The Maesa Magic: Building the Next Generation of Beauty Brands

In a conversation presented by Maesa, James Manso, beauty and fashion market editor at WWD, sat down with Piyush Jain, chief executive officer of Maesa, and Erin George, managing director of fashion and luxury practice at Boston Consulting Group, to discuss how Maesa has become the blueprint for success within the beauty industry.

Under Jain’s leadership, Maesa has created a successful incubator by working closely with its retail partners such as Target, to create disruptive brands within categories that are ready for innovation.

Our vision is to build the next generation of beauty companies,” Jain said. “To build it, we need to keep pace with where the world is going, where the society is going and where our consumers are going. One of my fundamental beliefs is that the pace of change today is the fastest it’s ever been — and yet it’s the slowest it’ll ever be.”

Embracing change and being flexible is a key driving force at Maesa. But moreover, brands should leverage this agility to stay the course with their vision. “Content is king in today’s world. With our brand Fine’ry, we created a content factory. We leverage artificial intelligence and move content really quickly. Sometimes we create hundreds of pieces of content within hours, sometimes within days,” the CEO said.

Maesa is also moving quickly with its brand launches. For example, the intimate care brand Niches & Nooks went from idea to launch in just nine months.

Meanwhile, George shared that the keys to success in volatile times include having a North Star of what each brands stand for, being customer-centric and scenario planning. Moreover, the amount of data available to drive decision making in the market is unlike it has ever been. “If you’re behind on the AI curve, it’s going to be hard to keep up,” she said.

With tariffs being top of mind for everyone, most of the senior executives George has spoken with recently are focusing their energy on cost management in light of different scenario planning and spending less time thinking about driving demand generation.

“Everyone is expecting that demand will contract given the high likelihood of a recession, but there will still be spending. We have to remember that consumer savings is still higher today than it was pre-pandemic,” she said. “Maybe not what it was during the pandemic but still higher. Interest rates didn’t come down yesterday but they may by the end of the year.” George shared that the likelihood of consumer spending on beauty declining is lower than any other category.

In uncertain times, Jain said Maesa has been controlling the controllable within the cost side and then leaning in on innovation and demand generation to meet consumer needs. Despite the unpredictability, Maesa has continued to outpace the market in terms of growth, with two brands that launched in the last two years both approaching $100 million in sales this year.

“We start with the consumers — which is at the heart of everything we do. I’m passionate about thinking about the consumer as a whole. We don’t think of ourselves through categories,” Jain said. “When launching a brand like Being Frenchy, we didn’t think of ‘what’s the category.’ We looked at how wellness translates to the consumer. As long as you elevate yourself, think about the consumer and how to meet their aspirations, you will always be luxury.”