She may only be three months into the top job at Ulta Beauty, but chief executive officer Kecia Steelman is quickly garnering a reputation in the industry as a fast, intentional and strategic decision maker, who has wasted no time making her mark on the retailer.
Already, she has made sweeping changes to the C-suite including naming a new chief marketing officer, unveiled a strategy called Ulta Beauty Unleashed, brokered a licensing deal to expand the company into the Middle East and is deep into negotiations for what the next phase of the partnership with Target Corp. will look like.
In between all this, the former chief operations officer and president has not lost sight of the importance of being boots-on-the-ground.
Today, she’s in San Francisco, where she’s briefly touched down for a board meeting for The Bay Club, before hopping over to neighboring state Arizona to visit some Ulta Beauty stores in Scottsdale.
“I’ve always said the answers are out there in the stores,” said soft-spoken Steelman, who took the reins from Dave Kimbell in January. “I always take the opportunity to visit. The top thing that I get to do is to pop into stores and see how things are going and check in on the teams. When you want to really understand where we have opportunities, where we can get better, go spend a day out in stores.”
For Steelman, retail is in her bones. She began her career in operations at Target Corp. in the ’90s, then moved to Home Depot and Family Dollar Stores. She views Ulta Beauty’s army of associates as key to her plan to reinvigorate growth at the retailer, which is facing unprecedented levels of competition from the likes of Amazon, Sephora and others.
Indeed, Ulta Beauty lost market share for the first time in 2024 with net sales decreasing 1.9 percent to $3.5 billion in its fourth quarter, while it delivered worse than expected earnings guidance for 2025.
Steelman is confident in her strategy, though, which includes launching an invite-only marketplace and taking the company international for the first time. Later this year, Ulta will debut in Mexico through a joint venture with Axo, before arriving in the Middle East via a licensing agreement with Alshaya Group.
Asked if it feels different touring stores as CEO versus chief operations officer, Steelman says it doesn’t.
“I’ve always had such a great connection, and it’s truly authentic,” she said. “That’s really not changed since I’ve become the CEO. The store associates on the front line represent our brand. They’re everything to our company. They get even more excited to see the CEO out there. But me, myself, I feel the same”
You have extensive store experience from the very beginning of your career. How has this informed your thinking as you rose through the ranks?
Kecia Steelman: When you start on the front line in retail, you have a really deep understanding of the consumer and consumer engagement, and you also have a better appreciation for what those associates are experiencing in the store. I’ve been blessed to have had many levels of leadership on the store side and also within the corporate office. It was great training ground for me as the CEO, because you have a true understanding and appreciation for the role everyone makes in making this company what it is today.
Why did you choose the operational side to begin with?
K.S.: It chose me, to be honest. I started working in the stores, and I was naturally really good at it. I like to be someone who’s very focused on controlling what I can control in an operations-type environment. That’s pretty well suited to my personality and my skill set. I really love that every day is very different in the operations side. It’s a lot like sports. You can be a winner one day and the next day you can lose the game, and it’s always on. You’ve got to always put your best foot forward and always be playing offense.
The operational side is traditionally more male dominated. How was it rising up the ranks as a woman?
K.S.: It was very tough, to be honest. I was often the only woman in the room and in a lot of the meetings. I made a lot of sacrifices. I missed a lot of time with my children, because I was a young mother and raising my children. I feel very blessed that I’m in a position where I have the ability to create a very different environment today for our female associates who are working for us. Some quick statistics that make this so special, and what I want to always protect at Ulta Beauty, is that we’ve got 91 percent women working for us. Out of 58,000 associates, we’ve created 22,000 jobs since 2015 and we’ve elevated 6,000 women into management positions. All the sacrifices that I made early on and growing up through those ranks and being one of the only ones has really prepared me to make a big difference in the world of business today. A mind-blowing fact is that only 2 percent of Fortune 500 companies have a female CEO and a female CFO, and Ulta Beauty is one of them. I could not be more proud of that.
You’ve been at some of the biggest retailers in the U.S. over the course of your career. What are some of your key takeaways?
K.S.: With Target, I learned early on the value of building very diverse teams around you that were better than yourself at different skill sets. I learned more from the people who worked for me than I probably did even from the people I worked for. At Home Depot, I brushed up on my business and financial acumen, because I was a VP, GM at that time, so I was running a P&L. And at Family Dollar, there was explosive growth in the dollar store segment when I was working there, and understanding how you lead through large growth cycles of stores, in addition to really lean margins and profitability in the dollar sector, was instrumental.
