E.l.f. Beauty’s CEO wants to make a beauty empire for Gen Z

By Ramishah Maruf, CNN

(CNN) — Affordable beauty brand e.l.f. has unlocked something that’s mystified many retailers: how to win over the ever-persnickety Gen Z.

E.l.f.’s formula has included low price points for high-quality items, TikTok-viral dupes of products from expensive brands, and popular marketing campaigns that manage not to make its youngest audience cringe. With 28 consecutive quarters of sales growth, the strategy appears to be working.

Last May, however, e.l.f. Beauty made a huge — and hugely expensive — bet on an entirely new type of business. The company spent $1 billion to acquire rhode, a makeup and skincare brand founded by Hailey Bieber. It’s the type of brand e.l.f. typically copies.

The acquisition is a big part of the plan laid out by e.l.f. CEO Tarang Amin, who is trying to build the company into a 21st-century beauty conglomerate: inclusive, built for and by Gen Z, and a creator of trends instead of a follower.

“We want to be a different kind of beauty company,” Amin told CNN at the company’s Oakland headquarters. “We’re going to build brands that disrupt norms, shape culture and connect communities.”

But e.l.f. faces a few raspberry-jelly-tinted flags, including looming tariffs and an administration hostile to even a whiff of DEI efforts. And as sales growth around its dupes begins to wane, the company’s future as a powerhouse hinges on rhode’s success.

Virality as key ingredient

Amin, who was born in Kenya with Indian roots and immigrated to the United States as a child, became e.l.f.’s CEO in 2014. He is the heart of the company’s marketing engine—and in an age when cheap dupes and beauty hacks spread like wildfire on social media, marketing is just as crucial as creating new products.

He told CNN he focuses on building a culture of openness and relies on his young workforce’s expertise. He hosts a biweekly town hall where his largely Gen Z staffers (dubbed e.l.f.z ) partake in communal breathing and stretching exercises. Any employee can join calls to review and test new products, and so far, there hasn’t been a leak.

“Some people who came to us from bigger companies were shocked. They’re like, ‘My God, these are your nuclear codes,’” Amin said. But he’s no makeup enthusiast, so “I absolutely rely on our young, passionate workforce to have a pulse on what consumers want.”

In the early days of his tenure at e.l.f., Amin’s CMO told him the company needed to get on TikTok because that’s where Gen Z was. “And my response is, ‘Well, if that’s where Gen Z, is, absolutely. Now, what’s TikTok?’” Amin said.

The company has changed a lot since then. In 2019, the company reshaped its entire business. It shuttered its 22 brick-and-mortar stores and put that money into marketing, and it solidified relationships with mega-retailers like Target and Walmart.

The company’s dupes also gained traction online around this time. E.l.f. launched a long list of products that quickly went viral as “holy grails” in tandem with the rise of TikTok, including its $11 Poreless Putty Primer (the Tatcha counterpoint retails for $55) and $14 Halo Glow Liquid Filter (compared to Charlotte Tilbury’s $50 Hollywood Flawless Filter).

The dupes, mixed with clever marketing campaigns, sparked success among Gen Z consumers: “We sometimes say we’re an entertainment company that happens to sell beauty products,” Amin said.

A major acquisition

Virality is what rhode and e.l.f. have most in common, and it’s a critical ingredient in creating a modern beauty giant.

Rhode was an instant smash when Bieber launched the brand in 2022, quickly soaring to $212 million in net sales in its last fiscal year with no more than 10 products. The viral craze for products like rhode’s Glazing Milk facial essence—as well as an appetite for Bieber’s own persona—spurred fans to camp out overnight for pop-up events.

People are “buying into the entire brand, the entire lifestyle and products,” Amin said.

That’s why Amin believes e.l.f. can become successful both in Dollar General and Sephora, where rhode recently launched. Amin said e.l.f. is looking at a list of 120 different brands for a potential acquisition, a sign that his vision for e.l.f. goes beyond the core business of holy grail dupes.

Still, rhode is quite a different type of acquisition for e.l.f., which has previously acquired skincare and clean beauty brands Naturium, Keys Soulcare and Well People.

Notably, rhode is priced at an “affordable luxury” point: starting at $20 for lip treatments, $32 for the Glazing Milk, and up to $38 for a Caffeine Reset sculpting cream mask.

It’s critical that rhode pays off for e.l.f., literally. Rhode contributed $128 million to the company’s third-quarter sales growth, and it has increased its expectations to rake in $265 million in net sales this year, up to 70% growth. E.l.f.’s original beauty brand, meanwhile, grew only 2% in the third quarter of 2026.

Political pressures and doubling down on diversity

Last August, e.l.f. raised its prices by $1 in a response to the Trump administration’s tariffs. (Three quarters of its products still cost $10 or less.) At the time, about 75% of e.l.f. products were made in China, which is at the center of President Donald Trump’s chaotic trade war.

The company made a point to explain the tariff-fueled increase in messages posted across social media — a stark contrast to other US retailers that relied on shrinkflation and quiet price bumps. It came at a time when the White House went after company leaders who were open about tariff costs.

“Consumers are smart,” Amin said. “If you try to put some other reason to it, some other twist, it actually gets in the way of that genuine dialogue we have with our community.”

Meanwhile, e.l.f.’s workforce is something of a political statement. After Trump targeted DEI programs in both public and private sectors, many companies publicly pulled back from these initiatives.

But Amin has doubled down. He says e.l.f.z are 76% women, 74% are Gen Z or millennials, and 44% come from diverse backgrounds. (He also grants equity to every employee, giving them a stake in the game.)

And true to the e.l.f. way, the DEI promises came with a cheeky ad campaign. In 2024, e.l.f. rolled out a “Soooo Many Dicks” campaign, pointing out there are more men named Richard, Rich and Rick on US public corporate boards than entire groups of underrepresented women. The billboards ran primarily across Wall Street hot spots, such as The Oculus in New York City’s financial district.

“In fact, what would be riskier is us abandoning what we stand for,” Amin said. “Our community would know about it right away. And they would hold us accountable for it.”

CNN’s Clare Duffy contributed reporting.

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