Ulta Beauty CEO Kecia Steelman didn’t fall into the retail business; she was born for it. Growing up in the small town of Mediapolis, Iowa, she opened her first retail location in her family’s basement at age 7. She set up a merchandised area on the concrete floor, with nothing more than a remnant of carpet as decor, reselling products from her mom’s and sister’s vanities. Aqua Net hairspray was a bestseller. “When I'd take it from my mom, I'd be selling the Aqua Net as fast as she would buy it,” Steelman recounted to BeautyMatter with a smile on her face. “Early on, I realized [that] I love this ability to have people want to come to a place to be able to shop and have that experience, and you could make some money. That goes to show that retail is in my blood.”
She’s proven that over the course of a decades-long career, as most strongly evidenced by guiding Ulta Beauty from challenging terrain to inspiring rebound (and continuing growth from there on out) in a matter of months. Faced with the challenge of the retailer’s first slowdown, a decline in market share, and stock prices falling by 15% in Q4 2024, the then-newly appointed CEO managed to increase net sales by 4.5% by the next quarter. For its most recent Q2 2026 fiscal results, the retailer reported its net sales climbed to $3 billion, gross profit grew by 8.7%, and diluted earnings per share increased 13.3%.
Steelman knows how to deliver results fast, driven by a Midwestern work ethic of humility, tenacity, and teamwork. It’s an approach she sharpened early on in life, both for personal and professional reasons. “I feel like I'm wise beyond my years because I had to grow up really fast and had to figure it out. There was no one who was going to bail me out. I had to do it myself,” she said. That growth is most evident in her journey from being a single mother living in government housing, making $8 an hour at Target, to becoming the CEO of the largest beauty retailer in the US today.
As a small-town girl, Steelman knows, perhaps better than anyone, the powerful uplift that beauty can provide. She noted an affinity for style and beauty from a young age, shaped by flipping through clothing catalogs and secretly applying makeup (and then removing it) on her way to and from school.
Given her humble beginnings and ambition for more, it’s clear why Ulta Beauty is such a great fit for Steelman. Launched in 1990 with five stores in the Chicago suburbs and headquartered in Bolingbrook, Illinois, the enterprise has never forgotten its roots—even as it now operates over 1,500 locations. A home for every category and price point, offering more than just products, Ulta Beauty is a destination for treatments, expert advice, and community, both online and off.
There is a friendly, unpretentious air of hospitality in every store. A sense that anyone, whether they are a high-end shopper or bargain hunter, is welcome to bathe in the multifaceted glory of beauty. “What I'm so proud of with Ulta Beauty is that we're across the United States in all demographic areas. Beauty is boundless; it's not just people who are in New York and LA,” Steelman said.
That boundless nature is perhaps best captured in her own journey. “Life has had a lot of ups and downs, both personally and professionally. But I wouldn't change anything because I call them character-building moments. They are what made me who I am today,” she said.
Starting as a salesperson at Target at age 20, Steelman rose through the ranks to Assistant Store Manager before becoming Vice President, General Manager at The Home Depot and later Group Vice President at Family Dollar.
Her experience at big-box and discount variety stores provided her with invaluable lessons: At Target, she learned to take every opportunity, even if it was a lateral move, to continue to grow. At Home Depot, the lesson she learned was understanding all the mechanics of running a business. At Family Dollar, she learned the importance of the culture the store was creating, making the store the best place it could be to take care of the guest, and becoming part of the community by placing the store within walking distance of associates’ homes.
Steelman also picked up the “prepare hard to finish easy” mantra along the way, an approach she has continued to lean on and impart to her team members to this day. She recognizes the importance of pushing herself outside of her comfort zone. One of the most challenging times was taking on her role at The Home Depot and its now-defunct subsidiary Expo Design Centers in 2005. It was a full P&L business with about a billion dollars in revenue—a big leap from being Assistant Store Manager at Target.
“I wasn't the traditional Home Depot executive. That's where I learned the value of really hiring great people around you. I remember sitting in my office with my CFO [Carol Tomé] who challenged me on the numbers so I could learn,” she recalled. Learning on the job as an outsider coming into the business created a stage for Steelman to prove her chops, and while intimidating, it helped her gain confidence. “It was a tough environment, but it made me a much stronger leader today,” she added.
The CEO describes her leadership style as people first and continuing to evolve. “I'm not afraid of making a wrong decision because if I do and we're moving forward, I can always move in a different direction versus getting stuck and not moving,” Steelman said. Her background in operations made her a decisive and quick thinker in real time. Today she is still steadfast in her professional decisions, but only after she has done her research and heard others’ opinions.
