Sephora

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As consumers and advocates have pushed for more diversity in all sectors of the economy in recent years, personal care and beauty products retailer Sephora has stepped up to the challenge. In 2020, it became the first major retailer to pledge that 15% of its assortment would be dedicated to Black-owned brands, and through 2021 it had doubled the Black-owned brands it sold. The company also took a microscope to the retail industry with its Racial Bias in Retail Study, which found that two in five retail shoppers had been unfairly treated because of their skin color and and three in five retail employees had witnessed bias in the workplace. Since receiving the survey results, Sephora has launched 20 inclusivity training modules for its employees and established a talent incubator program to train and promote diverse managers, while also introducing its first Black-owned brands campaign to celebrate the contributions of Black people to the beauty industry.

Change the World

Fortune’s annual list of the 100 Best Workplaces for Women highlights companies with generous benefits, flexible schedules, and an emphasis on balancing work and life. 

best workplaces for women 2017- Sephora

Employees say: "Our purpose of inspiring fearlessness is something that is embodied in everything we do. We're women-driven by driven women, and 86% of our employees are female. I love that we take the initiative to mentor the next generation of female leaders through hosting programs like Girls Who Code. Our leadership team is accessible, approachable and treats everyone—regardless of their title—as their equal. It's truly a special place." 
 
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"I love my job because of the group of people I work with. I can say without a doubt, the management, the cast members, and also the clients have been by far the most pleasant, caring, and supportive group of men and women I have ever worked for and with." Read the .

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Get insights into Sephora including business profile, stock information, news, and rankings from Fortune.

Sephora Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Dave Smith

LVMH says Sephora sales are slowing down in the U.S. because Amazon is ‘very aggressive’ in lowering prices ‘and we try to avoid this technique’

/2025/04/15/lvmh-sephora-sales-amazon-aggressive-pricing/

Sydney Lake

54-year-old woman who led an $8 million beauty product shoplifting ring sentenced to 5 years in prison

/2025/01/16/woman-led-8-million-beauty-product-shoplifting-ring-sentenced-ulta-sephora/

Alexa Mikhail

Sephora is at the center of TikTok beauty trends—and the CEO says it’s ‘not by accident’

/2024/10/16/sephora-tiktok-beauty-trends-ceo-artemis-patrick/

Emma Hinchliffe

Nina Ajemian

Exclusive: Beauty brand Saie on track to reach $100 million in sales as it launches a new climate initiative

/2024/09/24/beauty-brand-saie-sales-climate-glowy-super-gel/

Sheryl Estrada

Sephora North America promotes Delphine Herve to finance chief—its first female CFO

/2024/09/12/sephora-north-america-delphine-herve-first-female-cfo/

Lila MacLellan

Sephora's North America CEO escaped a violent revolution and grew up in foster care. She's now one of the most powerful women in beauty

https://fortune.com/2024/03/18/sephora-ceo-woman-beauty-iran-revolution-artemis-patrick/?itm_source=parsely-api

Prarthana Prakash

LVMH-owned Sephora is riding the ‘lipstick effect’ wave as it eyes more growth amid continuing economic downturn

https://fortune.com/europe/2024/03/05/lvmh-sephora-makeup-lipstick-effect-growth-economic-downturn/?itm_source=parsely-api

https://fortune.com/2025/01/16/woman-led-8-million-beauty-product-shoplifting-ring-sentenced-ulta-sephora/?itm_source=parsely-api

Ruth Umoh

Emma Burleigh

All Sephora employees have DEI goals in performance reviews. The company says the tactic paid off

https://fortune.com/2024/03/27/sephora-dei-diversity-europe-talent-performance-review/?itm_source=parsely-api

https://fortune.com/2024/09/24/beauty-brand-saie-sales-climate-glowy-super-gel/?itm_source=parsely-api

The global pandemic kicked off an era of unpredictability in business, where the only certainty is change. What does it take to lead in complex, uncertain environments where old power playbooks don’t apply? What is the best way to facilitate meaningful conversations and act with purpose? And what are the practices that enable leaders to balance short-term results with long-term organizational development? A roadmap for leadership at the edge of uncertainty and in the face of disruption.

