Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Vodafone's new CEO made early sweeping job cuts, the U.S. is getting a second professional women's soccer league, and Glossier's new CEO is shifting the beauty brand away from the business model that powered its early years. Happy Wednesday!
- Direct to Sephora. Glossier has entered a new era. The direct-to-consumer beauty brand whose no-makeup aesthetic and millennial pink branding attracted a cult following is nearly 10 years old. The unicorn weathered a COVID-era downturn; it's without founder Emily Weiss as CEO for the first time (she's still executive chairwoman); and it's now leaning into post-pandemic consumer behavior that's steering it away from its DTC roots.
CEO Kyle Leahy is at the helm of Glossier as it embarks on this new phase, and the Cole Haan and Nike alum, who became chief executive last year, spoke with our own Emma Hinchliffe at Fortune MPW Next Gen conference yesterday about the transition.
One seismic change is how Glossier now thinks about the direct-to-consumer model. Leahy admits there was a time in which Glossier and peer brands "felt that [the model] was our value proposition and it certainly was disruptive."
That's not the case anymore. "DTC isn't our value proposition. It's a channel," she said.
Glossier came to that realization as it regrouped from a pandemic slump, product misfires, and Black store employees' complaints of racist experiences (for which the company apologized). In short, it listened to its customers, who were saying loud and clear that they wanted to interact with Glossier products, Leahy says. As it turns out, Sephora's online search data said the same thing; its analytics showed that Glossier was a top-searched brand at Sephora, Leahy said.
Glossier had opened retail stores in New York and Los Angeles, but it was clear customers wanted more.
So in February 2023, Glossier products became available at Sephora for the first time, a launch that Leahy said “significantly [exceeded] our expectations."
Leahy says that the DTC model isn't entirely dead. After all, it helped Glossier break into the beauty industry with a unique “come as you are” beauty approach.
"I think Glossier was one of the pioneers of bringing beauty online. It set a new paradigm for this generation and generations to come that you can buy beauty products online," she said.
Day 2 of MPW Next Gen will feature the head of Meta's global business group, Nicola Mendelsohn, Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood, actress and Pattern Beauty founder Tracee Ellis Ross, and more. You can watch the mainstage livestream here starting at 9:30 a.m. PST.
Kinsey Crowley (she/her)
kinsey.crowley@fortune.com
@kinseycrowley
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