In Review 2024: Top 10 beauty interviews of the year
This year, TheIndustry.beauty's interview series enabled a host of insights and exclusive conversations from beauty's most prominent and pioneering business leaders. As 2025 approaches, TheIndustry.beauty has selected the top ten interview picks from 2024.
The Interview: Made by Mitchell on finding success on TikTok and driving global growth
One brand that has TikTok to thank for a leg-up to the great heights of beauty stardom is Made by Mitchell.
In this interview, its founder Mitchell Halliday tells TheIndustry.beauty about the benefits of TikTok and his advice for businesses leveraging the app.
He also discusses his high street debut with Boots, how he and his team have kept up with such booming demand, plus what is on the horizon the brand, founded in just 2020.
The Interview: Trinny Woodall on gaining confidence in her 60s and inspiring other entrepreneurs
Trinny Woodall has a new face. From rising to fame as half of styling duo Trinny and Susannah (Constantine), whose TV series propelled her to stardom in the noughties, Woodall's name now stands alone on her eponymous beauty brand Trinny London.
Woodall tells TheIndustry.beauty about the benefits of aging, her foray from fashion to face care, and her own personal skincare routine.
The Industry.beauty Awards Winners' Interview: Caroline Hirons, Founder, Skin Rocks
It would be fair to say that Caroline Hirons is British skincare royalty. A qualified aesthetician, she cut her teeth working in beauty retail for the likes of Space NK and Aveda, before expanding her career into consultancy for major beauty brands and rising to fame via her online presence.
Having been awarded the Experience award at TheIndustry.beauty Awards for its counter at Liberty, Skin Rocks' founder Hirons shares her trade secrets on blending education with skincare, the importance of a muscular brand identity and even the beauty product she can't live without. All hail!
The Interview: JVN Hair founder Jonathan Van Ness and CEO Teresa Lo talk growth plans
If anyone can get a former truck driver from the Bible belt to apply greenstick to their rosacea, it's Jonathan Van Ness. Springing into our front rooms via Netflix's Queer Eye in 2018, the hair and beauty expert used their hairdressing roots (pun intended) to found JVN Hair in 2021, launching in Space NK in the UK the following year.
In this interview, Van Ness and CEO Teresa Lo tell TheIndustry.beauty on expansion in the UK, revitalising their Nurture line and the importance of staunch brand values.
The Interview: Shiseido Company MD Charles de Montalivet on driving growth in the UK & Ireland
Of all the jobs that will keep a person occupied, Managing Director of Japanese multinational beauty company Shiseido has got to be up there.
Charles de Montalivet joined Shiseido in 2019, hoping to transform its beauty operations via uniting its brand portfolio and the teams that work on each brand. In this interview, he explains how teamwork has made the dream work, and how he is pushing Shiseido towards its four growth pillars.
The Interview: Sarah Harbon, Benefit’s GM on rebuilding the business and how the brand champions women
Founded in 1976 by twin sisters Jean & Jane Ford, Benefit is something of a household name. A cornerstone of the duty free/department store beauty hall lineup since day dot, it was acquired by LVMH in 1999 and continues to thrive, thanks to products such as its iconic Benetint.
Benefit Cosmetics UK Manager Sarah Harbon tells TheIndustry.beauty about building the business back up after losing key stockist Debenhams in the COVID aftermath, and spills the tea regarding the brand’s new 'porecare' line.
The Interview: Dr. Barbara Sturm on debunking skincare trends and creating safe anti-ageing products for every age group
Remember Kim Kardashian's bloody, post-facial selfie back in 2020? Well, you've got Dr. Barbara Sturm to thank for that. The German clinician first created the Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) treatment back in 2002, and shortly afterwards created her MC1 cream; a bespoke, plasma-based moisturiser which harnesses the power of the body’s own proteins in a skin healing formula.
In this interview, Dr. Sturm elucidates her journey into skincare, her clients' top skincare concerns, and how her skincare range compliments the treatments at her spas.
TheIndustry.beauty Awards Winners' Interview: Aila Morin, CMO, Merit
The Zoom interview with Merit's Chief Marketing Officer Aila Morin was humbling. It being 9am in the US, Morin was not long out of bed and looking decidedly perfect. For this, she credits Merit's The Minimalist, which she names as one of her must-have products.
In this interview, Morin reflects on the significance of winning the Best New Product Award – Makeup, for Merit's Solo Shadow at TheIndustry.beauty Beauty Awards, as well as the painstaking formulation of each product, and a future for the cult beauty brand that shines almost as bright as her own complexion.
The Interview: Then I Met You Founder Charlotte Cho on making K-beauty mainstream and her thoughtful approach to expansion
One growing beauty phenomenon that shows no signs of slowing is K-beauty.
Korean beauty champions innovative formulas housed within unique packaging, typically with a core focus: glossy, radiant skin.
US-based Then I Met You is one brand performing particularly well in this space. Its founder Charlotte Cho tells TheIndustry about building a viral brand in six years from just two products, one of which still remains the brand's hero product.
The Interview: Suveen Sahib, founder of industry-disrupting haircare brand K18
Farewell, brittle, broken strands. Having launched its breakthrough product, the Leave-in Molecular Repair Hair Mask (£30) just four years ago, K18 is now a revolutionary haircare brand.
In this interview, its co-founder Suveen Sahib deep dives into the science behind the US brand's success, the efficacy of influencer marketing, plus its plans to double down on its existing stockists in order to grow its stylist and consumer communities, rather than focus on expansion.