Leading On The Edge

Conferences

Everybody, so ponder this. How would you define your leadership style? Has it evolved over the course of your career? Does it shift depending on major social movements or geopolitical events? Our next guest believes we need a playbook, a new playbook for leadership, one that requires self-awareness, clarity of values. And the willingness to embrace a future that's going to look very different from our past. Jessica Orkin is the chief executive officer of SY Partners. She has years of experience coaching leaders to ask the right questions, lead the right conversations, and move forward with purpose and moments of uncertainty. Please welcome Jessica to the stage. Good morning. I'm going to invite you on a little trip at the edge of the unknown. Because that's where all of us are leading from right now. We are leading from. We're leading from the place beyond where we've been before. We're leading on the place where the old playbooks, the old systems are cracking underneath us. Many of us are working as hard as we can to transform old systems, old ways of working, old strategies. And many of us, particularly here in this region, We are building new systems as fast as we can. But regardless, everybody here. It's responsible for leading our teams into the unknown, where certainty is rare. And where we have to rebuild the playbook. One of the things that my firm SY Partners has done for 30 years is actually help leaders ask bigger and bolder questions. So stepping out of previous strategies in times of transformation and times that ask more of us. From Fortune 100 companies, recognized, uh, leaders all over the world to really promising startups from cultural institutions to governments that are building their new, uh, their futures for their people daily. What we're finding again and again is that the most transformative leaders are those asking the most courageous questions. And these are questions that are not just about strategy. They're bigger than that. They go deeper than that. They're stra their questions, which by the act of asking, changes the field of what's possible. They open up possibility. They reframe what we're seeing, and they connect people and teams around these questions in order to create new things forward. Questions are often thought of as a soft skill. But they're not. Particularly today, particularly in such a time of transformation, such a time of unknown, they are a survival skill. Let's make this real. So Brian Chesky at Airbnb, he could have asked a question like, how do we monetize a spare room, a second house? But instead he asked the question. What if travel was about belonging? This created an $85 billion business and has revolutionized hospitality around the world. In the days after the Oprah Winfrey show, Oprah could have asked. What's next for me after television? Instead, she asked, how can I help other people find their purpose as an expression of my own. And this launched new platforms, new communications, and a global tour that filled arenas with people that were asking questions about the life they wanted to live. Working with Sephora, they could have asked, how do we sell more makeup globally? But instead the question became, How can we help people around the world to find beauty for themselves? So instead of chasing a universal standard of beauty, people were able to create theirs. When Albert Burla became the CEO of Pfizer, he came in with a growth mandate. He could have asked the question. How do we scale our most profitable products? But instead he challenged the organization. What if we dedicated all of our talent, our energy, our capital, In the creation of breakthroughs that change people's lives. That question transformed Pfizer top to bottom and enabled them to be the kind of organization that could deliver the COVID vaccine in 8 months instead of 8 years. But finding this question is hard. Standing in the uncertainty is hard. We have been trained as leaders. Find the direction, point our people at it, and run as fast as possible. And so this requires self-reflection. It requires knowing your own purpose, the purpose of your organization, what you stand for, what it stands for, what your people stand for. And it requires leading through that unknown, bringing people in the exploration of the question, not just the formation of the answer. And we are all, all of us here, we're on deadline. We're responsible for delivering right now results. The clock doesn't stop for us to do this. So this is not about asking questions to slow down. This is using the power of questions to lead through. Nowhere is this more true than here, than in this region. So with our work with leaders here, we are seeing change happen at an extraordinary pace. We are seeing. The WhatsApp, light up at one a.m. That's just business as usual. Because what is at stake here is a vision for generations. What is being created here matters so deeply. And even in that, even in this breathless pace. We're seeing leaders who have the biggest ambition, ask the biggest questions. The questions in this region are questions of legacy. Questions of stewardship, questions of values, questions of growth. As they take all of that energy, all of that investment, all of that talent, and the pursuit of and the creation of the future that is both honoring of heritage, but infused with new imagination. Working here is some of the most inspiring work that my firm SY partners has had the opportunity to do every day. I'm grateful for it. But we're seeing the power of questions. And the essentialness of questions not just in the setting of vision, the setting of strategy, and the creation of culture. This is even more important in a future that is being co-created with AI. In our work with the Data and Trust Alliance and working with CEOs and chief technology officers all around the world. We're all seeing the same thing. Best practices go stale very quickly in the world of AI. The shelf life is very short. And so yes, standards are really important. Codification is important. Coming together around those is important. But we're seeing the emergence of tools that are built entirely around questions to help leaders make decisions about AI, how and when to use it, how to implement, what adoption looks like, how is it changing their organizations. Using questions not answers, to lead through an operating environment that is changing daily. So, I'm going to leave you, leave you. With my question, the question that I use and that guides me as I lead SY Partners. My question is, what if the performance of organizations My organization, your organization, countries. What if the performance of organizations was a direct relationship, a direct function of the humanity within them? When you step into that question, you design strategy differently, you design companies differently, you think about culture very differently. That's the one I'm in relentless pursuit of, and I'm holding the space with my team and with my clients. So what becomes possible when we design for both performance and humanity. So I'll leave you with this. What is your question? What is the question that's bubbling up inside of you? What's the question that perhaps is already animating how you're leading your teams today? What is a more courageous question that you can invite other people to step into? Come find me after because I want to hear your question. I want to wrestle a little bit with you. Thank you.

Artemis Patrick, President and CEO, North America, Sephora Interviewer: Michal Lev-Ram, Fortune

