Name: How Ulta Beauty Stays Innovative
Uploaded: 2025-10-16
Duration: 14 min 5 s
Description: Earlier this year, Ulta Beauty promoted former COO Kecia Steelman to CEO. Nine months into the role, she'll share how she’s leading the $11 billion beauty retailer into its next chapter—via its most ambitious international expansion to date, strategic acquisitions, and experiential retail—at one of 2025’s buzziest pop culture moments: Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour.

Earlier this year, Ulta Beauty promoted former COO Kecia Steelman to CEO. Nine months into the role, she'll share how she’s leading the $11 billion beauty retailer into its next chapter—via its most ambitious international expansion to date, strategic acquisitions, and experiential retail—at one of 2025’s buzziest pop culture moments: Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour.

How Ulta Beauty Stays Innovative

Conferences

Keisha, thank you so much for being here and joining me. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much to Fortune for having me. I'm excited about our conversation. Of course. So you made the transition from COO to CEO about 10 months ago, one of those rare few. So tell me, in your 1st 10 months, what was the boldest or the riskiest thing you did that you think is paying off now? Oh wow, that's a fantastic question. I will tell you that I think one of the things that you need to be really focused on when you transition into a CEO role is to have a very clear plan, especially if you want to get a lot accomplished in a short period of time. I partnered with the board early on and I said, here's what my objectives are. It was really around 3 different things. First, to get the right team around me, not only for today but for the future, you know, that could be maybe viewed as bold because when you're making people decisions pretty early in your career, I have the benefit of being in the role for 11 years with the company, so I had a pretty pretty good perspective. I would say the second thing was to have a really good framework of strategy that the frontline associate could understand, so could the board and so could the investors. So building a strategy that everyone could understand the role that they played and it made sense. I had heard pre previous strategies and other companies in this one where I was like, I don't know exactly what that means. So if you don't understand what the strategy, it's hard to execute it. And then third, really clearly having decision making rights and streamlined decision making processes, I say often spinning is my least favorite move. So when you get stuck on a decision and you can't move things forward in an organization, it's, it's, it's difficult. So you ask the bold part. I would say that I focus on all of those at the same time and that's bold's that's bold. It was, I felt like we just couldn't wait too long. We needed to move. Quickly and that's exactly what we've done. Now Ulta, which has been such a US centric brand, you made the decision to do a big global expansion. You announced Mexico earlier this year. You're talking about the Middle East. Tell me about the consumers in each of those markets and how are they different and talking to you about what they want versus what US consumers want. Well, I'll start with that they all love beauty and the role that social media has played. has really expanded our brand outside of the US even though we are a US-based brand for 35 years. They were asking for us. You know what I'm hearing in those markets is that they really love the democratization of beauty that we offer everything from low to lux in services components with it. No one's really doing that in a large way that's focused. beauty and wellness outside of the US either, so that's one thing that they're they're excited about. The other thing that they're asking for that's unique that I actually am very excited about even bringing back into our ecosystem in the United States is brands that are true to the region, and they would like to have presence of regional brands in our stores, and I like that because as we continue to be even more global. As a company, bringing new brands into the United States, I think is part of that whole ecosystem too. We do it with fashion. You see what's on the runway in Paris and it comes to the United States. We should be doing the same thing with beauty too. Now you mentioned social media, which is a big part. It's changed the way I think a lot of us shop for beauty. Same with with Amazon. When thinking about that space, what do you think is Ulta's biggest competitive vulnerability right now and how are you standing out? You know, I will say no one does what we do at all to Beauty the way that we do it, and I'm a big believer in focusing on controlling what you can control and leaning into your strengths as a business and futureproofing them. So that's what really we are really focused on is um leveraging our digital assets. We've been investing in our foundational systems the last few years. This year we've really transitioned to. Go to market, uh, and then introduction you were talking about the cowboy Carter, etc. we have to be in the social areas where our guests are, and we need to be a part of the conversation and