This year has marked 10 years since Huda Kattan launched her eponymous blog Huda Beauty in 2010. Three years later this led to the launch of the Huda Beauty brand in 2013.
Just seven years later Kattan and her namesake brand have dominated the beauty space and now have a wide range of makeup offerings, as well as a new skincare line Wishful.
Since founding the brand, Kattan has been chief executive officer, as well as founder and chairperson, however she’s now set to pass on the torch of her CEO role.
Nathalie Kristo, who has been president for the North American arm of the company since 2018, is set to take over as chief executive from Kattan, while she is set to continue to spearhead the creative side of the business.
In a YouTube video titled ‘Why I’m no longer CEO at Huda Beauty’, Kattan revealed her reasons for stepping down from the role.
Reflecting on her early years of starting her blog, Kattan said she always felt like it was her duty to the beauty community to offer her “services” for free by revealing her best makeup hacks and tips.
After three years of growth from her blog, it was her sister Mona Kattan that eventually pushed Kattan to launch her first product – false eyelashes.
The products were instantly a hit being sold online and in Sephora and it was Kattan’s husband that told her she was the one that needed to spearhead the business in the CEO position if it was going to become even more successful.
While it’s clear Huda Beauty has thrived under her leadership, it left Kattan “torn” between being involved in product production and content production – the two things she’s most passionate about – and being involved with hiring, finances and daily business operations. She felt like she was in a constant “revolving door” of meetings.
“Fast forward to 2018, I knew that the company had gotten to a much better place and I knew I was ready to find somebody to take that role of CEO off my plate and allow me to be the founder I always knew I was,” she explains in the video.
Kattan was introduced to Kristo through a mutual friend and at the time she was looking for someone to replace her as CEO and Kristo was also seeking a new role. Kristo came on board at Huda Beauty to initially set up their US offices and to eventually take over as CEO from Kattan.
So, what does that mean for Kattan’s role? Well, she’s still the founder and chairwoman of Huda Beauty and in her words will actually “be more involved in Huda Beauty than ever but on a different level”.
This means she’ll be able to produce more content, connect with her followers more and just be more involved with the creative side, which is why she got into the beauty space in the first place.
It’s clear exciting things are continuing to happen for this Dubai-based powerhouse beauty company.
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