Huda Kattan is back in the motive force’s seat of her eponymous beauty brand — and he or she’s got a recent roadmap.

After working behind the scenes for the past couple of years, Kattan is hoping that by resuming the corporate’s top leadership role she will rev up the business and put it back on the fast track.

Hailed as an excellent influencer within the 2010s, Kattan built her huge Instagram following into what was once valued as a $1.25 billion business, along with her baking and contouring products flying off the shelves and resulting in the launch of several subbrands, including skincare label Wishful, makeup line Glowish and fragrance play Kayali. In 2017, the corporate received a minority investment from private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners, which has backed brands like Smashbox and It Cosmetics.

But multiple aspects— including leadership changes, the pandemic, increased competition from brands similar to Makeup by Mario, Charlotte Tilbury, Patrick Ta and Summer Fridays and the rise of TikTok— have hampered the business in recent times. Most recently, Kattan’s comments on the Israel-Hamas war led to calls for a boycott of Huda Beauty.

“Financially, we all the time had a really sound business, but we actually began to fall [in 2021]. Our sales dipped tremendously,” Kattan said during an interview with WWD, adding that 2022 was a very bad 12 months. 

That’s now changing, based on Kattan, who stepped back into the CEO role along with her husband, Christopher Goncalo as co-CEO in 2021, replacing Nathalie Kristo who left the business after just six months as CEO. Previously, Kristo was the president of the corporate’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 are available around $400 million, based on sources.

WWD previously reported that sales were estimated to be roughly $250 million in 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively.

Restoring the business entailed breaking down the parts that aren’t in keeping with Kattan’s full-glam brand, and rebuilding the pillars of growth, similar to makeup.

Last month, for instance, Kattan took to YouTube to announce she was back as CEO. She also revealed that a recent logo, redesigned packaging and recent products are coming to the brand. At the identical time, 40 percent of the present lineup is on its way out, including Glowish — a variety meant to infuse makeup with skincare to present users a no-makeup makeup look. The brand was a COVID-era launch, when people were wearing less makeup.

These plans call for Kattan to be front and center of the brand and Goncalo to tackle a more behind-the-scenes operational role as co-CEO.

That’s to not say Kattan won’t be operational, though. “I surprised myself how much I became operational the last couple of years in really understanding tips on how to unite a corporation towards one goal,” she said, describing her previous leadership style as “sh–ty.”

She was equally as candid concerning the toll the manager changes took on the business, and the strain created when a founder’s vision doesn’t necessarily align with that of an investor.

“It really did almost kill our business in so some ways,” she said, referring to the CEO changes. “I don’t ever wish to say anything bad about anyone because everyone shows up attempting to be their best. And I probably mismanaged many situations when people got here in to do their job, just perhaps not understanding tips on how to properly bring people on.

“But the corporate was divided,” she continued. “We had one direction and we had one other direction, and I used to be just inexperienced and perhaps silly as well.” 

Now the brand, which began with false eyelashes, goes back to its roots. While Kattan was sporting a more natural makeup look in each the YouTube video and through this interview, she told WWD that Huda will all the time be full glam. “Our client is the glam social media user who likes to experiment,” she said.

By way of launches, first up is Faux Filler, Huda’s recent lip gloss, launching globally Wednesday. 

More recent products plus a change in fixtures and visual merchandising are coming this 12 months across the board, but at the identical time many existing items are on their way out. And as Glowish is about to be delisted, Wishful’s fate still hangs within the balance.

“We’ve considered other ways to stick with it, but in my heart I feel prefer it’s time to let go of it. My sister Mona doesn’t wish to let go of it,” said Kattan, referring to her sister Mona Kattan, founding father of Kayali. Their other sister, Alya Kattan, is chief social media officer at Huda Beauty.

Retailers weren’t told prematurely that the product assortment was undergoing such a major shift. “I don’t think anybody knew that I used to be going to post this video,” Kattan said.

Huda Beauty’s geographical footprint could also grow to be more focused, too.

“We’re reviewing a few of those things,” she said when asked about markets. “It truly is a recent business. Huda Beauty was a start-up. Now we are saying it’s the restart-up. It’s the rebirth. So all the pieces is on the table.”

Then there’s 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 will all the time be Kattan’s personal favorite. “I’ll be honest, I don’t spend as much time on TikTok as I do Instagram. My team does. I do love TikTok, however the algorithm doesn’t have me discovered.”

But nonetheless, she shall be expanding her presence on TikTok as she plans to share clips of her recent upcoming podcast on the app. It’s scheduled to launch in April, and shall be more about life than makeup.

“I began the work in 2021, however it didn’t launch because once I parted ways with my CEO I had to simply delve into the business,” she said. “I’m so excited now I finally get the chance because I feel just like the team is working in a very great space.” 

Based on CreatorIQ, in 2023, Huda Beauty drove $286.9 earned media value within the U.S., marking a ten percent increase over 2022. EMV assigns a singular value to a chunk of content based on engagement that this content receives from users (likes, comments, shares, views), in addition to the platform that this content was published on (Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc.), and attributes that value to brands mentioned on this content.

Huda Beauty ranked third in total EMV out of influencer-founded beauty brands CreatorIQ tracks, behind Rare Beauty and Fenty Beauty and ranked 18th in annual growth rate. 

“While they maintain a high-ranking EMV, 17 brands are growing much faster [year-over-year],” said Leah Spector, director of communications at CreatorIQ.

Hailey Bieber’s beauty brand Rhode, for instance, was up 248 percent year-over-year, and Summer Fridays, founded by Marianna Hewitt and Lauren Ireland, enjoyed 109 percent growth over the identical period.

On publicly voicing her support for Palestine via social media, Kattan said it has impacted her in good and bad ways.

“I used to be extremely stressed during this era since it’s all the time a tough situation. You are feeling certain ways in your heart, but additionally it’s very complicated. I actually struggled on my ways of communicating and sometimes I used to be really just not fascinated with the brand once I was communicating,” she said.

“I might say it definitely impacted us in some negative ways, but additionally in some positive ways. I feel a number of recent people got here to the brand too. So some people were burning our palettes, some people were buying them. The long-term effect I don’t know yet.”

With all of the changes over the past couple of years, investors, Kattan said, had been “nervous.”

“How are we going to figure it out if we don’t have the best leadership in place?” she said. “But I feel now they’re very confident. I don’t know for a fact. At the top of the day, investors take a look at numbers and numbers speak for themselves…..I can say the business is becoming very healthy.”