Huda Kattan is one of the world’s most influential beauty experts and entrepreneurs, and with so much under her belt already, including a beauty line, a skincare line, and fragrances amongst other major investments. With so much on her plate, Kattan has appointed Nathalie Kristo as the CEO of Huda Beauty.
“When I started my beauty blog in 2010, never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I would end up owning one of the world’s fastest-growing beauty companies. As we continue to evolve and expand, our goals continue to grow, and in the future we see Huda Beauty being one of the biggest beauty companies in the world, both in social impact and in business,” Kattan explained. “To do this, we are doubling down on focus and leadership, which is why I am proud to announce our new CEO, Nathalie Kristo.”
Huda’s story speaks volumes. The proud daughter of Iraqi immigrants in the US has had humble beginnings before following her true passion and becoming a makeup artist in 2009. Kattan quickly garnered a loyal army of clients and launched a beauty blog in 2010 that has since grown into one of the world's fastest-growing beauty companies. With the industry's largest social community of over 60 million followers and employing over 250 people worldwide, the beauty empire Huda Kattan and her family have built, is valued at $1.2 billion.
Her decision to appoint a global CEO for Huda Beauty comes as the business continues to grow and evolve rapidly and Kattan’s recognition of the value of focusing on her true passions and where the company needs her most. Therefore, Huda will continue to be the visionary behind creating product & social media content and has appointed Nathalie Kristo as CEO of Huda Beauty.
The savvy businesswoman also stated, “I never wanted to be CEO!” she said. “I was enjoying creating products, producing content, and I thought I would do this for free for the rest of my life,” and went on to explain what responsibilities her success bought with it. “When our company started to make money, I realized I had a big responsibility to not only support my family and our Huda Beauty family of team members, but to also create product with purpose.”
Recognizing that she had many roles to fill within her own empire and what made her happy, Huda also spoke about the process she had to go through in order to be able to appoint a new CEO, she said, “Out of necessity, I quickly shifted into the CEO role and found I had to sacrifice being involved with some areas of the business I enjoyed the most, which left me feeling unfulfilled. As the social media and beauty worlds became intertwined, I realized the opportunity for growth and also that I needed focus and support. After nearly a year of searching for a CEO, we were thrilled to meet Nathalie and to see how we could combine her wealth of knowledge and experience with the scrappiness and magic of Huda Beauty. With Nathalie on board, I feel like the sky is truly the limit.”
With the addition of Nathalie to the Huda Beauty family as CEO, Huda will remain Founder and Chairwoman and says, “I’m not going anywhere! In some ways I will be more involved than ever before, but in areas where my attention can leave a lasting impact on our community.”