Most Powerful Women Summit 2024: The New Beauty Standard

So I know you've been with Sephora for a very long time, almost 19 years, I believe. Um But I wanna take a step even further back. Um You had a really unique childhood and upbringing and I'm wondering if you can share a bit about it with us today and how it shaped you as a leader. Yeah, happy to and thank you for having me here. Um So I was born in Iran uh and uh lived there until I was about seven years old. Uh My father was actually one of the pilots for the Shah. So in 1979 during the Iranian revolution, um we had to get out very quickly. Um And so my mother, my father and I um escaped to uh America. We came to Los Angeles actually. Um I didn't speak a word of English. Uh I was put into an ESL class and I learn more Spanish than I did English. So I was like, not a lot of Iranians here. Um So uh so I was there, we were there for about a year. But um unfortunately, my parents were having a lot of problems. My, my mom was very young when she had me. And, um, you know, my father had a really hard time dealing with this fall from grace. Uh So, um after about a year, we moved to Northern California and um my mom decided to go back to Iran, um with, I think the hopes of bringing me back there and sending for me, but she got there and very quickly realized that um the country had changed a lot and was really not a place to raise a little girl. So, um, I was trying to figure out what to do was trying to get actually back to America at that point, but it was during the Iranian hostage crisis. So she couldn't get out. Um, and my father was really not equipped to take care of me. So I ended up in the foster care system and uh lived in a group home for about a year and then I moved in with American foster parents when I was 10 in Northern California. And they raised me. What do you think? Um, you take from those days? I'm sure it strengthened you in so many ways. But what do you kind of fall back on when you need to? Uh, you know, I definitely know what it feels like not to belong, uh, to feel different. I think it was Palina yesterday who was talking about, um, you know, watching a lot of television, I can relate to that as an immigrant. I learned all of my English from TV shows. Um I'm still a L A Lakers fan and people are like, well, I'm like, that's how I learned English from watching the Los Angeles Lakers games. And so I think just, you know, being feeling, you know, different and looking different and speaking different and especially, and also with my foster parents, they didn't look like me. And um that's, you know, I think it's really shaped me who I am as a person, but also who I am as a leader. And I really truly believe in bringing in different thoughts and uh diverse ideas. And, you know, I, I think for the most part, people don't get up in the morning and think I'm gonna do a bad job today, like everybody has a story, everybody wants to do good. And, you know, I think that as long as as leaders were welcoming to that, um it's really, really important to me. And I think, you know, it's not to say that, you know, you're gonna take everybody's opinions and always do what everybody says. Ultimately, your job as a CEO is to set the strategic vision and to create focused priorities and to remove obstacles. But how can you get there if you don't bring in diverse thoughts? So I'm gonna pivot to the business um at Sephora of Sephora and I mentioned some of the growth um but we've seen so many different patterns in consumer behavior over the last few years. What's, what's, what are the trends that are driving growth at Sephora today? Yeah. You know, I mean, I, like you said, I've been there a long time and so, um you know, I've been through, through all of it, through youtube, through Instagram, through, you know, and obviously tiktok is a, is a big part of it through social, for sure. Um You know, it's for us it's really about understanding the trends before they happen. And then so social media is just a way that, that actually captures it. But, you know, it's not by an accident that a lot of the hot brands that are trending that are only sold at Sephora are on tiktok. I mean, uh you know, there's a method to the madness with our um incredible merchandizing and marketing teams. Um But certainly that has, I think democratized beauty, right? And the conversation around beauty, I mean, I always joke that, you know, thanks to brands like the ordinary, my 14 year old now knows what niacinamide is and I couldn't even pronounce that when I was her age. So certainly it's, you know, I think opened up the appetite, the conversation around it and especially around skin care. I think what Instagram did for makeup. Certainly. Uh tiktok has done it for skin care. Yes. Anybody here who has teenage Tween daughters. Yes. You know, they're really into their skin care routine and they, there's smoothies. What are smoothies, by the way, for anybody who doesn't know. Well, yes, you gotta, you have to mix it, you gotta mix them all together. They mix and mix it all together. Yeah. Yeah, you got to glow with the moisturizer. It's the whole thing. By the way, I've been doing that for a long time. So these kids are hilarious. I'm like, but they're call it what you want. But, yeah. Um, well, ok, so speaking of kids, there's been a lot of talk at the conference about Gen Z and, and um and Zel, which I millennials, you know, this micro generation, which I didn't know existed. Um but I'm a part of apparently, um but I wanna hear more about Gen Alpha and, and what does Sephora know about Gen Alpha? Sure as a consumer. Yeah. So I have a 14 year old so I definitely can relate. Um You know, the thing for us is, first of all, I mean, we do not market to this audience, right? Um And so it is really important for us to continue to remain committed to marketing to the appropriate age. You're never gonna see teenagers in our windows. In fact, I had a brand not that long ago who had a, a product that was not appropriate for um a younger consumer. And we actually asked them to change the model because um even though it's not, you know, our brand, we're, we're not comfortable putting you know, young kids selling retinoids and retinols um in our, in our window. So we do believe we have a responsibility to make sure that that what we sell is age appropriate. We have over 25,000 beauty advisors across the United States and can and Canada who are highly educated. Um that, that has been the core in our DNA from day one, they are not commissioned, they are very unbiased. And so