How E.l.f. Beauty CEO Tarang Amin Supersized Growth

On a recent Monday, commuters at the Oculus in New York City were treated to a parade of pastel-colored unicorns galloping across 22 screens approximately 280 feet in length, interspersed with E.l.f. Beauty’s message: Dupe That!

A parade of stats flashed across the screens, as well as a QR code for viewers to download the company’s 2024 Impact Report.

The campaign was typical E.l.f., an eye-catching and clever co-opting of dupe culture as a way to deliver a very serious message about the key differentiators that are enabling the company to outperform not just other publicly listed beauty groups but the majority of firms in any sector. It is for this performance that E.l.f. is the recipient of the 2024 WWD Honor for Beauty Company of the Year, Public.

The screens touted E.l.f.’s diversity drive, as the only public company in the U.S. to have a corporate board of directors that is 78 percent women and 44 percent diverse, and the equity that each of E.l.f.’s 500-plus employees has been granted.

It’s a safe bet to say that most beauty companies would have used a platform of that scope to tout a new product launch or line, rather than its CSR message. But E.l.f. isn’t most beauty companies. And that’s just the point.

“We used to say that our mission was being a different kind of beauty company,” said chief executive officer Tarang Amin. “Now it is being a different kind of company.

“Last year, we formalized that vision and talked about building brands that disrupt norms and shape culture. At a time when so many people are focused on trying to drive sales, our ability to say, ‘let’s use our platform for positive societal change’ has been a big pivot point.”

The vision is one that has clearly resonated with consumers. In May, E.l.f., which celebrated its 20^th anniversary this year, officially became a billion-dollar business, with sales in its fiscal year 2024 up 77 percent from fiscal 2023. It’s one of the top-performing companies on the New York Stock Exchange, and notched its 22^nd quarter of consecutive growth in August.

“What I love about this year is it’s a continuation of consistent, exceptional category-leading growth,” said Amin, noting that E.l.f. is the only beauty company out of the 1,900 tracked by Nielsen to grow its market share. E.l.f. is number one in market share in terms of unit sales in both the prestige and mass market, and Amin posits it’s only a matter of time before it displaces Maybelline New York as the leader in dollar terms, too.

Part of its popularity lies in the price positioning, or what the company calls democratizing access. (Part of Dupe That! included the fact that consumers can buy five E.l.f. Lip Oils for the price of one prestige product.) “We are very conscious that the consumer is under pressure and being choosier,” said Amin. “Two-thirds of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. We take pride in making the best of beauty accessible to every eye, lip and face.”

But it’s the ethos of the company that is most attracting consumers, and E.l.f.’s deep connection to culture sets it apart. With a bias toward action, innovation and experimentation, E.l.f. has created a multifaceted marketing strategy that keeps it on the cutting edge of cool. This year it became the first beauty company to be a sponsor of the Indy 500. It executes both large-scale campaigns — see the Super Bowl — as well as much smaller initiatives, like a Twitch town hall with its C-suite executives.

Amin himself has popped up on TikTok Live, where he quizzes participants about what they want. Last December, for example, he learned that consumers were clamoring for a more affordable version of bronzing drops. “My first call after that was to our head of innovation asking where they were in the pipeline. I couldn’t go back on TikTok until I could promise we were bringing them,” he laughed.

(For the record, E.l.f. Bronzing Drops launched in April in three shades for $12. They were an instant sensation.)

Amin is intimately involved with product development. One of his favorite meetings is the company-wide product review session, held every Friday, where the entire company is invited to attend and contribute. “When our chief marketing officer Kory Marchisotto first joined, she was shocked — she was like, ‘Those are our nuclear codes!’” Amin said. “But I love it. I’m always asking questions and my chat box lights up. Today, Morgan, who runs inventory, had the most insightful note. This is what keeps me engaged and energized — our team of passionate owners and delighting our community.”

International has been another key area of growth for E.l.f. this year. At the beginning of 2024, E.l.f. was primarily in the U.K. and Canada outside of the U.S., which represented about 15 percent of sales. Over the last 10 months, the brand has rolled out in Etos and Douglas in the Netherlands, Douglas in Italy and Sephora in Mexico, where E.l.f. was already ranking number one just two weeks after launch. In the year ahead, plans call for additional expansion to Europe, the Middle East and India.

“There’s a lot of pent-up demand for E.l.f. across the world, and we’re excited to really go after these areas,” said Amin. “You’ll see us go after it with the same disciplined strategy — find a retail partner and seed the brand, then expand from there.”

Skin care, too, holds great potential, both under E.l.f. and Naturium, the buzzy brand the company acquired in August 2023 for $355 million. “We’re in the early days with skin care,” said Amin. But it’s growing fast. E.l.f. is now the number-two skin care brand in the U.S., increasing its market share from 1.4 percent to 2 percent this year, while Naturium expanded from its core distribution of Target into Ulta Beauty as well.

“The first priority is to expand the distribution footprint, and then we’ll look at adjacent categories for E.l.f. and Naturium,” said Amin, when asked if he was contemplating adding a color component to the latter’s lineup. “The near-term plan is realizing the potential we have.

“One surprise is that 40 percent of the user base is men,” he continued. “That is something different for us, relative to our female Gen Z focus, which really broadens the aperture.”

As for more acquisitions?

“We’re open. We have a strong balance sheet,” said Amin. “But the bar is high in terms of the top and bottom line. Valuation is something we always look at. We have the appetite, but we also have to make sure it’s the right fit culturally.”

An industry veteran who started his career at Procter & Gamble, Amin is aware that not everything’s going to work. And that’s just fine.

“Failure doesn’t bother us. As a digitally native company, it’s about forward motion,” he said. “That concept we have of moving at E.l.f. speed, that forward motion, has been the key in a dynamic industry.”

That secret sauce is also why worrying about the competition doesn’t keep him up at night.

“People will say, ‘this company is studying you’ or ‘that company has a conquer E.l.f. plan,’” said Amin. “I always laugh, because they’re looking at the wrong things. They’re looking at business strategies and it’s all about culture. How do you be your best? If you do that, everything else will fall into place.”