Those others today are the executive team Steelman has built out over the last year and a half. That included hiring former Revolution Beauty CEO Lauren Brindley as Chief Merchandising and Digital Officer and former Johnson & Johnson executive Christopher DelOrefice as Chief Financial Officer. Not to mention internal promotions like Kristin Wolf to the new role of Chief Strategy and Growth Officer. “To now have the leaders around me that I feel we can supercharge, move forward, and drive this business is really exciting to me,” Steelman remarked. “It’s going to be viewed as fast-moving again next year, but we've got a really good internal plan that's in place.”
While Steelman can’t disclose what those moves will be, she is excited about the future avenues Ulta Beauty is investing in. Part of that expansion is wellness, which will continue to accelerate in part thanks to the Wellness by Ulta Beauty shop-in-shop experience rolled out in January 2026.
She added that Ulta Beauty Marketplace, an invite-only extension of Ulta Beauty’s e-commerce platform launched that same month, has been fantastic (the platform currently hosts 450+ brands and 12,000 SKUs). Adding to the retailer’s presence in the e-commerce sphere, in March 2026, Ulta Beauty became the first beauty retailer to launch with an official storefront on TikTok.
Steelman was right there on the front line, live-selling a bundle of her favorite products from the Ulta Beauty assortment. It’s indicative of how involved the CEO is in every level of the company. Steelman isn’t ruling with an iron fist from an ivory tower; instead, she has an encouraging heart-to-heart on the Ulta Beauty shop floor.
Steelman is hands-on, regularly visiting stores to meet with local beauty advisors. The visits re-energize her, but they also give the real-time feedback she can act on, reinforcing that voices from the sales floor carry as much weight as those in the C-suite. “I've always kept that in the back of my mind: We've got to explain why we do things, how it impacts them, what we need from them as an associate. They're some of the most important people in the company,” Steelman explained. “When I go into a store, the guest doesn't care who I am. They care who is taking care of them at the register and on the sales floor.”
During these visits, Steelman also spots and encourages future talent. “I remember this associate in Arizona. I can tell somebody has that ‘it factor.’ I told her, ‘I see the spark in you; I know you can do more,’” she recalled. After returning a few years later, the associate had opened her own store and was running a multimillion-dollar business. “That is my best day at work when I see something like that happen,” Steelman said. It’s not just single employees but thousands of women in the Ulta Beauty workforce that have been encouraged to dream boldly. Over the last few years, Ulta Beauty created 6,000 management jobs for its 91% female workforce.
“As a CEO, if I'm removing obstacles and keeping our associates on the [sales]floor engaging with the guests, and they have the right products to sell, we're focused on the right things,” Steelman added. “I've walked in their shoes and know how hard that job is. I have the utmost respect for every single person that's working in our enterprise because I've done many of those jobs myself.”
Steelman's vision for collective success has driven Ulta Beauty into new territories. The company expanded into Mexico with Grupo Axo in August 2025, opening 13 stores in only one year. It entered the Middle East with Alshaya Group, beginning with a 15,000-square-foot store at The Avenues in Kuwait in March 2026. The retailer arrived in the UK market through a SpaceNK acquisition from Manzanita Capital in July 2025.
“I'm really proud of the fact that we've shown that we can grow in three different ways— from a joint venture to a franchise model to an acquisition. We're building that muscle right now.” Steelman explained.
She emphasized the importance of cultural alignment between business partners. The SpaceNK acquisition was an opportunity for both companies to learn from one another, rather than trying to turn SpaceNK into Ulta Beauty 2.0. SpaceNK brought their brand curation, in-store storytelling, and branding to the table; Ulta Beauty assisted with back-end operations and efficiencies.
She praised the “fantastic team” at Grupo Axo. “We had to learn together because we are the first big multibranded retailer they did [business with]; it’s so complex,” she said. Steelman describes the Mexican market as having many similarities to its US counterpart, and she is happy with Ulta Beauty’s progress in the country.
As for the Middle East, she sees the trust in Alshaya Group as essential to navigating the region’s current conflicts. “I couldn't be more proud of how we've all stepped up. This is where company culture and the lines of communication are important. We're in this together,” she explained.
Traits that Steelman looks for in a prospective business partner are valuing and appreciating diversity, being a female-friendly organization, and brand storytelling. “If you go into a different country and it doesn't look like an Ulta Beauty, that's not good for our brand. Knowing that brand integrity and respect is very important,” she said.