we do train on what's right for the skin depending on the age. Um And at, at some point, you know, there's the responsibility of us as parents like me, as my 14 year old, you will not catch my 14 year old using Retinol, right? And so um I, but it is incumbent on us, it's incumbent on our over 253 100 brands to make sure that we're talking to the right audience at the right time about the right thing. Um So yes, there's been an influx of the younger generation coming into Sephora and we really do do our best to encourage them um to use uh the age appropriate products. Um I wanna ask you about the retail strategy. Uh You're in the midst of revamping a lot of your stores. What, what, what is the strategy there and why so much focus on the the retail footprint, right? Well, I mean, we've always had a beautiful relationship between the digital um and as and retail So we started our e commerce business in 1999 kind of ahead of our time. But the stores have always been the soul in the DNA of our, of our brand. I mean, our first uh store in 1998 was in Soho in New York. And it's now our number one store across North America. So the fact that it has sustained over 26 years, our first store in Canada opened 20 years ago in Toronto. So we took a step back post the pandemic and I'll never forget I was like, people aren't going to come back and use testers and people are like within three seconds or putting everything. And I'm like, oh, ok, let's slow it down a little bit here. So, you know, I mean that I think that interact, beauty has always been tactile and then that relationship, you know, our beauty advisors and that relationship with each other as your shopping, Sephora. So we took a step back and we said, ok, our stores have been around for a long time and our new stores look really, really pretty, but some of our older stores not so pretty. And so we said, what would that take? And I think, you know, you hear a lot about retailers doing a store of the future, so they'll take, it's very much a design element and they'll take one store and it's design driven. Usually you have the design team who kind of leads that we said, OK, let's take a step back and make this a merchandizing driven uh project, right? And so how do people want to shop? What are the right brands? How should we position? Where does beauty uh beauty to go and minis and more go? Now that one in four consumers are shopping with a mobile, mobile P OS. Are they going to stand in the long wave like that? And what are the hot brands we want to pull forward? And so we created the, what we say, the ideal map and it's actually in a lot of the stores that you see today that have been built over the last couple of years and we are gonna go back over the next 5 to 7 years. Um And we are embarking on the largest capital project in the history of Sephora globally and we're gonna refurbish every single one of our stores because we feel that whether you're shopping in Boise Idaho or in Toronto, Canada, you should have the same beautiful experience no matter where you are. Um I'm gonna go to you guys for questions in a minute here. So please be thinking of them. But um and one more question for you on the on the retail footprint side, um You're also experimenting with kind of mini stores under 4000 square feet in urban areas. You've done this before. It quite work out. What, what's different this time? Yes. So I was part of that project years ago. Um And we still have a few of those around. We had an urban, urban concept and um you know, our biggest learning was don't cut the assortment. I think what we did is we said, oh, we still have this big beauty studio and this cash strap, but we'll just sell less brands. It turns out people want to buy a product. And so we said, ok, let's take this back. And what would it take for us to have a store that is like about 15% smaller than our existing store? It's under 4000 square feet, but still offer the exact same assortment. And so what we've done is we've reduced the backstage and now we have more deliveries to that store and then we also remove the cash, the tradition cash wrap. So everybody is at Mobile P Os. But if you wanna pay cash, there's an end cap there that has this very small. Um The small end cap, we've reduced the area for services. Um We actually launched uh three this summer. We'll see. We were like, let's see what happens. Um One in uh Queens, New York, one in Brooklyn and one in uh Toronto at the Well, and they have far exceeded our expectations. I actually went to the opening at the Queen store and you would have thought you were at a party. It was bananas, people were dancing. I'm like this is amazing. And then that same day I, I went over to the Brooklyn store and this is crazy in the Brooklyn store. You can watch, you can walk 10 minutes to the left and be at a normal regular Sephora walk 10 minutes to the right and be at a regular Sephora and that store is killing it. It is over 60% above plan and over 60% new Beauty Insider signed up within the first month. So six out of 10 people walking in did not already have a Beauty Insider account and there's 10 minutes either way. So we believe that this is a really, really exciting concept that we're gonna look at more dense populations. This isn't gonna be thousands of stores. But when you think about New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, maybe even San Francisco. Um I think we have, we're onto something here. Great. We've got a question over here. But today we met yesterday. Um, first for anybody doesn't know Artemis is a historical figure. Navy commander, fierce leader. You're living up to your name very well. Um It's, it's fascinating. Please look that up. You've had a tumultuous childhood and it's build resilience. You can also throw people off quite well, but you have turned to the other side of it and you have made you a very strong female. How do you pass on those values to your Children? I asked that. So she asked how I passed that to my Children, my child, um, my husband also had quite a tumultuous, uh, upbringing. It's for a whole another, another time. But, um, it's hard because, you know, I, we're, we're both funny because I tend to be sort of like, I didn't have anything so I'm gonna give her everything she wants and he's like, I had a hard life and she's gonna work for it. And I'm like, so we've definitely taken the, the two different approaches of how you raise Children when you've had tumultuous um childhoods. But uh you know, I just, I, I just, it's empathy. Uh We talk about it all the time. It's