Mia Young has been tapped as senior vice president of cosmetics at Ulta Beauty as chief merchandising and digital officer Lauren Brindley continues to implement her merchandising strategy.
Young, who will begin her new role on Jan. 5, has more than 20 years in beauty and a deep track record of brand development. She was most recently chief commercial officer at Tatcha and before that held the same position at Hourglass.
“I’ve already got an incredible merchandising and digital team, and I’ve been thoughtfully considering this role, because I want to make sure it unlocks our next chapter of growth, and we were adding new capabilities to the organization to really add that rocket fuel,” Brindley said in an interview. “Mia Young is an exceptional leader. She’s got 20 years in beauty, so she’s a beauty expert, and she has a track record in brand development, trend leadership and category building. She brings the exact muscle that we want to strengthen for the next chapter of our growth. Her role is going to be influential in how we architect our assortment.”
Young will be responsible for fragrance, makeup and private label.
In the third quarter, fragrance remained Ulta’s strongest growing category, delivering double-digit comp sales growth. Newness from brands like Valentino and Dolce & Gabbana, alongside new-to-market brand launches from Miu Miu in prestige and Squishmallows in mass resonated with customers.
Makeup, meanwhile, delivered another quarter of midsingle-digit comparable sales growth, supported by growth in both mass and prestige makeup.
“Both in makeup and fragrance, our low to luxe assortment continues to be a major differentiator for us here at Ulta Beauty, and one that’s obviously powered the success up to this point,” Brindley said. “I believe in the power of a balanced portfolio of brands across all life stages or price points and across all categories.
“The opportunity for us in makeup is to really think about where are the white spaces in our brand portfolio. From a fragrance perspective, it’s been a booming category for Ulta Beauty. You heard on our earnings call that it’s a big part of our success in 2025 and we believe it will be a big part of our success in 2026 too. With fragrance in particular, we have so much opportunity to just introduce more and more of our guests to different opportunities for fragrance to be part of how they feel great about themselves.”
Since Brindley joined Ulta in April, she has hit the ground running, working on the retailer’s international expansion in Mexico and the Middle East, as well as launching its own marketplace.
“At Ulta Beauty, our ambition is to be the global retailer of choice, to launch, build, scale and globalize the most exciting brands in beauty,” Brindley said. “We are already the largest U.S. specialty beauty retailer, but as we expand rapidly around the world, we see our role as a key global brand building partner growing in importance for both us and the brand community when it comes to new to market or new to Ulta brands. Our role is to tell that story. We want to explain the brand uniqueness and the product differentiation that makes that brand unique.”