Steelman isn’t afraid to make moves, and it shows. As if international expansion weren’t enough of an undertaking, the CEO is also investing heavily in Ulta Beauty’s stateside operations.
On the online front, Ulta Beauty is leveraging AI to help improve its shopping experience and brand curation. As of April 2026, it integrated its online platform directly into Google’s Gemini AI ecosystem, plus launched a proprietary AI shopping assistant that leverages loyalty data for hyper-personalized recommendations. Although 95% of Ulta Beauty e-shoppers are loyalty members, that personalization isn’t just of benefit for existing customers.
“As we continue to get sharper and learn how that customer is shopping, we could potentially get new guests coming in that maybe would never even think about Ulta Beauty,” Steelman explained, emphasizing especially the younger male consumer in the fragrance and skincare category. “It's going to open up all kinds of doors for us to continue to grow,” she added.
To accommodate its growing audience, Ulta Beauty has brought in new brands, from legacy players like MAC Cosmetics to viral successes like Medicube and Rare Beauty. In March 2026 alone, the retailer introduced 13 Korean haircare brands. Steelman commended the work of Lauren Brindley and Ulta Beauty’s merchants in planning not only the initial but also the long-term opportunities for new brands to be successful parts of the Ulta Beauty roster.
Those avenues for success have expanded over the years. For example, a newer brand can be brought in through Ulta Beauty Marketplace, and, after some time, expanded to the in-store and regular online assortment. The MUSE Accelerator (launched in 2022) and Sparked at Ulta Beauty (launched in 2019) programs are two additional ways for brands to enter the Ulta Beauty world. Muse Accelerator is a retail-readiness program offered to eight early-stage beauty brands each year, complete with industry mentorship and $50,000 in funding. Sparked at Ulta Beauty supports selected emerging brands through online and in-store promotion.
When it comes to curating the brand assortment, it’s about intentionality. “We often look for whitespace opportunities. Lauren taught me that just because you have a brand that you haven't carried in the past, if it's going to cannibalize another brand, it might not be what you need to be bringing into your assortment,” Steelman added.
The retailer is still looking for those whitespace opportunities, based on the Ulta Beauty Unleashed strategy. This strategy debuted three months into Steelman’s tenure and is based on the pillars of drive, scale, and align. The drive relates to Ulta Beauty’s core business growth and the acceleration of its beauty leadership, as evidenced by double-digit growth and a new C-suite team. The scale pertains to new, accretive businesses to drive disruptive growth. Lastly, align is about building a foundation for success by fortifying the company’s cost structure, operating model, and culture.
“If you just had one aspect of it working but not the others, it wouldn't be as powerful of an unlock as it is performing today. It's this big engine. We did some fine-tuning, and seeing it working has been great and a lot of fun along the way,” Steelman said. The fine-tuning focused on exclusivity and newness in Ulta Beauty’s assortment, as well as on ensuring ROI for brand partners with UB Media (Ulta Beauty’s official retail media network) and Ulta Beauty Marketplace. Whereas last year’s focus was on driving top-line revenue and market share, this year’s focus also included driving greater bottom-line profitability.
With new marketplaces, both online and offline, continued growth, and an exciting new assortment, Steelman’s time as CEO of Ulta Beauty has brought an invigorating and rewarding wave of change.
Speaking on what she hopes her legacy will be, she explained: “My job as CEO is that I'm leasing the chair. I don't own it. I want to make sure that I leave Ulta Beauty in an even better place than when I stepped in and that I've made a difference with many people in and outside of the organization.”
She takes huge responsibility and feels personally invested in the success of the brands at Ulta Beauty, doing her best to build trust, drive future growth, and deliver a strong return on the brand’s investment. For Ulta Beauty’s associates, she wants to create jobs that are meaningful to them, provide a long career journey, and allow them to comfortably provide for themselves and for their families.
What shines through is Steelman’s passion for helping others succeed. Her advice to other aspiring CEOs is to continue learning as much as they can, be open to all opportunities, challenge themselves to stay out of their comfort zone, and make sure they are having fun while they do it. In the short span of 1.5 years, Steelman has been a living testament to those convictions.
“To be able to lean in as the CEO, be my authentic self, and show my passion for not only the people that work at Ulta Beauty, but also the industry itself—for that to be recognized means so much,” she said.
As someone whose dreams began with little more than a borrowed bottle of Aqua Net hairspray, Steelman shows that thinking big and boundless, while never forgetting those traveling alongside you, can lead to extraordinary outcomes.