empathy. I, I don't know how else to say it. We are constantly. I mean, it's, you know, be kind say thank you. You know, be thankful. We, we make sure that she understands um where she came from. But, you know, the of the day you don't fully understand until you're older. I mean, I, I definitely also, I had a lot of anger around what my mom, you know, my mom abandoned me and all this stuff and until I was older and I had a kid of my own, I didn't fully understand the sacrifice that she made. So what I always tell my husband is, you can't expect her to be any more than 14. And when she turned 15, you can't expect her to be any more than 15. Just keep teaching kindness and be empathetic and really at the end um they'll get there. Yeah. Other questions for Artemis. Let me see. We have, let me bring a microphone over here. We've got a couple. Can you raise your hands again? Oh, there you go. Start at the front. Hi, Mona in Africa. Equality. Now I have a question about, I, I love Sephora and I love that. It's multigenerational. I love it as much as my kids do. Um How do you manage to keep that product makes so relevant to so many different customer groups and now that I see that you're going into your own brand and you're developing sort of a Sephora line. How does that fit into the mix? Good question. Yeah, we've actually had Sephora Collection since the beginning when we launched um Sephora in France as the first store. Um even before that, when Sephora launched in uh Limoge France in the 19 seventies, Sephora brand was its own brand. So that's always been part of our DNA. We're definitely stepping it up. I think we look at it as an entry point. Um It's amazing quality to be clear for all of you with young ones for collection is amazing. It's part of LV Mh. So it goes through the same rigor as every LV Mh brand. Um just really good prices, so very good quality. So that's how we think about it. It's an entry point, great quality. Um and a way to enter the brand and we're very proud of it because it's what you take home at the end of the day. You see that you see the name in terms of remaining relevant. Listen, I mean, that is the secret sauce of Sephora, I'll tell you. So, you know, if you take a step back and, you know, when Sephora first came to America in 1998 similar to me, it was a bit of an outsider. And um you know, a lot of the big strategics didn't want to work with us. You know, there was the big department stores. And so just by sheer survival, we had to work with these little Indie brands and start in the kitchen and we would start early and we'd hear their stories and we'd be in there trying the formulations and give feedback and any brand that's ever worked with us. I see one in the audience here knows that we really love getting in there and getting in the kitchen and that allows us to build a brand together in many, in many ways. So you think about, you take for granted brands like two face Urban Decay Stella, you know, these brands that were, you know, not household names 28 years, 26 years ago. Uh So I think that to your question, it's really about getting in early, you know, I see uh cmo Rare Beauty here and I remember our very first meeting. It was goop in a jar and Selena Gomez and it was like, whoa and you know, and her passion um for the rare impact, fun and her belief in giving back. And so we were like, wow, great founder, great team, good product. Wow. And they give back as well to an authentic cause. That's very, very real to the founder. You could not ask for anything more as a merchant. Now, let's get in the kitchen and figure it out together. Um So it really starts very early. Do we have another question over here? Go ahead, please. Hi, Suzanne Juan, I'm with mccormick and company. And I was curious. Well, first of all, thank you because I have two bonus daughters and you make Christmas shopping. I was curious as you look at your professional career with Sephora, what's the biggest bet that you made and look back and say that was the one for me personally or for the, for the company one you want? Yeah. Uh Well, I can uh uh quickly answer both. Um I think professionally it was when I asked to be the general manager of foreign inside JC Penney. So at the time I had a whole ecommerce background and I was like, what do I know about running a PNL and JC Penney? Um and it was the, it was so amazing. I stepped in right during the Ron Johnson time. So it was very, very tumultuous at JC Penney and I remember the CEO at the time, our CEO Sephora, he sent me a note and I just had one line and it said Rome is burning, protect your house. And I thought, oh my gosh, what is going on? And so, and I did and I put my arms around the team and we just focused and we went forward and I'm very, very proud of what we delivered over the, the partnership there, um which ultimately then resulted in a really, I think, deep understanding of how to work with another retailer. And I was very early on talking to Michelle about the Coles deal. So, um so I think professionally, I, I wasn't sure I should take that job and I think it really sort of turned the tide for me. And then, um I would say for us, like there's so many decisions, so many brands we've launched that, you know, now again, our household names, which is really, really exciting, but something um that is, I think meaningful to me. And so a lot of the team was in 2020 when Aurora James reached out to us to become part of the 15% pledge. Um It was after the murder of George Floyd and there was a lot going on and we were at home alone on Zooms and there were six women um on this zoom and I'll never forget. Um when we said yes, we will be the first retailer to support the 15% pledge and the commitment that we made. And back then, we only had 3% of our assortment that uh you know, being sold by founders of color by black founders. And today we've doubled that assortment and we've actually reached 15% pledge in hair. So, um to me that will, it's, it's a lifetime journey and making a commitment to bring founders um of diverse backgrounds is, it's so critical to me, I talk about this all the time that, you know, I have a daughter who has curly oily hair and she has no idea how lucky she is because, you know, back when I was younger, you know, I didn't have the right products. But that's because people with hair like me weren't making brands for people like me and I, and I wanna change that um very, very meaningful note to end on. We'll have to get your smoothie recipe later. But thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.

