{"id":1470,"date":"2026-03-15T15:03:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T15:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=1470"},"modified":"2026-03-15T15:03:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T15:03:47","slug":"ulta-beauty-ceo-kecia-steelman-on-career-setbacks-choose-to-be-better-not-bitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=1470","title":{"rendered":"Ulta Beauty CEO Kecia Steelman on career setbacks: choose to be better, not bitter"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Being snubbed or overlooked for a role is a near universal experience in a career journey. When a setback hits, you should face it with grace and persistence, not resentment, according to Ulta Beauty CEO Kecia Steelman.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been times in all of our careers where we\u2019ve been passed up, or we didn\u2019t get that next role when we felt like we were ready for it,\u201d Steelman said at Fortune\u2019s Most Powerful Women Conference in Washington, D.C., in October 2025. \u201cAnd I said that the one thing that\u2019s really true to me is, I think that you can either choose to be bitter or you can be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steelman took on the chief executive role at the beauty retailer in January 2025 after 11 years with the company, most recently as chief operating officer. Ulta\u2019s stock is up 50% year-over-year and the company partnered with Beyonc\u00e9 earlier last year as part of her Cowboy Carter tour, hosting in-store events and promoting the pop star\u2019s C\u00e9cred hair brand.<\/p>\n

The CEO prepared for her new role for years under former Ulta boss Dave Kimball, who led the beauty brand beginning in 2021. <\/p>\n

\u201cI learned as much as I could to prepare myself for the next role, and I think that actually allowed me to hit the ground running,\u201d Steelman said. \u201cIf I would have been bitter, I could have left and taken a CEO job someplace else. I had plenty of opportunities, but this is the company that I wanted to be with, and I took that opportunity to be better instead of being bitter.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was Steelman\u2019s path to CEO?<\/p>\n

Prior to her time at Ulta, Steelman began her career as an assistant store manager at Target in 1993 before climbing the ranks at the big box retailer. She later held senior management roles at Home Depot and Family Dollar.<\/p>\n

In the 10 months since starting as Ulta CEO, Steelman has worked to execute the company\u2019s turnaround plan, including looking to implement agentic AI into the shopping experience, as well as building a base of millions of loyalty customers, who are still spending on non-essential beauty products even in times of economic uncertainty.<\/p>\n

Steelman referred to her position as the \u201cbest job ever.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cOur jobs are to make people feel really good about themselves,\u201d she said. \u201cI could think of a lot worse jobs out there than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The road hasn\u2019t been entirely smooth. In August 2025, Ulta and Target ended a shop-in-shop partnership that began in 2021. Target employees had shared experiences online of the shopping experience being underwhelming and instances of shoplifting and understaffing. Steelman said the ending of the partnership was a mutual decision and a \u201cnatural occurrence of business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to get our swagger back,\u201d she said of Ulta\u2019s turnaround. \u201cI felt like we lost our swagger just a little bit, and I feel like we\u2019ve got our swagger back.\u201d<\/p>\n

A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on Oct. 14, 2025.<\/p>\n

More on Ulta and the beauty industry:<\/p>\n

Tony Cuccio started with $200 selling beauty products on Venice Beach. Then he brought gel nails to the masses\u2014and forged a $2 billion empire<\/p>\n

Ulta Beauty CEO Kecia Steelman says she has the best job ever: \u2018My job is to help make people feel really good about themselves\u2019<\/p>\n

Target and Ulta just broke up: Employees raised red flags about shoplifting, understaffing, and foot-traffic cannibalization<\/p>\n

#Ulta #Beauty #CEO #Kecia #Steelman #career #setbacks #choose #bitter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being snubbed or overlooked for a role is a near universal experience in a career…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[3286,3281,3290,2418,585,1400,640,3287,2825,3282,3283,3289,3288,3285,3284],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}