At what stage in your career was Home Depot, because everyone says it’s so important to get that P&L experience as a woman in business early on?
K.S.: I was in my early 30s when I was getting that experience, and relatively early on. I feel very blessed to have had that experience and that exposure.
A lot of people in the beauty industry describe you as fast when it comes to getting things done. What are the most pressing priorities at Ulta Beauty?
K.S.: I’m fast, but intentional. Fast with intention is what you need to keep up with the pace of change in beauty and be a formidable competitor out there today. I also believe in having really transparent and direct communication and making sure that we are leaning into our strengths. There are three key areas that I’m focused on. The first one is driving the core business. The second is scaling new and creative businesses, so highly profitable businesses that can help continue to leverage and add profitability to Ulta Beauty. The last is continuing to align and lean into our foundation for our future.
We are a very financially stable company that’s able to continue to invest in our company to keep it relevant, and make sure that we are the place that everyone wants to go for beauty. A lot of competition is trying to play in beauty, because beauty has been such a great category in the last few years. But what I would say is, this is what we do. Beauty and wellness is what Ulta Beauty does. This is our sweet spot. This is our core strength, and this is why we belong being one of the top retailers.
In the most recent earnings call, you noted that Ulta has gone through a slowdown. What would you attribute that to and what do you think needs to happen to reaccelerate growth?
K.S.: Any company can go through a cycle and a plateau. We’ve come off of numerous years of very strong growth, and for us, it’s leaning into our core business functions and controlling what we can control. I’ve been doubling down on that. There are external factors that, of course, could be impacting the world of beauty, but there are also things that we can lean into to make what we’re doing even better for the future. I don’t spend a lot of time focused on the things that I can’t control. I try to keep the team and myself very focused on the key attributes that are going to make Ulta Beauty successful, not only for the short term, but also for the long term.
You’ve been building out the C-suite. Everyone is desperate to know who the chief merchandising officer is. Have you got any update on timing for that?
K.S.: I’m very excited to be able to share very soon, and I know everybody’s chomping at the bit knowing who we’re putting in that role, but it’s a big position, especially now that I put digital with it. We are going after a top-tier candidate, and I believe that’s what we’re going to land with: somebody who is really going to be fantastic for Ulta Beauty and also for beauty as a whole. [On Thursday, after press time, Ulta Beauty named Lauren Brindley chief marketing and digital officer.]
So Monica Arnaudo, Ulta’s outgoing chief merchandising officer, didn’t have digital in her remit?
K.S.: We previously had digital with marketing. When Michelle [Crossan-Matos, Ulta Beauty’s former chief marketing officer] left, I made the transition to keep marketing pure marketing, and because we’re looking at the omnichannel guest in a 360 approach, I put digital and merchandising together. Right now, while Monica is still in the role, Monica is leading digital and merchandising, and the new chief will be leading both digital and merchandising going forward.
On exclusives, Ulta Beauty scored a few great ones recently, including Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s Cécred. Why is this an important piece of the strategy and what brand stage is your sweet spot?
K.S.: Exclusives are really important, because it further differentiates us as a brand. But I would also say emerging brands are very important. I call them the three E’s. So it’s exclusive, emerging brands and established brands. We’ve got brands like MAC and Clinique that are really important to us as a company, so it’s not just our focus on exclusives. When we’re looking at the pipeline for 2025, we’re excited about what we’re seeing for newness, because newness is very important to us. About 20 percent to 30 percent of our sales come from newness, so that’s where we’re continuing to lean into.
When you are talking to brands about bringing things in, especially exclusives, what do you think Ulta can offer them that competitors can’t?
K.S.: The number of points of presence that we have now that we’re also expanding globally, which I’m very excited about. Our launch into Mexico, into the Middle East. The fact we have services in the majority of almost all of our stores. That service component really brings the theater to life in a true, authentic way. We’re very excited about doing that with Beyoncé’s brand Cécred. We’re going to do an activation like you’ve never seen before at Ulta Beauty. Our assortment is unparalleled. So that’s a reason that you would want to come join the Ulta Beauty organization as a brand. We have the ability to also convert guests into your brand, because we do carry across all those price points. If you were a prestige brand and you’d like to get a new consumer, I’ve got a consumer that’s coming in already purchasing mass, and we can quickly transition them into a higher price point category.
On the partnership between Ulta Beauty and Target, there are some reports that sales are slowing and that contract is due to end this year. Do you have any update on that?
