How Artemis Patrick of Sephora Became “The Brand Whisperer”

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Sephora is not exactly a startup. Parents of teenagers especially will be unsurprised to hear that Sephora is a multi-billion dollar business, with double-digit growth in revenue and profits in the last year. 

However, Sephora acts like an incubator for beauty brands, using a strategy that Artemis Patrick helped shape. 

This business acumen helped her become CEO of Sephora, North America, in April 2024, the first woman to do so. 

Her 20-year career with the beauty retailer includes a billion-dollar partnership with Kohl’s, championing inclusive foundation shades, and promoting clean beauty products.

Quite the accomplishment for someone who had fled a violent revolution, moved to a new country where she didn’t speak the language, and was placed into foster care, all before the age of 10. 

But these experiences helped shape her as a leader and gave her unique insight into the importance of diversity and inclusion in beauty. 

Dominique Mandonnaud opened the first Sephora store in Paris, France in 1970. He previously owned a perfume shop that let customers try scents before purchasing.

In 1979, he rolled this self-service concept over to the makeup store, too — a departure from department stores at the time which kept makeup behind a counter. It distinguished itself from other retailers at the time with an “assisted self-service” model that encouraged customers to test products before making a purchase. 

Sephora was acquired by luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE (LVMH) in 1997. Its first U.S. store followed shortly after, in 1998, followed by an online store in 1999. Its distinctive black-and-white striped stores can now be found in 2,700 stores in 35 countries worldwide.  

The company has taken definitive stances on diversity, with Mandonnaud saying, “We believe in beauty that’s free of judgement and exists for all skin types, colors, ages and genders.”

Patrick was born in Iran in the 1970s. Her father was a pilot for the Shah, and during the Iranian Revolution of 1979 this put her family in danger. They immigrated to the United States when Patrick was 7, landing in Los Angeles, in what she says might have been one of the last flights out of the country. 

“There was a lot of pride associated with working for a king, and then having to go work at a gas station,” Patrick said of her father. 

Her young mother had problems with her husband and missed her family. She decided to return to Iran. 

But she quickly realized Iran was no longer a place to raise her daughter, and she was unable to return to the U.S. Patrick didn’t see her mom again until she was 15. She calls this a courageous sacrifice on the part of her mom.

With her father unable to take care of her, Patrick entered a group home and then lived with a foster family until she finished high school. 

Her foster family was a positive influence on Patrick’s life and influenced her perspective as a leader.

Patrick wasn’t always the beauty maven she was today. Like most of us, mistakes were made in her teen years. 

She wasn’t allowed to wear makeup until high school, but she was allowed to experiment with her hair. So, her earliest beauty memory was attempting to use hair-lightener Sun-In, which predictably turned her dark hair orange. To fix it, she tried to dye her hair purple, which was an even worse idea. 

However, her experience as an immigrant trying to become blonde to fit in also shaped her mentality when she entered the beauty industry. 

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