s locations are where we’re not. They’re not necessarily in malls, they are in outdoor areas where we [it] would take us a long time to get to. So it really is, in terms of the real estate strategy specifically, but among many other things, a really great partnership.

And, you know, if you’ve seen their latest earnings, we’re on track to get to $2 billion next year together in this partnership. This will make it one of the biggest beauty places to shop in America by next year we’ll be in their full fleet of stores, which will really allow us to unlock a lot of marketing opportunities that we still have opportunity on. So that is an incredibly important partnership to us and I’m super excited to be on the journey with them. And I also just think we have very similar values, which in the end I think is a core tenet of a really strong partnership. So that definitely is an important strategic priority.

And then outside of that, within our own doors, we are now 26 years old in the U.S., we’re going to hit our 20-year anniversary in Canada. We opened our first store in Toronto 20 years ago this year. And you know, some of our fleet hasn’t been touched in terms of major renovations We have, every year we go back and we retrofit them all with new brands. But in terms of major cosmetic changes, things like the beauty studio, where the cash wrap sits or how the consumer shops, we have a significant portion of our stores that haven’t had a major renovation in a really long time. And so we are going to go back starting this fall and we’re going to tackle about 100 stores a year. We’ll have 750 by the end of this year, to go back and touch every single store. Some will have minor changes depending on when they opened, but some will have significant changes. Moving the cash wrap, moving the beauty studio, adding new back-room stuff for our beauty advisors. So it is a massive, massive undertaking, essentially like building in some ways a few hundred new stores on top of all the existing renovations. But we believe it’s really critical for the consumer journey, whether they’re shopping in Montreal or in Boise, Idaho, that they have the same experience.

And it is a massive capital investment. And being part of LVMH, we’re very lucky we get to make these investments. It’s the single biggest capital project that Sephora Global has ever done. When all is said and done in the next five years. It’ll be close to half a billion-dollar project. But we do believe that this is an investment that we must make in our stores and in our people and in the client.

Lev-Ram: Can you give us a glimpse of what some of the remodeling, rejiggering is all about? Like what? What do you think the customers want?

Patrick: Yeah, I mean, the good news is we actually have a prototype and it’s the stores that we’ve built over the last couple of years. So if you go into any new store in the last couple of years, that’s really the footprint of it, right. So if you think about that and then on top of it, there is a layer that is updating the beauty studio with more light and with better mirrors and better chairs and those kinds of experiences. There’s an element of making sure we rearrange the store in a way that we know the consumer is shopping. So in the newer stores, for example, you’ll see hair in the front, which is a very strategic and important category for us. So every new store will have that kind of footprint, a new Minis-&-More fixture that’s more modular. We’re definitely seeing that younger consumer go straight back to the Minis-&-More and try the mini of the thing that they want to try. But also we’ve moved from only a handful of our orders being done on mobile POS [point of sale] to one out of four of our orders being done on a mobile POS. So it’s that old way of thinking of they sit in a snake of a line and wait for the cashier. You know, that’s going to evolve with how you see the future footprint move forward. So and then of course, new lighting, new floors, and just prettier.

Lev-Ram: I’m sure my daughters will be very happy.

Patrick: We’re here to please.

Lev-Ram: Anything else you can share? I know you’re just a few weeks into the CEO role, but anything else you can share about strategy going forward and any changes, growth, evolution that we might expect to see from Sephora?

Patrick: I think all the things that I’ve been talking about sort of bubble up to one big thing, which is really just making sure we meet the client where they are. So other investments in omni convenience, accelerating our same-day delivery, we are making a massive investment in automating our existing distribution centers as well as adding a new one in a couple of years in the Midwest that will allow us to get shipments to consumers faster and in a way that they want to get. So that’s really how we’re thinking about the future. And then beyond that, internally, our continued focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’re very proud of the work that we have done in DE&I. It’s a core tenet of who we are. It’s very much in our DNA. Our tagline is “We belong to something beautiful” and it’s something that we really do live by, and it’s rooted in our purpose in championing inclusivity. So you’ll see a lot more of that and continued work on that. And the reality is that work will never be done. So it really is a marathon, not a race. And we’re going to continue to invest in our people, in supplier diversity and our Black-owned brands and our accelerate program and diversity in leadership. So that is something that I feel personally very passionate about and it’s something that you’ll definitely see go forward.

Lev-Ram: Just on that note, there’s been a bit of a backlash, of course, to DEI initiatives, and it’s interesting because for Sephora it really is, like you said, it’s baked into the mission, not just because it’s something, you know, the company felt like, Oh, this is a good thing to do or a nice to have, but it really, really is representative of sort of what you sell. It’s got to work in literally different skin tones, you know, need to have access to the product and it needs to fit different people. So do you think that that makes it in some sense easier for you to kind of keep going down this this path, or have you seen any backlash?

Patrick: Yeah, we just keep moving forward. We aren’t trying to pay attention to that. To your point, it’s very much rooted in everything that we do. Every single person in the organization has an objective tied to diversity, equity and inclusion, and that’s actually been in the ecosystem for years. So it’s not something I just came up with. So it really is something that we believe in. And it’s again, it’s not just something on paper. It’s tied to how you can make a change. So if you’re a merchant, you are responsible for getting more BIPOC brands. If you are in sourcing, you’re responsible for increasing our supplier diversity. If you’re in H.R., you’re responsible for getting more interviews with people of color. So I think that for us, it very much is ingrained in who we are. And exactly to your point, I mean, I often reference the fact that I grew up with curly, coily, textured hair. And as I said earlier, I grew up with foster parents who did not look like me. You know, my foster mom was going to get perms and I was trying to figure how to iron my hair. I was like, What is going on? So but there wasn’t a lot of product made for me by people who look like me, who had hair like me. And I think about my daughter now. She’s I’m like, You’re so lucky that, first of all, I know your hair. And second of all, that I know which products get you because these founders, they have hair like her. And it’s just smart business, you know, and especially in what we do, it would make no sense to walk away from that.

Lev-Ram: All right. Last question for you. What is a beauty trend that listeners might not know about? There’s so many weird ones.

Patrick: Oh, my gosh. There’s definitely a lot. Well, I would say what we’re seeing a lot is this big movement in hair wellness and scalp treatment. Right. And so there’s always been a lot of focus, of course, and shampoo and conditioner and touching the root of your hair. But we’re seeing a ton of things popping up in terms of treating your scalp in a way you would treat your face. You exfoliate your face, you should exfoliate your scalp. So there’s a lot of great new brands out there that think about scalp health, like Act+Acre. There’s a lot of brands, existing brands like Briogeo, that have some scalp treatments that really do make a difference in how your hair looks. So there you go for your listeners.

Lev-Ram: No retinol for scalps quite yet, though.

Patrick: Do not do the retinol as a scalp treatment. Buy a hair brand.

Lev-Ram: All right, Artemis, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.

Patrick: Oh, thank you so much. I really enjoyed it.

Lev-Ram: Leadership Next is edited by Nicole Vergalla. Our executive producer is Chris Joslin. Our producer is Mason Cohn. Our theme is by Jason Snell. Leadership Next is a production of Fortune Media.

Brady: Leadership Next episodes are produced by Fortune‘s editorial team. The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Deloitte or its personnel. Nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.