clean-beauty
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Karissa Bodnar and the Business of Keeping a Promise
She began with false lashes, a one-bedroom apartment and a promise to make beauty useful beyond the mirror. The company grew; the promise became the operating system.
Laurel Myers Built the Grown-Up Version of CBD - Then the Market Grew Up Too
She helped turn a chaotic ingredient boom into a lesson in trust, standards, and the stubbornly unglamorous work of building a consumer brand.
Jeff Lee
Jeff Lee is the CEO and co-founder of DIBS Beauty, the L Catterton-backed color cosmetics brand he launched in September 2021 with influencer Courtney Shields and Tula Skincare founders Ken Landis and Dan Reich. Before beauty, Lee was a corporate attorney at Wachtell, Lipton and Skadden Arps, then chief operating officer and partner at Alex Rodriguez's AROD Corp. He also spent two decades as a globe-trotting pageant coach - GQ dubbed him 'Mr. Miss Universe' - and is the only person to have worked out at all 106-plus Equinox gyms worldwide. He holds a JD from Yale, an MBA from Stanford, and lectures on ethics and leadership at Yale, Harvard, Stanford and Wharton.
Jeremy Horowitz
Jeremy Horowitz is the CEO and co-founder of Hume Supernatural, a San Diego based clean personal care brand best known for its microbiome-supporting, plant-and-probiotic deodorant. A former corporate lawyer who spent 16 years inside the San Diego Padres and later ran investments at Selby Venture Partners, he traded contracts and box seats for prebiotics and skin barriers, launching Hume digitally in March 2020. Under his lead the brand became the fastest-growing natural deodorant in the natural retail channel, landing in Whole Foods, Sprouts and CVS and drawing investors including Lupita Nyong'o and Alex Morgan.
Yael Alkalay
Yael Alkalay is the founder and CEO of Red Flower, a New York-based natural beauty and lifestyle company she launched in 1999. A former creative director at Shiseido in Japan and a Columbia MBA, she built Red Flower around botanical formulations, aromatherapy and self-care rituals, selling to Barneys in her first year and growing the brand into a SoHo flagship and a fixture in spas and hotels. She is an early and persistent voice for non-toxic, biodegradable, vegan and cruelty-free beauty.
Greg Maged
Greg Maged is the cofounder and CEO of SEEN Hair Care, a dermatologist-developed haircare brand he launched in 2018 with Harvard-trained dermatologist Dr. Iris Rubin. SEEN built its business on a single idea - that hair care is skin care - making shampoos and styling products engineered not to clog pores or irritate sensitive scalps. Before beauty, Maged spent decades in finance and consulting: McKinsey, then chief of staff to Charles Schwab's founder, then cofounding the online advisor Bicycle Financial. He has steered SEEN to 100% compounded annual growth, a $9 million Series A backed by marquee investors, and shelf space in every Ulta Beauty store in the country.
Marc Gallagher
Marc Gallagher is a beauty and luxury executive with 25+ years turning storied brands into digital-first businesses. A would-be architect who detoured through the dot-com boom, he spent nearly a decade inside LVMH building the digital engines of Benefit Cosmetics, Marc Jacobs and Fresh, then doubled Elemis revenue during the pandemic as Chief Brand and Digital Officer, and became the first-ever CMO of British skincare challenger Facetheory. He is associated with Michelle Pfeiffer's clean fragrance house Henry Rose in Los Angeles. His operating creed, inherited from a mentor: if it does not make you nervous, it is not worth doing.
Arnaud Plas
Arnaud Plas is the co-founder and CEO of Prose, the New York based beauty-tech company that makes custom haircare and skincare to order, one formula per person. A former L'Oreal digital and e-commerce executive, he left big CPG in 2017 to attack the one-size-fits-all model with AI-driven consultations and a software-run, make-after-you-buy factory. Under his watch Prose reached profitability in 2023, sold more than 10 million bespoke products, and pushed net sales past $140 million on its way to an estimated $160 million in 2024.