Beauty & Wellness Briefing: What’s up with beauty’s executive musical chairs?

The beauty industry has undergone a stunning number of executive changes this year, leaving many to wonder why. 

“The amount of [executive] changes happening right now is quite stark,” Howard Meitiner, former CEO of Sephora and current managing director at Carl Marks Advisors, told Glossy. 

According to a recent report by global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, 247 CEOs exited their companies in February, which is up 11% from January and on par with the current record of 248 executive exits set in February of 2024. These are the most monthly changes tracked in more than two decades. 

“Companies appear to be reacting to the barrage of indicators suggesting the potential for difficult times ahead, including falling consumer confidence, the impact of tariffs and rising prices,” said Andrew Challenger, labor expert and svp of the firm. 

While these numbers are across industries, this macro trend has been clearly seen across beauty and wellness. Over the past few months, Glossy has tracked dozens of shifts including exec exits and hires at L’Oréal Group, Bluemercury,  Sol de Janeiro, Kering, P&G, Lancôme, Bath & Body Works, Macy’s, Shiseido, Revlon, and many more beauty companies. 

What’s more, some of beauty’s executive exits have been in groupings, such as Glossier’s announcement that it will lose CEO Kyle Leahy weeks after CMO Kleona Mack exited. There has also been a slew of exits from Ulta Beauty, including its CEO Dave Kimbell and CMO Michelle Crossan-Matos earlier this year. Paula Oyibo, Ulta Beauty’s CFO, stepped down suddenly last week after five years with the company, leading to an interim CFO appointment until a permanent replacement can be named. 

According to Challenger, 23% of new CEOs named in January and February were interim CEOs, up 8% year-over-year. 

At least some of these shifts can be traced back to troubled conglomerates that have created a ripple effect across the industry, said Barbara Guimaraes Driggers, managing director of B&G Executive Group, a recruitment company that has placed executives for Sun Bum, Smashbox and Benefit Cosmetics

“Everyone is watching what the big giants are doing,” Driggers told Glossy. She pointed to Esteé Lauder Companies as one example. 

“They started shifting all over the place [because of] declining sales, … so here’s this huge disruption,” she said. “So then we all kind of look around, and people start evaluating what they have going on because [these shifts can inspire] a self-reflection: ‘If they’re doing it, maybe we can do the same.’”

This has led many companies to downsize their exec count, often folding adjacent roles into each other to lower overhead costs and increase the speed of decision-making, Driggers said. However, she told Glossy that exiting an executive “doesn’t mean that somebody’s not great at their role, it just means they might not be the right person for today to take the brand to tomorrow.”

Several experts told Glossy that ongoing geo-political turmoil and economic uncertainty, partnered with 2024 having been an election year, means that companies must constantly be reevaluating their business model. In short, an outstanding exec hired in 2023 may no longer align with the goals of 2025 due to unavoidable shifts like tariffs, shuttering retailers or changing regulations. 

However, some changes are performance-based. “Over 50% of executives, once they get that promotion, fail within 18 months,” Driggers said. 

Growing competition in the beauty industry has also impacted hiring patterns, said Kelly Kaufman, executive recruiter at Cultivated Talent, a beauty industry recruitment firm that has placed execs at Briogeo, Jones Road and Peach & Lily. 

Because the beauty industry is so oversaturated and competition for market share is so steep right now, brands are choosing senior-level hires instead of more affordable entry-level candidates who may have looked more appealing years ago, said Kaufman. She told Glossy there has also been a sharp influx of recruiters working in beauty and wellness, which could be driving up turnover due to more hiring pathways for companies. 

However, this could be just the beginning of the shuffle. According to an October survey from Gartner Insights, more than half of U.S. C-suite leaders — defined as someone who reports to a CEO — are either likely or extremely likely to leave their current role in the next two years. 

Driggers predicts at least another six months of shifts in the beauty industry before the dust begins to settle in early 2026. However, mid- and entry-level roles could see extended shakeups since new execs will need to “hire where their shortcomings are” once in a new role, Driggers said. 