Iranian American immigrant Artemis Patrick’s background shaped her ideas around beauty, which now inform her decisions as Sephora’s North America CEO. Over the years, she’s watched beauty trends change through social media, and hopes to educate younger consumers on making the best choices for their health.

Iranian Immigrant to the C-Suite: How Sephora’s North American CEO Is Shaping the Beauty Industry

Photo illustration by Fortune. Photograph provided by Sephora.

Leadership

Iranian American immigrant Artemis Patrick’s background shaped her ideas around beauty, which now inform her decisions as Sephora’s North America CEO.

Iranian Immigrant to C-Suite: How Sephora’s North American CEO Is Shaping the Beauty Industry

Isn't that funny? Everything is, I think back to when I was 1314 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, and it's happening in, in, in a big way. Welcome to leadership. Next, the podcast about the changing rules of business leadership. I'm Mikal Avram and I'm Diane Brady listeners will be familiar with the Sephora brand, but they may not be familiar with you. So I want to start by actually asking you to tell us a little bit about you. I was born in Iran. So I immigrated to the US in 1979 when I was seven years old. And you know, 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 was not 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 10 years old. And so I really think that very much shaped who I am not just as a person but as a leader. Um, and especially if you think about, you know, the world of beauty and historically, um, how, you know, there was one definition of beauty, especially when I was growing up in the eighties and I certainly did not fit that mold. So, um, it has really, really guided, um how I think about beauty, how I think about um belonging. Uh and I think that that's always sort of been my north, my north star, obviously, Sephora is an incredibly strong brand. Um I have 12 and 14 year old girls, so I, I limit but I'm, I'm curious like, how would you characterize this moment in time in which you stepped into this role? What, what are the, you know, there's been so much uh very fast evolution in the retail space and the ecommerce space with tech over the last few years and different, you know, consumer trends that seem to be evolving so quickly. So how would you characterize where things are today for Sephora? Yeah, I mean, I have a 13 year old girl. So, so I feel you um you know, I would say what's, what's incredible about beauty is uh it's always had this, this tactile um feeling of, you know, connection and belonging and being able to try new things. I, I think the inherent love of beauty among every generation um 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, of specifically skin care. Uh I, I know that I probably did not take the best care of my skin um when I was younger and I see my daughter packing up her super group in her backpack and, you know, that's, that's exciting and, but that's because of, you know, tiktok and um other forms in youtube and other forms of social media. Um and, and the speed at which things come to light is, is just, you know, it's, it's mind boggling and I have been at before for 18 years. So I've seen different evolutions of this. Certainly, I remember when Instagram first launched and I remember contouring, it was just like I was thinking to myself, how many contour kits do people need? Right. And, and so we, we've seen it before. It, 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 around ingredients and a deep understanding of what people are putting on their skin, on their hair, on their body, sticking with the topic of, of kids shopping in Sephora. 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 uh, products or anti-aging stuff like that. What do you, what's Sephora's response to that? And what do you see as your responsibility for educating younger shoppers? Well, I believe we have a huge responsibility as well as our hundreds of brands to educate the consumer on what is right for, 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 noncom commissioned uh beauty advisors. So it's actually been a really easy pivot for us to focus those educational moments of which we have many um specifically on skin care and skincare ingredients. So that is where we are seeing um you know, a lot of the chatter and the noise and making sure that they know, yes, you need, you know, at a certain age, you need to wash your face, you need sunscreen and you need some moisturizer. But no, you don't need retinol. Um and making sure that, that we share that information. Um you know, at the end of the day, there is only so much, you know, a sales person can do, we can educate and then beyond that, um it really is the responsibility of the consumer. But I feel that we are very well placed to at least be able to share our knowledge on that and make sure that they understand what, what they are buying, what kind of technology do you think has really moved the needle in the store to create a better shopping experience? One of the the core tenants of everything we always do from a tech perspective is that it has to 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, the 70% conversion rate. So what happens is the consumer can come in and we have this proprietary tool and it essentially looks at the scan and it will make a foundation match. Um 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. Um So 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 the way I sort of think about it.

