The Business of Beauty Global Forum: Hailey Bieber Is Just Getting Started

Business of Fashion

11-06-2025

NAPA, CALIFORNIA — Hailey Bieber may have secured a coveted exit for her smash-hit beauty brand Rhode in a record amount of time, but the 28 year-old founder wants the world to know she's 'not going anywhere' under the new ownership.
'This is just the beginning for me,' she told The Business of Beauty executive editor Priya Rao onstage at Stanly Ranch in Napa Valley, California.
In her first public appearance discussing how her brand Rhode was acquired by E.l.f. Beauty in a billion-dollar deal, Bieber shared details on how the brand arrived at its exit quickly and where it's headed next at the Business of Beauty Global Forum on June 10, 2025. The acquisition of her three-year old beauty and makeup brand was announced May 28, when it was revealed that it had earned $212 million in revenue in net sales for the fiscal year ending March 2025.
'Rhode is my world. It so doesn't feel like a job to me,' Bieber said. Building Hailey's World
Looking back on the past three years, Bieber described how the idea for launching a beauty brand crystallized in 2020 during the early pandemic, inspired by her enthusiasm for skincare and the creatives she has worked with throughout her modeling career from makeup artists to photographers.
But she also emphasized that she knew she always wanted to have full creative say over the brand, sharing that she put up the 'majority' of the money to bootstrap it.
'I didn't want to use an incubator; I knew I wanted to be the majority owner, always,' she said. While several beauty industry veterans have worked with the brand over the course of its rise, she highlighted the executives that were there from the beginning: co-founders Michael and Lauren Ratner, who hailed from entertainment rather than beauty.
Bieber's majority ownership allowed her to exercise her creative vision for the brand to the fullest, she said.
'I am Rhode and Rhode is me,' she said of the brand's identity, adding that its 'editorial and sporty' visual language is a reflection of her inner world. She cited examples like their viral lip gloss phone case and recent campaigns featuring musician Tate McRae for its lip liner and actor Harris Dickinson, Rhode's first male face, for a new face mist.
'It's not just about the product, it's the whole entire world of Rhode,' she said.
Sealing the E.l.f. Deal
Onstage, Bieber also discussed her recent $1 billion E.l.f. Beauty deal, in which the world's fastest-growing public beauty company paid $600 million in cash for the brand plus $200 million in shares. An additional $200 million will be paid if Rhode's three-year growth goals are achieved.
Bieber said she was not willing to sell the brand to just anyone. 'Rhode is like my baby; I'm so precious about it,' she explained. 'The idea of ever even considering' a sale was a 'very, very big deal to me.'
But the acquisition, which was in the works for a little under a year, came about thanks to E.l.f's reassurance of her continued role at the helm.
The E.l.f. Beauty and Rhode teams met for the first time over dinner in Los Angeles last fall. 'I remember walking away like, 'They're it,'' Bieber said. 'I knew it in my gut. We just said so many of the same things.'
After building a brand entirely through direct-to-consumer sales, Bieber is ready to level up with the support of both E.l.f. Beauty and Sephora, its exclusive retail partner, which allows the brand to reach more people, provide a physical retail experience and facilitate global expansion.
DTC will remain important to the brand, which will continue to host its blockbuster pop-ups that have seen hours-long lines in the past. Entering new international markets and marketing to more male consumers are among the brand's immediate ambitions, and Bieber made it clear she's in it for the long-haul, confident that Rhode will long outlast its peers.
'I know we've only been around for three years, and we're still such a baby, but I do see us being a legacy brand,' Bieber told Rao. 'Rhode's going to go down as one of the greats.'
The Business of Beauty Global Forum 2025 is made possible in part by our partners Front Row, Unilever Prestige, Citi, McKinsey & Company, Getty Images, Grown Alchemist and Stanly Ranch and our awards partners L'Oréal Groupe and Sephora. If you are interested in learning about partnership opportunities, please contact us here.