that's what we've really been leaning into. Beauty has been taking off on social media just for a lot of the young users as well. I know your demographic is skewing towards younger girls age 9 and 10. How do you think about the role. That Ulta and society should ultimately play and you know, young girls shopping for anti-aging products is how do you feel responsible for that type of thing and how do you, you know, kind of police what consumers shop for? Yeah, I will say that I do feel as a retailer we do have a responsibility to make sure that we're serving all of our guests and giving them the best experience with the great products that we can offer for all age ranges. So, um, you know, from. The very first starting, uh, with 8910 all the way to, you know, my 90 year old grandmother or my 90 year old mother-in-law. So you know, we, we have that responsibility I believe as a retailer to make sure that we're offering the right products for the right associate right right occasion, um, and the right experience that's needed. We have a lot of training that we do with our associates, um, we have a lot of the conversations with the parents. Because a lot of times when they're in they're shopping with their parents, so we want to make sure that we're just providing all the educational elements that we can so that they're buying the products that are the right products for them. I'm going to come to the audience for questions in just a second, but first of all, um, I don't know if you noticed Keisha say the magic buzzword, which is Beyonce, so I have to ask about that. Um, I know you've met Beyonce, also partnered with Beyonce and her Cowboy Carter tour. Tell me about one meeting her and to the partnership and That came about. Yeah, well, what I will say is she's just as beautiful in person as what you see on the stage, and she's a beautiful person from the inside out. She's been really engaged with the brand. That's what I see successful with the celebrity brands are those celebrities that are actually very, very engaged. This has been a long process that she's been working on building the brand and her mom's really engaged too, so it's really a family engagement. Um, the product is fantastic. It's for all hair types. Uh, the fixturing if you come into our store is on a really unique beautiful fixture, um, that's in a prominent location. Uh, it's hit the ground running. It's one of our largest hair. I do believe it is actually our largest hair makeup launch or launch that we had in the company and. You know, it's just exciting to be part of the conversation. It's so important that we are at the center of where our guests are, and that activation where we had pop-ups in local stores in the areas where the concerts were happening, it's just bringing music, her brand, our brand all together in a really authentic way, and when you can do that, it really resonates with the guests. Do you want to do more of that going forward? Yeah, I think where it makes sense, absolutely, very cool. All right, any questions from anyone out here? Up front we got one. And if you could say your name, title, and company please? Betsy Bay and Danny Herman, head of research at Phillips. We had dinner last night together, and there was a quote, and I know we don't talk about dinners, uh, they're off the record, but about not being bitter and being better, and I think the rest of the folks here might actually appreciate hearing that as well. that you're, we're breaking the rule on dinner, but it's a good one. No, it's a good one. Yeah, what, what we were talking about is like there have been times in all of our careers where we've been passed up or we didn't get that that next role when we even felt like we were ready for it. And I said that the one thing that's really true to me is I think that you can either choose to be better or you can be better, and I took this opportunity the last few years getting ready to be the CEO of Alta Beauty to really focus on being better. I really supported Dave Kimball, who was our CEO. I Learned as much as I could to prepare myself for the next role, and I think that actually allowed me to hit the ground running. If I would have been bitter, I could have left and taken a CEO job someplace else. I had plenty of opportunities, but this is the company that I wanted to be with, and I took that opportunity to be better instead of being bitter. That's a that's I love that that phrase. That's a really good one. Um, and you've had such a long career. You've been at Ulta for, for a decade, right? Target before that, and you actually had a partnership with Target, I think, probably thanks to all the relationships you built there recently you decided to part ways. Can you talk to us a bit about the lessons you learned from that and what you're taking into partnerships going forward? Yeah, well, what I will say is that I'm really proud of the work that we had done with Target and we did make a mutual decision to go in different directions. I think that's just a natural occurrence of business and you know, with me coming in as a new CEO, my responsibility is to make sure that I'm focused on the right processes and you know, investments for Ulta Beauty and our Ulta Beauty Unleashed plan, which we've talked about since day one when