[MUSIC PLAYING] ADAM LASHINSKY: Now, AI is being incorporated into all sorts of things. The Alexa Echo, or Google Home, or Siri, that's very garden variety AI. This is really first inning AI. MARY BETH LAUGHTON: We always try to not just do technology for technology's sake, but actually solving a consumer problem pain point. We feel like we need to have the right data and the right talent to actually really take advantage of AI, so we're kind of focused on that first. But we're also experimenting in a couple different ways of getting some AI out there just to test. ANDREW NUSCA: Most CEOs are asking themselves what can I do with AI? How can I incorporate this? This is clearly the future, but they don't really know. And that's part of the problem. It's very abstract. Most of the applications you see today involve machine learning. Google image search, that's machine learning comparing things. The certain kind of ad on Facebook, that's machine learning trying to tailor those ads to the preferences that you have expressed on Facebook. The more advanced stuff, that's not really in the wild yet but for the largest tech companies. NAVEEN RAO: So artificial intelligence actually has its roots back in computing-- Alan Turing even. He was really trying to recapitulate pieces of intelligence. What made a machine intelligent? And he recognized very early on that, that lived in the information space. Processing information to make it useful somehow. The term artificial intelligence was coined in the '60s. We started to understand the brain was definitely electrical. In the '40s, we actually defined how it works electrically, how information is represented, what we call spiking. That actually was concurrent with a lot of innovations on the computing side. Because we said, well, brains are information tools, computers are information tools, and there's always this parallel. The first computer science department and the first neuroscience department, started a year apart. And we figured out that neurons represent information a certain way. We tried to simulate those things in synthetic systems. We thought it would be really easy because we figured out all these principles from the brain. It turns out it's a little more difficult than that. So the field kind of had its ups and downs until computing got to a point where it was dense enough. And the data set sizes got to the point where they're big enough. 2010, 2011 time frame is when neural networks met Moore's law met big data. This whole field exploded. It's going to change with time, but overall the goal of a learning system is to find useful structure and data. ADAM LASHINSKY: Prominent AI researchers have said that AI will be like electricity. Electricity was a big deal. It was this new invention that people talked about. Nobody talks about electricity anymore and that's where we are with AI. X years down the road, sooner rather than later, AI will be infused in all these things in ways that we couldn't possibly fathom today. ANN CAIRNS: The way that you use a telephone is different from the way that I use a telephone, the way that we actually key. We have artificial intelligence that can detect your behavior. So if I left my phone there and you picked it up and tried to make a payment, it would know it's not me. JEREMY KING: When we're unloading a truck full of strawberries, one of the drivers can open up the case and take a photo. We can determine whether it was sent sustainably and how long that fruit is going to last. MARY BETH LAUGHTON: I think AI can be the future of personalization. And I think personalization is where retail and beauty are going. We have what's called Sephora Virtual Artist, which is our augmented reality beauty experience. We're using computer vision, so it can map your facial features and know where to place the makeup when you look at it virtually. SPEAKER 1: We've actually been using AI to really reshape the entire end-to-end shopping journey for the customer. Increasingly, we use AI to show up through targeted display ads in places where the consumer is shopping. So if you let us know that you're interested in certain lifestyles and certain items, we'll make sure that we personalize the recommendations that we make for you. CHRISTOPHER HEISER: Our customers use a lot of AI. The self-driving systems use it for object detection. We work with people that are perceiving the occupants. Are they happy? Are they scared? Are losing trust with the vehicle? There are already dozens of applications of AI. I only expect that to increase. ANDREW NUSCA: There is no technological development with more potential than artificial intelligence. Because it is a suite of capabilities, it's going to solve simple things in our lives and the extraordinary things. What is really exciting about that for the business community, there's money to be made. MICHAL LEV-RAM: There's so much excitement around AI, rightfully so. But if we're not thoughtful about how we go about building these systems, the outcome could be disastrous. ANN CAIRNS: If there aren't enough of us engaged, and I don't actually even just mean women, I mean a diverse group of people, then we're going to get computers who think like some bro culture on the West Coast. MICHAL LEV-RAM: Bias can be inherent to AI and to algorithms. If we allow it to be, comes down to people. If those teams aren't reflective of humanity, then the algorithms aren't going to be reflective of humanity and that has hugely negative ramifications. ANDREW NUSCA: One of the biggest concerns is that workplaces will lose their humanity if we keep incorporating more and more AI into the office. CHRISTINA CULCLOUGH: There's a lot of algorithms that are being put into place that help the companies in their recruitment processes, who are they going to hire, who they're going to fire, and so on. But the big question is what data are they using? Are they bringing in your social media data, your private data? Do they get access to your whole file, your financial data? CHRISTOPHER HEISER: The amount of information that we freely give or unknowingly give to corporations and governments is massive. AI will allow those groups to manage in a very efficient way. Whether that's something that's good for me or bad for me, I think, depends on who's doing it and how. CHRISTINA CULCLOUGH: We have all sleepwalked into this current situation. We haven't really understood what it was we were giving away when we were using all of these services, when we're using social media. What is it we are paying with to get all of these services? CHRISTOPHER HEISER: We've got people arguing that AI is great and other people arguing that it's the end of humanity. The answer is always somewhere in between. It is something we have to think pretty deeply about. CHRISTINA CULCLOUGH: Every single technological development has changed jobs. I mean, that's nothing new. Where I think this whole transformation is new is its magnitude. It's going to affect all of us. ANDREW NG: I am concerned that these hype discussion about evil AI, killer robots, it whitewashes the real challenges. And I think job displacement is a big one. CHRISTINA CULCLOUGH: A lot of jobs will change, meaning that we will have to learn new things. And this brings us to the whole question of re and upskilling. This is going to be one of the major challenges of our time, making sure that everybody can follow the developments and have an opportunity to thrive in the labor market. JEREMY KING: What happens is jobs shift? We have about 18,000 new jobs just for grocery picking and delivery services. JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Robotics, AI, technological advances are rapidly disrupting and transforming the nature of work and the workplace. We know what happens with industrial revolutions. There is a transition time in which a whole bunch of people get disrupted right out of their jobs. Once it's through that transition time, there are better quality jobs and more jobs for everyone. CHRISTINA CULCLOUGH: Predictions are that AI will create many more jobs than it will destroy. If those jobs that will be created are bad jobs, are paid under their living wage, are precarious, then that is nothing we should celebrate. JEREMY KING: I don't know if you've seen this picture of sheep problem. If you showed a computer scientist, three or four years ago, a picture of a flock of sheep and ask them to build an algorithm to count how many sheep were in the picture, they would have told you it's impossible. Now, that's trivial. Overnight that changed. When I think about how fast AI, machine learning is going to move and that's the kind of speed we're looking at, that's exciting. NAVEEN RAO: Right now the depth of expertise required is extremely high. CHRISTOPHER HEISER: It's not integrated at all in the way the people do their business today. MARY BETH LOUGHTON: It's a revolutionary technology. CHRISTOPHER HEISER: Certainly, the machines are getting much, much better at a lot of things than we are. MICHAL LEV-RAM: It's going to be much more integrated into our lives. CHRISTOPHER HEISER: I think we're just at the beginning of trying to understand how it fits in. [MUSIC PLAYING] 

Insights: The Promise AI Holds for Business

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The wonders and dangers of Artificial Intelligence.