K.S.: Guests love Ulta Beauty and Target together, and we keep our guests at the core of all of our decisions that we make. Our focus is on how we make the concept even more desirable and become even better for the guests in the future.
But you don’t know yet if the contract will be renewed?
K.S.: We’re in contract negotiations right now.
Moving on to international expansion, you have Mexico and the Middle East. Could you talk about the plans for each of those regions?
K.S.: We’re getting ready to launch in the back half of 2025 for Mexico, and it will probably be in the later half of the year for the Middle East. For Mexico, it’s a joint venture with Axo. We’re very excited about our partnership. The teams are working very well together. We believe we can get 10 stores open in a pretty short period of time. We are aggressively looking at real estate locations, and the teams are just doing a fantastic job. That’s one thing I believe Axo brings to the table is their deep knowledge of running retail in Mexico. And the consumer is super excited about that. In regards to the Middle East, that’s actually a licensed agreement that we’re doing with Alshaya Group. We’ve talked to Alshaya Group for quite some time, and feel like they’re a fantastic partner for us to bring our brand to life in the Middle East.
Are you open to both types of options going forward?
K.S.: Yes. What we’re focused on is having the right partnership, and we’d like to have a partner. What we’re looking at is partners that can bring Ulta Beauty maybe into more than one country so we don’t have 50 partners out there. We have a smaller handful of key strategic partners to bring the brand to life. But we’re looking at different countries. What’s the right option for us to be able to expand in a more asset-light way, and to be able to expand pretty quickly?
So it’s fair to say globalization is important for Ulta Beauty right now?
K.S.: Important, but we will never take our eyes off the U.S. business. The U.S. business is the number-one importance for us at Ulta Beauty.
Why are you launching a marketplace?
K.S.: We’re running a closed marketplace. You have to be invited in. We have to make sure that you’re going to be representing the Ulta Beauty brand. We’re looking at adjacent beauty categories really leaning into wellness, and we feel it’s another way to extend our brand and reach that beauty consumer in the right way. I will also be watching it very closely, because there could be items that take off in the marketplace that we would have never guessed, that we want to bring into our core assortment.
Will the invite-only component help guard against kind of unauthorized distribution?
K.S.: Yes, absolutely. That’s very, very important to us.
Wellness is obviously a big part of your strategy. How do you plan to move the offering forward?
K.S.: You’re going to see us continuing to expand the assortment in store and online. We’re also going to be leaning into training and education with our associate base. Wellness is a category that can sometimes be a little tricky to navigate, and sometimes it’s a very personal category, so you don’t know who to go to ask the questions of what products you should be using. We feel that our associates being so accessible and so approachable and being viewed as the experts, that this can really be a place where the consumer can come and ask those tough questions and we can help them with all of their personal needs.
Wellness can mean so many things. What do you think it means for a beauty retailer like you?
K.S.: I look at categories like sexual wellness, personal care, nutrition, sleep. When you feel good on the inside, it reflects on the outside. It’s how you can help the guest be their very best version of themselves. That’s what I call wellness, anything that surrounds them and their way of life that can improve their quality of life and how they feel.
You’re one of a handful of female CEOs and Fortune 500 having risen through the ranks; how do you think all companies can and should more effectively nurture female talent?
K.S.: We’ve got to continue to create opportunities for more women to have a seat at the table to start, and then you need to create environments where they feel like they belong and that they have upward opportunities. One of the beautiful things I’m able to do here is pay it forward, because people paid it forward for me. One of the top priorities I have in this job is creating opportunities for so many other women. There’s still a lot of work to do.
I want to continue to make sure that I’m vocal, I’m vulnerable. I share my story with others. If I could do it, they can do it too, and we talk a lot about that at Ulta Beauty.
What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re in a store?
K.S.: Talk to the associates and ask open-ended questions of what we can do better for them, and then close the loop with them and let them know what we’re doing. Because when they feel like they matter and their voice matters, it makes all the difference in the world. We’re only as successful as our teams out there representing our brand.
Have you ever gone in disguise as a customer, because everyone must know who you are?
K.S.: I’ve tried, because there’s been times where I didn’t want them to know because I didn’t have makeup on and they still spot me!
What is your leadership style?
K.S.: I’m definitely a people-first leader. The sign of a good leader is when they oftentimes take a step back and they let their team have the center stage. I really try to do that with my team. They are top-notch leaders. They’ve got to be very good at what they do. They’ve got to have deep functional expertise, be highly collaborative with each other, and they have to play well with others on the team with an enterprise mindset. When you have all of that going in, all of your leaders at the top, it filters through the entire organization.