by Huda Kattan is back in the driver’s seat of her eponymous beauty brand – and she has a new roadmap.
After working behind the scenes for the past few years, Kattan hopes she can revitalize the business and get it on the fast track by resuming the company’s leadership role.
More from WWD
Hailed as a super influence in the 2010s, Kattan parlayed her massive Instagram following into a business once valued at $1.25 billion, with her baked goods and contouring products flying off the shelves and launching several sub-brands, including a label Wishful skin care. , Glowish makeup line and Kayali play perfume. In 2017, the company received a minority investment from private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners, which has backed brands such as Smashbox and It Cosmetics.
But various factors – including leadership changes, the pandemic, increased competition from brands such as Makeup by Mario, Charlotte Tilbury, Patrick Ta and Summer Fridays and the rise of TikTok – have hindered the business in recent years. Recently, a boycott of Huda Beauty was called for because of Kattan’s comments on the war between Israel and Hamas.
“Financially, we’ve always had a very healthy business, but in reality we started to fall [in 2021]. Our sales have dropped tremendously,” Kattan said during an interview with WWD, adding that 2022 was a very bad year.
That is now changing, according to Kattan, who returned to the role of CEO with her husband, Christopher Goncalo as co-CEO in 2021, replacing Nathalie Kristo who left the business after six months as CEO. Prior to that, Kristo was president of the company’s North American division since 2018.
Kattan declined to share sales figures, but sources told WWD that net sales were around $200 million in 2023. Retail sales are understood to have come in at around $400 million, according to sources.
WWD previously reported that sales were estimated to be around $250 million in 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively.
The overhaul of the business involved breaking down the parts that don’t fit Kattan’s all-glam brand, and rebuilding the pillars of growth, such as makeup.
Last month, for example, Kattan took to YouTube to announce that she was back as CEO. She also revealed that a new logo, redesigned packaging and new products are coming to the brand. At the same time, 40 percent of the current line is on the way out, including Glowish – a range intended to infuse makeup with skincare to give users a makeup-free look. The brand was launched in the era of COVID, when people were wearing less makeup.
These plans call for Kattan to be front and center for the brand and Goncalo to take a more hands-on operational role as co-CEO.
That’s not to say Kattan won’t be performing, though. “I’ve been amazed at how much I’ve gone into work over the last few years in really understanding how to unify an organization towards one goal,” she said, describing her previous leadership style as “ sh–ty.”
She was equally honest about the toll that the executive changes took on the business, and the tension that is created when the vision of the founder does not necessarily match the vision of an investor.
“It almost killed our business in so many ways,” she said, referring to the CEO changes. “I don’t want to say anything bad about anyone because everyone wants to be their best. And I probably mismanaged a lot of situations where people came in to do their work, maybe they didn’t understand how to bring people in properly.
“But the company was divided,” she continued. “We had one direction and we had another direction, and I was inexperienced and maybe stupid too.”
Now the brand, which started with false eyelashes, is going back to its roots. Although Kattan sported a more natural makeup look in both the YouTube video and during this interview, she told WWD that Huda will always be full of glam. “Our client is the glam social media user who loves to experiment,” she said.
As for launches, Faux Filler, Huda’s new lip gloss, will launch worldwide on Wednesday.
More new products as well as a change in fixtures and visual marketing are coming around the world this year, but at the same time many existing items are on the way out. With Glowish set to be delisted, Wishful’s fate still hangs in the balance.
“We’ve thought of different ways to keep him up, but in my heart I think it’s time to let him go. My sister Mona doesn’t want to quit,” said Kattan, referring to her sister Mona Kattan, founder of Kayali and co-founder of Huda Beauty. Her other sister, Alya Kattan, is the chief social media officer at Huda Beauty.
Retailers were not told in advance that there was such a significant change to the product range. “I don’t think anyone knew I was going to post this video,” Kattan said.
Huda Beauty’s geographic footprint could also be more focused.
“We’re reviewing some of those things,” she said when asked about deals. “It’s really a new business. Huda Beauty was a start-up. Now we say it is the resume-up. It is the rebirth. So everything is on the table.”
Then there is social media. Kattan has 4.1 million followers on Instagram, while Huda Beauty has amassed 54.1 million. On TikTok, Huda Beauty has 9.3 million followers.
Instagram is always Kattan’s favorite. “I’ll be honest, I don’t spend as much time on TikTok as I do on Instagram. My team does. I love TikTok, but the algorithm doesn’t get me.”
However, she will be expanding her presence on TikTok as she plans to share clips of her new upcoming podcast on the app. Scheduled to launch in April, there will be more to life than makeup.
“I started work in 2021, but it was not launched because when I parted with my CEO I had to work in the business,” she said. “I’m so excited now that I get the opportunity because I think the team is working in a great space.”
According to CreatorIQ, in 2023, Huda Beauty drove an average earned media value of $286.9 in the US, representing a 10 percent increase over 2022. EMV assigns a unique value to a piece of content based on the engagement this content receives from users (likes , views, shares, opinions), as well as the platform on which this content was published (Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc.), and attributes that value brands mentioned in this content.
Huda Beauty ranked third overall in EMV from CreatorIQ’s influencer-based beauty brands tracks, behind Rare Beauty and Fenty Beauty and ranked 18th in annual growth rate.
“Although they have EMV ranked high, 17 brands are growing much faster [year-over-year],” said Leah Spector, director of communications at CreatorIQ.
For example, Hailey Bieber’s beauty brand Rhode was up 248 percent year-on-year, while Summer Fridays, founded by Marianna Hewitt and Lauren Ireland, managed 109 percent growth over the same period.
After publicly expressing her support for Palestine on social media, Kattan said it affected her in both good and bad ways.
“I was very stressed during this period because it is always a complicated situation. You feel certain ways in your heart, but also it is very complicated. I really struggled with my communication channels and sometimes I wasn’t thinking about the brand when I was communicating,” she said.
“I would say it definitely affected us in negative ways, but also in positive ways. I think a lot of new people came to the brand as well. So some people were burning our pallets, some people were buying them. The long-term effect I don’t know yet.”
With all the changes over the past few years, Kattan said investors were “concerned.”
“How are we going to figure it out if we don’t have the right leadership in place?” she said. “But now I think they are very confident. I don’t know for a fact. At the end of the day, investors look at numbers and the numbers speak for themselves…..I can say that the business is becoming very healthy.”
The best of WWD
