Name: Most Powerful Women 2019: Huda and Mona Kattan Talk Female Leadership on the International Stage
Uploaded: 2019-10-23
Duration: 17 min 34 s
Description: Huda Beauty’s Huda and Mona Katten join Facebook’s Marne Levine.

I Have to be honest, I'm not a big reality TV watcher, but you guys are amazingly honest. So first of all, thank you for joining us in DC. Thanks. All the way from they were in India they have taken a flight to Dubai and then landed up here. So It's a busy life for the Huddah beauty team. Tell me a little bit more than what we read about. We know that you were born in Oklahoma you moved to Tennessee than to Boston and then to Dubai. You guys have a very very amaze Amazing past you're on Facebook. At this point you've got a huge social media presence. How did that story happen and how did that love affair for the three sisters really begin with makeup? [ LAUGH ] I think I'll start if you don't mind Please go ahead usually do. [ LAUGH ] middle them one always. She started like that. [ LAUGH ] Others. Well first of all we're so honored to be around such amazingly powerful women it's really amazing to be here. But our love for beauty really started, I think where people probably wouldn't imagine it start. And ultimately, I felt really ugly. As a child I grew up you know we grew up in Tennessee amongst. There are the only brown people in the city and I think there was a lot of times where children probably made us feel like we were not beautiful. And you would see advertisements with a certain beauty standard and Ultimately, I just felt like I just didn't belong and I felt like I wanted to feel beautiful. My sister was in beauty pageants and she was just looked like a doll. And if you know anything about Middle Eastern families, it's like the lighter skin you are, the more beautiful you are. And so I just I really wanted to like feel it, you know, I felt like if I could feel beautiful then it would like kind of solve a lot of my insecurities and so I was around probably nine which is a very young age but that's when i started this love affair and this like really interest and i was so curious about beauty. And you know i started playing with things and you know i also i should say i had a beard By the time I was nine as well and a unibrow, you know Middle Eastern people can we can be very hairy? And so I started playing with tweezers and all those things. And by the time I was 14, I was like a professional makeup artist. Was it like an armor for you or was it your way of assimilating? Into American Tennessee culture. I think it was, I was hopeful to assimilate. Yeah. But ultimately, it was an armory and I felt like really powerful when I learned how to fix my brows and How to do certain things. I felt really good. I felt like I had like a secret, that I could like teach my friends and it felt really amazing. Ultimately I didn't know that it would bring me here. We grew up in this very conservative Middle Eastern family. They kind of pushed us into a more traditional Working environment. We both studied finance, and when we decided to study makeup, my parents were like, god. They were like, this girl, she's a loser. Let's just leave her at the service industry. It's not actually- Not a doctor, an engineer, or a scientist. Yeah, or a lawyer. Or a lawyer. Or a lawyer. I understand and empathize. [ LAUGH ] Did you have the same feelings when you were growing up that Huda and your sister possibly had? Did you have a completely different experience because of that lifestyle. If I'm honest, I had a very different experience. For me, it was always like, I would look up to headache issues. My older sister were about a year apart. So I always felt confidence. But I always just wanted to be like cutter. And so when whatever she would do, I would follow and support her and I think that's what we still do together. But yeah, I think cuz I had more fair skin and also just really nerdy in school, so I never even cared about being popular, having friends. I was just a really big dork. I sat in the front row, and I still am. I still am a dork. We love dorks. So I just never really cared about what people thought. But I just really wanted to be like Huda and do whatever Huda did. So, it's very different. [ LAUGH ] Tell us about this journey, because everyone's spoken about how much you've managed to achieve in the Middle East, running the business, basing it in a part of the world that has not looked very kindly on successful women who put themselves out thesre. And, again, the story of this growth from 5, 000 to a valuation of a billion in 5 years. Has come from a region that's not known for it come from a region that's not accepted women's. You have an Iraq American background. Yep. They've not accepted women in that position. We've seen bloggers have A lot of backlash. Yeah. How have you managed to not just convince Marni to be part of all of this, and used Instagram. So they started on Instagram. Yeah. Blogging, and then Instagram. Yes. Which is the connection into Facebook Watch. How did that journey happen? How difficult was it, and how do you bounce the backlash that sometimes happens? In that region? You know, it's difficult, I think everywhere in the world, but in the Middle East, I still struggle today when people are in meetings and they refuse to make eye contact with me. They're making eye contact with my husband, and I'm like, no no no no no, don't look at him. [ LAUGH ] You have to convince me. It's a challenging You know, it's a challenging place to be in because I think I've gone through a lot of my journey you know, as an alpha female learning exactly what it means to be a leader what it means to be aggressive at some points, but also understand that I don't have to be that in every single aspect of my life. I think I was forced to really go through that journey very, very young and very early on. And it taught me a lot. I think that it's also challenging being in the beauty industry cuz people will see all of these glam and they make so many assumptions on that. They