And then, of course, there will be the replacements of the replacements that didn’t fit the new bill. “It’s not always a guarantee for success that a change in your C-suite is going to result in better results,” Meitiner told Glossy. “Having said that, sometimes you just need a fresh perspective, and so change can be a catalyst for looking at all of these things.”

Executive moves:

• Paula Oyibo, Ulta Beauty’s CFO, has stepped down. Chris Lialios, svp and controller, will serve as interim CFO until a permanent replacement has been named. Oyibo has been with the retailer for more than five years including over one year as CFO. The reason for the executive’s exit has not yet been disclosed.
  
• Anna Wintour announced she will be stepping down from her 37-year run as editor-in-chief of Condé Nast’s Vogue. She will maintain her role as chief content officer of the publisher’s many titles, including Allure and Glamour. Her replacement as Vogue’s EIC has not yet been named.
  
• Zach Rieken is the new CEO of the hair-care brand Odele. Most recently, Rieken spent more than five years as CEO of Living Proof. As previously reported by Glossy, Odele launched at Target in 2020 and is backed by Stride Consumer Partners.
  
• Glossier CEO Kyle Leahy has announced her plans to step down from her role by the end of the year. She replaced founder Emily Weiss as CEO in 2022. The announcement follows the exit of former Glossier CMO Kleona Mack, who left the company for SharkNinja in May. 

News to know:

• L’oréal Group has acquired the hair-care brand Color Wow for an undisclosed amount. The line was founded in 2013 by Gail Federici, who also founded and led John Frieda until she sold it in 2002 to Kao Corporation.
  
• Unilever is acquiring Dr. Squatch for $1.5 billion. The men’s line launched in 2014 and is a top-selling natural men’s brand on the market today, according to the brand. Dr. Squatch leans into evocative marketing campaigns and sells DTC and through Amazon, Walmart and Target. The Unilever deal is with growth equity firm Summit Partners, majority owner of Dr. Squatch. Summit Partners also has investments in Uber, Shipmonk, Sezane, Quay and Hairstory. As previously reported by Glossy, Dr. Squatch has recently garnered attention for its buzzy marketing campaigns that tap into pop culture. 

• Fragrance brand Dossier, which is known for its affordable dupes of popular perfumes like Baccarat Rouge 540 and Santal 33, has opened its first brick-and-mortar store in the Manhattan neighborhood of Nolita. Dossier was founded in 2019 and expanded to Walmart in 2022. The brand’s first location is just steps from some of the top bands it dupes. 

• As previously reported by Glossy, the beauty and wellness categories continue to fold into each other. The latest example is Unilever-owned supplement brand Olly, which is known for its gummy supplements that sell through Target, Walmart and Amazon. Last week, the company entered body care with the launch of Mood + Skin, a line of vitamin-infused body-care products like soaps, serums and scrubs. 

• Skin care turned supplement line Veracity has taken on $6 million in series A funding from venture capital firms Maveron and Melitas Ventures. The company, which launched in 2020, has taken on a total of $14 million over three rounds.
  
• Kenvue, parent company to brands like Neutrogena, Aveeno and Clean & Clear, is set to lay off 69 positions from its New Jersey-based corporate team this fall, according to business filings discovered by New Jersey business publication NJBIZ. It’s part of Kenvue’s plan to trim 4% of its global workforce of about 22,000 employees, according to the publication. 

Stat of the week:

Consumer sentiment is up for the first time in six months, according to the University of Michigan’s June survey of consumers. According to the group, “Consumer sentiment surged 16% from May in its first increase in six months, confirming the mid-month reading, but remains well below the post-election bounce seen in December 2024.”

In the headlines:

Novo Nordisk to expand access to Wegovy with WeightWatchers partnership. Givaudan to acquire Brazilian fragrance supplier Vollmens. Brands are drumming up tactics to boost consumer sentiment during a fraught summer. How employment is projected to transform during the AI era.

Listen in: 

Influencer turned brand founder Siffat “Siff” Haider joins the Glossy Beauty Podcast to discuss her strategy behind forecasting wellness trends before they hit big. Plus Glossy’s beauty team unpacks the news of the week including Unilever’s acquisition of Dr. Squatch and Dossier’s first brick-and-mortar location. 

Need a Glossy recap? 

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