Ulta Beauty Unleashed: Kecia Steelman's blueprint for durable growth
New year, same focus. Ulta Beauty's president and CEO, Kecia Steelman, is pushing forward on a clear, three-part plan that's already showing results. Her message at NRF's Big Show was simple: alignment across the business, precision on margins, and an engine built for scale.
The three priorities driving Ulta's next chapter
- Fortify the core U.S. business: Keep stores strong, sharpen the brand matrix, and push omnichannel experiences that remove friction.
- Grow margin-creating businesses: Expand exclusives, test-and-learn through the marketplace model, and lean into high-velocity categories like wellness.
- Realign the foundation for growth: Tighten operations, connect data across the journey, and make the strategy understood from "the backroom to the boardroom."
Steelman's background on the sales floor shapes how she leads. "When you walk a mile in someone else's footprint, you have a true appreciation for the job they do," she said. That frontline empathy is now part of how Ulta builds, measures, and celebrates progress.
Personalization over promotion: AI as a retail muscle
Ulta's stance is clear: move from one-to-many marketing to one-to-one engagement. Steelman called out the role of data, AI, and generative AI to predict needs, not just respond to them. "We're as much of a retailer as we are a data-driven company," she noted.
Even with digital growth, 80% of sales still come from stores. The job is to connect channels so the guest never feels the seam-and to make every touchpoint personal, fast, and useful.
Wellness is a growth lane, not a trade-off
Ulta is leaning into wellness because it's outpacing beauty and complements existing baskets. "If you're buying the ingestible, you're still buying the hairspray." The marketplace model is running as a controlled lab to test demand across wellness segments and build exclusivity where it counts.
Experiences that create pull, not just presence
From Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter Tour to Lollapalooza, Coachella, and the Super Bowl, Ulta is prioritizing activations over logos. The play is cultural relevance that translates to trial, shareability, and loyalty-Beyoncé even helped curate the looks Ulta showcased.
Disciplined global expansion, U.S. focus intact
Ulta is scaling abroad with different models by market: acquiring Space NK in the U.K., a joint venture in Mexico, and a licensing deal in the Middle East. Awareness levels are already high, even where Ulta hasn't shipped products. Four markets are enough to manage for now-but the door is open for more, without taking eyes off the U.S. core.
What executives can take from Ulta's playbook
- Make the strategy teachable across every level. Alignment is an operating system, not a slide.
- Treat AI as an enabler of one-to-one experiences, not a tech project. Tie it to measurable friction removal.
- Use marketplaces as low-risk R&D. Graduate winners into exclusives to protect margin.
- Grow "and"-not "or." Wellness expands the basket; it doesn't cannibalize it.
- Do partnerships that move product, not vanity metrics. Curated experiences create pull.
- Expand globally with model fit by market. Keep the core business healthy while you scale.
Next step for leaders building data-led retail
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