assume that you can't be beautiful, put time into your makeup, you can't take care of yourself and also be serious and also be a good mother. And also have intelligence to be quite frank. And that's frustrating. And just be visible. Just be visible, be actually somebody who makes decisions. And that was an extremely frustrating thing that we went through and I remember, being at some point being like, why can't every single woman be every single part of who they are? Why can't we just say Encompass and, and really just embrace all of that. And it was it was challenging. I mean, I still to this day when we go into our building and we have the most floors in our building, if I'm really dolled up versus if I'm dressed more simple people, like look at me, like, and it's really frustrating cuz I'm like, do that I'm actually I'm a leader in this organization and I own majority of the company and I've built it from the ground up. And, like, a lot of times you're just like, it is what it is, but it's still something that needs to change. And I said this to Mona this morning, I was like, we have 77 % women in our company. 23 % men, but 100 % feminist And I think that that's so powerful, and it actually makes me emotional talking about it. Because there's still so much that needs to happen. I'm gonna let you go. [ LAUGH ] You made me emotional. It's a difficult journey, in the Middle East, and one When success happens, it does make us emotional. Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about that journey. Because again, you've managed to get $ 5, 000 from your older sister, who's also in the business, not on the stage. But then private equity got involved. You had to convince them, as Iraqi- American women, to raise the money, and then get to that billion valuation. How did that happen? Well, it was a really long journey. So I think when we first initially started, we just had to make ends meet. And we were super scrappy ., we didn't take a salary for years. And when we first started, it was so funny because we were trying to convince people to work with us. We're trying to sell the vision, we're like, listen, we're onto something big, you just have to believe in us and I think You know is I think there was a tipping point around your three or four year for when we launched Chloe cosmetics and the company just skyrocketed. And we actually had troubles just keeping the business going because we have cash flow problems when you're growing. You know, everybody's so excited for you, but like scaling is so hard internally From a cash perspective from a human resource perspective, so we were going through a lot of challenges. Yeah. And I think it was when had a had a talk at a WWDC summit and a lot of PE firms were there. And they all took notice. And they're like, we think these people are onto something. So we just started getting calls and we just heard from some of the investment banks and private equity firms and we just took a long time to make the decision, but ultimately, we believe that If we're going to grow this business right we need a strategic partnership and our investors are a huge part of I think our success and growing the business. So we're very grateful. And they're growing really fast Marnie, so a lot of their strategies and I know Mona, you've said that, and today you both said that you think of yourself as marketing companies. A lot of story really did start on Instagram and now with Huda boss on Facebook, watch it. How do you look at brands like this, these global brands that have seemed to have a huge following big following. That's even more than the population of Dubai, at some where- [ LAUGH ] I mean, the statistics are quite Interesting. How does that tie in with the Facebook Watch strategy for you, and the history of the Instagram followings? Well, first of all, they are amazing. What they have done is really great. It's Extraordinary. And I think, for me, I learned, you know, two really big lessons from them, which I think that people can take away in terms of how business gets done these days, particularly with social. The first is just the business is personal. They speak in such a personal, authentic way. On the show right here right now, on their Instagram, on Facebook. They are just very authentic. And I think that's how they built this global community and they've also helped this global brand. The second for me is that they are creators first. And the thing about today is that we don't just learn about new products and services From brands, from companies, they are small, we learn about them from creators, tastemakers, influencers, whatever the word is. And the key ingredient of that relationship is trust. Hoda was one of the first bloggers video bloggers, giving beauty tutorials. Because she was so personal and authentic, she developed that relationship with her community. And so, when they went to go launch their brand, they had a community that really trusted them on other products but then on their products Themselves which is huge. So I think what their show who the boss which is excellent by the way, I highly recommend it, season two. [ LAUGH ] You can't like a really great behind the scenes look at what it's like to be an entrepreneur. The ups the downs what it's like to start a business with your sister. I love my sister but I cannot imagine running a business with my sister And with your husband no less like, [ LAUGH ] I can't even imagine doing this They are suckers for punishment. [ LAUGH ] I mean I'm not a great parent every day she is raising her daughter on camera, but it really I mean it's very empowering and they've created a community that connects around Passion for beauty and really and I think this is it, it's not just about beauty but empowering others. Facebook Watch is our video destination for long form videos and we've all different kinds of content there. But the content is meant to really spark Community conversation and connection. And I think that that's what they have done so beautifully. It is, 720 million people visit Facebook