Ulta Beauty CEO says when you get passed up for career opportunities ‘you can either choose to be bitter or you can be better’
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.
“There have been times in all of our careers where we’ve been passed up, or we didn’t get that next role when we felt like we were ready for it,” Steelman said at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Conference in Washington, D.C., in October 2025. “And I said that the one thing that’s really true to me is, I think that you can either choose to be bitter or you can be better.”
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’s stock is up 50% year-over-year and the company partnered with Beyoncé earlier last year as part of her Cowboy Carter tour, hosting in-store events and promoting the pop star’s Cécred hair brand.
The CEO prepared for her new role for years under former Ulta boss Dave Kimball, who led the beauty brand beginning in 2021.
“I 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,” Steelman said. “If 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.”
What was Steelman’s path to CEO?
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.
In the 10 months since starting as Ulta CEO, Steelman has worked to execute the company’s 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.
Steelman referred to her position as the “best job ever.”
“Our jobs are to make people feel really good about themselves,” she said. “I could think of a lot worse jobs out there than that.”
The road hasn’t 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 “natural occurrence of business.”
“We had to get our swagger back,” she said of Ulta’s turnaround. “I felt like we lost our swagger just a little bit, and I feel like we’ve got our swagger back.”
A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on Oct. 14, 2025.
More on Ulta and the beauty industry:
- Tony Cuccio started with $200 selling beauty products on Venice Beach. Then he brought gel nails to the masses—and forged a $2 billion empire
- Ulta Beauty CEO Kecia Steelman says she has the best job ever: ‘My job is to help make people feel really good about themselves’
- Target and Ulta just broke up: Employees raised red flags about shoplifting, understaffing, and foot-traffic cannibalization
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com