The Promise AI Holds for Business

Fortune's Brainstorm Films explores the wonders and dangers of Artificial Intelligence. (October 2018)

now May I being incorporated into all sorts of things the Alexa Echo or Google Home or Serie? That's very garden variety. This is really first inning way. Always try to not just technology for technology's sake, but actually solving a consumer problem or main point. We feel like we need to have the right data and the right talent actually really take advantage of a I. So we're kind of focused on that, first, experimenting in a couple of different ways of getting some aye aye out there. Most CEOs were asking themselves, What can I do with a I? How can I incorporate this? This is clearly the future, but they don't really know. And that's part of the problem. It's very abstract. Most of the applications you see today involved machine learning, Google Image search, right, That's machine learning. Comparing a certain kind of add on Facebook that machine learning trying to tailor those adds to the preference is that you have expressed on Facebook the more advanced stuff that's not really in the wild yet, but for the largest tech, Artificial intelligence actually has its roots back in computing. Alan Turing, even he was really trying to recapitulate pieces of intelligence, what made a machine intelligence. And he recognized very early on that that lived in the information processing information to make it useful. Somehow term artificial intelligence was coined. In the sixties. We started to understand the brain was definitely electrical in the forties. We actually defined how it works electorally, how information is represented, what we call spiking that actually was concurrent with a lot of innovations on computing side because, he said, Well, Marines are information tools, computers, air information always parallel. First computer science department At First Neuroscience Department started a year apart. We figured out that neurons represent information certain way we tried to simulate those things and synthetic systems. We thought it would be really easy because he figured out all these principles. Brain turns out a little more difficult. So the field kind of had its ups and downs until computing got to a point where it was dense enough and the data set size has got to the point where they're big enough. 10 4011 timeframe. When neural networks met, Moore's law met big data. This whole field exploded. It's gonna change with time But overall, the goal of ah warning system is to find useful structure in data prominent Ai ai. Researchers have said that a I will be like electricity. Electricity was a big deal. It was this new invention that people talked about. Nobody talks about electricity anymore. And that's where we are with a I X years down the road sooner rather than later, eh? I will be in used in all these things in ways that we couldn't possibly battle today. The way that you used a telephone is different from the way that I used the telephone. The way that we actually came, we have artificial intelligence that can detect your behavior. So if I left my phone there and you picked it up and try to make a payment, it would know not me. When we're unloading a truck full of strawberries, one of the drivers and open up the case and take a photo waken determine whether it was sent sustainably. How long that food is gonna last. I think a I can be the future of personalization, and I think personalization is where retail and you're going. We have what's called for virtual artists which is our augmented reality beauty experience. We're using computer vision so it can kind of map your facial features and know where to place the makeup When you look at it. Virtually, we've actually been using a I really re shape the entire into end shopping journey for the customer increasingly used a I to show up through targeted display at places where the consumers shopping. So if you let us know that you're interested in certain lifestyles and certain items, we'll make sure that we personalize the recommendations that we make for you. Our customers use a lot of self driving systems. Music for object detection way work with people that are receiving the occupants. Are they happy or they're scared of losing trust. There are already dozens of application today. There is no technological development with more potential than artificially because it is a suite of capabilities. It's gonna solve simple things in our lives and the extraordinary What is really exciting about that business community? There's money to be made. There's so much excitement around, eh? I rightfully so. But if we're not thoughtful about how we go about building these systems, the outcome could be disastrous. if there aren't enough of us engaged and I don't actually even just mean women. I mean, a diverse group of people. Then we're gonna get computers who think like some bro culture on the West Coast bias ca NBI inherent to a i into algorithms if we allow it to be come down to people with those teams aren't reflective of humanity than the algorithms aren't going to be reflective of humanity. And that has hugely negative ramifications in one of the biggest concerns is that workplaces will lose their humanity if we keep incorporating more and more A i into the office. There's a lot of algorithms that are being put into place that helped the companies in the recruitment process is who they're gonna hire, who they're going to fire on so want. But the big question is what data they're using. Are they bringing in your social media data? Your private data? Do they get access to your health file your financial data, the amount of information that we freely give or unknowingly give to corporations and governments Massive, eh? I will allow those groups to manage in a very efficient way, Whether that's something that's good for me or bad for me and think depends on who's doing it and how we have all sleep walked into this current situation. We haven't really understood what itwas we were giving away. When we're using all of these service is when we're using social media. What is it we are paying with? Get a load of these. We've got people arguing that they eyes great and other people are doing the end of humanity. The answer is always somewhere in between it It's something we have to think deeply about. Every single technological development has changed jobs, right? I mean, that's nothing. You where I think this whole transformation is new, is its magnitude. It's gonna affect a lot of us. E. I'm concerned that these high discussion about evil robots it whitewashes the real challenges. And I think this is a big one. A lot off jobs would change, meaning that we will have to learn new things. And this brings us to the whole question off re and ups. Killing this is gonna be one of the major challenges of our time, making sure that everybody can follow the developments and have an opportunity to live in the labor market. What happens is jobs shift right. We have about 18,000 new jobs just for grocery picking and delivery service. Robotic. Aye, aye. Technological advances are rapidly disrupting and transforming the nature of work and the workplace. We know what happens with industrial Revolution. There is a transition time in which the whole bunch of people get disrupted right out of their jobs. Once it's through that transition time, there are better quality jobs and more jobs for everyone. Predictions are a I will create many more jobs than it will destroy. If those jobs that will be created are bad, jobs are paid under the living wage, a precarious, then that is nothing we should celebrate. I don't know if you've seen this picture of sheep problem. You showed a computer scientist three or four years ago a picture of a flock of sheep and asked them to build an algorithm to count how many people were in the picture, they would have told you is impossible. Now that's trivial. Overnight that change when I think about how fast a I machine learning is gonna move. And that's the kind of speed we're looking at. That's exciting. Right now. The depth of expertise required is extremely high. It's not integrated at all with people today. Revolutionary technology. Certainly the machines are getting much, much better. A lot of things. Yeah, I'm going to be much more integrated into our lives. I think we're just at the beginning of trying to understand.

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