watch every month and 140 million people watch on average 26 minutes a day of video in Facebook watch. So it's really growing but here's what's so interesting here is that Then when you kind of watch the show and then you might see a beauty tutorial later on Thursday if they drop these tutorials. And so let's say, I see Nona pulling out the mercury retrograde eye shadow pallet There're too many blogs going on. Right. [ LAUGH ] No I'm saying they just drop this they show this to me I've been like ooing and eyeing about this This product and so if I see it there, then what happens is, and many of you can probably relate to this, then go to their Instagram and you wanna find out more about what's going on or find out more about that product. We're going to buy it what shades are, all the information about how much it costs all of that. This is this brings up a good question. Again, you mentioned this about trust and authenticity. Yeah .>> And here's a question for the two of you because I've met a few people who have been in the industry considered influencers, built businesses, not as big as yours, perhaps but. They do run those businesses. The question comes back to authenticity and trust. How do you ensure that you're authentic and trustworthy, while running essentially a beauty business, which is a marketing business? How do you balance all of those? And actually retain all of those people from Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Europe, now hopefully the U. S. How do you keep that trust? For me, there's no question about it. It's not about our brand first, it's about the community first. So I said this to Marnie yesterday, because there was a primer that we created, and then another brand called Tatcha, which is a skincare brand, created another primer, and I like there's more than ours. Sounds like I'm not using anymore. And then the videos using there's and my husband was like, What are you doing, we're not selling our primary anymore I was like give it away for free I don't have to tell you inventory. Stop pushing other people's primer, and I was like give it away for free. I was like thrown in for free and I'd like to get rid of it. Because we need to- And that's the authenticity you think that- It's a long term approach. I'm not here, I think I also said this a few days ago as well like there was an offer that we got from another brand. It was a 10 million plus equity dollar deal, and it was a one year deal and I was like, I The brand is great. I was like, I'm just not interested. I was like, I have a very long- term approach. This brand need to be able to supercede me. And essentially because of that, there's so much more that we have to do. And so if I derailed in the short term by an opportunity to make money, then I lose everything. I lose all the trust Money, that really does even apply to Facebook at this point. You've got a lot of regulatory eyes on you, you have privacy issues, you have trust issues. How do you retain the trust of people on your platform? When you have all those questions to answer? ,>> Well, first of all, I'm glad you're raising it because it's clearly top of mine. For. Lots of people here and we want businesses and people everybody in our community to feel safe and secure on the platform. And when I sit here and I listen to their story, I just feel this great sense of responsibility to get it right for them. And getting it right means continuing to innovate and come up with solutions. To the issues and I think we're a fundamentally different company than we were two years ago and we've made a lot of strides. So what one of the ways and we were actually just talking about this right before is that we've increased the capacity of our community operations team. We now have 35, 000 people. That are in this operation responding to reports. We have a 24 / 7 model with teams around the world so that we can respond faster to the reports. The second thing is that we really have started using AI and machine learning to detect this stuff faster and to get it. So when you talk about things that compromise authenticity, Fake accounts are one of our one of those and fake accounts proliferate. low quality information we don't want to have on the on the, on the platform. And so what we've done by applying machine learning and AI is we're now able to detect and remove more than a million fake accounts. a day at the point of creation. So I think we've made progress in this regard and then I would say the third thing that we're doing is that we are, not everyone wants us to make these decisions and we can't make them by ourselves. So we are working with third, independent third party fact checking organizations globally. We work with more than 50 of them in 40 different languages. Which is important for A global company to identify whether there's misinformation, and. So, this is hard, this is challenging. But, it's something that's important and we're working hard to continue to find new solutions. And the staff will continue to be there not claiming to be perfect at all, but we're working hard at on it. And you're working a lot of products and then we've got eight seconds left to go and I was going to ask audience questions, but I'm obviously going to get thrown off the stage. So quick last bit, if everyone here needed to understand your brand, one word answer. Your eyelash, your fake lashes or your new eye shadow pallet. What you would buy first? How can you make us choose? [ LAUGH ] You've got to choose. Buying both? Eyeshadow palette. Eyeshadow palette. And she's one. [ CROSSTALK ] They're the same because you can always use it as a blush to and the lipstick. [ LAUGH ] If you wanna try it out that's their tip. Ladies, thank you so, so very much. [ APPLAUSE ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Most Powerful Women 2019: Huda and Mona Kattan Talk Female Leadership on the International Stage

Huda and Mona Kattan Talk Female Leadership on the International Stage

Leadership

Huda Beauty’s Huda and Mona Katten join Facebook’s Marne Levine.