I hit the ground, is where I really feel that I want to focus my team, my assets, and that's where I feel like I can get the greater shareholder value in return. It's in the Alta Pia unleash plan is around 3 different pieces, uh, for those of you that maybe don't understand, it's the first one is our core business. So clearly our day in and day out business that's running 80% of our sales still come from our stores, but really working on brand building and store execution and our investments in our digital assets. Personalization is really important. That's that's driving the core business of and of itself. And then we've got margin of creative businesses that, you know, can help us continue to make more money and to continue to grow in an asset-like way. So international is one of the pillars of my margin of creative plan. Marketplace, which we just launched and officially shared today, it hit the wire that we have 100 brands that are now being sold on our online capabilities at the really seamless transaction, so marketplace is up and running, which is great. Wellness is a $400 billion category that's highly fragmented. I've got space in stores to really do this right. The guests are telling us that we have the right to to drive that business. Uh, and then UV Media, which is our retail media network, uh, we have 46 million loyalty members in our ecosystem. Now that's a clean database, so they've shopped within 12 months. That's a huge asset that we have that we can partner with our brands and really drive the business and also look at non-endemic advertising too, uh, and then you underscore that was just operation. Excellence and that's what my also beauty unleash plan is and that's what we're seeing working right now internally I talk a lot about we had to get our swagger back. I felt like we lost our swagger just a little bit and I feel like we've got our swagger back, uh, the company you can feel it internally in the company. You can see it, uh, in the interaction in our stores and. And it's great. I have one of my uh chief leaders here with me, my chief retail officer Amy Bear Thomas. It's the people that make all the difference with your team, and I feel like I have the best team in retail working with me right now. Operational excellence that's really the COO and you just shining through which I love Keisha um so I wanna end also by talking about the future um what does you know. Future consumers like Gen Alpha, what do they want that millennials, Gen Z, Gen X, all of them haven't wanted before that you're right now planning for? Well, what we're seeing with the Gen Alpha consumer is yes, they're getting their information online, but they really, really like that experience in store. They like trial, they like, uh, you know, hands on. K Beauty is really. Important to them, so Korean beauty, they're, they're very much into that. They like clean beauty. They really do want great products that uh the value, it's not necessarily just about the cost, but the value for what the benefits are. They are a very smart segment and they're going to, they have very high expectations, so we've got to make sure that we're always prepared to deliver for them. And my last one for you Keisha, I feel like beauty is such an industry that thrives on reinvention trends are constantly coming and going. How do you decide what trends are worth investing in and what you're just gonna pass on, and it's a passing thing? Well, we have a great group of merchants uh and a and a great leader leading our merchandizing teams, you know, I, I think that's where their expertise is. I I like that we have new avenues to be able to try some brands and maybe a little bit. Less risky way with bringing them into our marketplace to see if they sell well then we can always convert them onto our econ platform and then ultimately into our store but you know I think that's part of the art and science of retail and that's what makes it so fun is that you've got to look out there to find that that one that's the next one and that's what our merchants do just such a fabulous job of and I couldn't be more proud of what they do day in and day out and quickly favorite Ulta product. Oh, that's like asking me my favorite child. You can pick top three. You can take top 3. Alright, I will say, um, my, my favorite, uh, is gonna, I'm gonna start with an Ulta Beauty product. So an Ulta Beauty lip oil, we have a great, uh, Ultra Beauty lip oil. It's got a nice flavoring. So if you're one of these that talk and eat your lipstick at the same time, it's a good one. Um, I like SA ladder Advanced Night Repair. It's, uh, you can take it and it works for all skin types. It's a, it's a great one, yes, I know SA ladder up there, um, and then, you know, I'd say the other one is, um, I do like skin Iceland. I'm a big, I'm all about skin right now and know these. that you can put on your eyes and go to bed and you look a lot better in the morning, especially as much as much travel as I have. It's like a micro needling eye patch that you can put on. Don't pull it off because it will hurt, put it on and you wake up the next day and you look a little bit more ref. Alright, well, you heard it here first. Thank you so much. Thank you I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.