Who Owns Mary Kay?

Mary Kay Ash founded the company on September 13, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, as Beauty by Mary Kay. She had spent 25 years in direct sales at Stanley Home Products and World Gift Company, where she watched men with less experience get promoted ahead of her. She retired in 1963, wrote a book intended to help women in business, realized she had written a business plan, and launched the company with $5,000 in savings and her 20-year-old son Richard Rogers.

The model was simple: independent beauty consultants bought products at wholesale and resold them through in-home demonstrations called skin care classes. The original product line was built around a skin care formula Ash had purchased from a tanner who had developed it for his own use. The company recorded its first profitable year quickly, and by the late 1960s had introduced its most famous incentive, the pink Cadillac awarded to top sales directors.

Growth through the 1970s and 1980s turned Mary Kay into one of the largest direct sellers in the United States. The company went international in 1971 with an Australian subsidiary and expanded across Latin America, Europe, and eventually Asia, entering China in 1995 and Russia in 1993. The pink Cadillac, first awarded in 1969, became the most recognizable corporate incentive program in American business.

Mary Kay Ash died in November 2001. Leadership passed to her son Richard Rogers as chairman, with David Holl later serving as president and chief executive for more than a decade. In 2018 the company opened a $100 million manufacturing and research facility in Lewisville, Texas, named the Richard R. Rogers Manufacturing and R&D Center.

Ryan Rogers became CEO in January 2023. Under his leadership the company has emphasized digital selling tools for consultants and sustainability commitments, but revenue pressure has continued. In March 2026 the company confirmed it was exploring the sale of its 33-acre Addison headquarters campus, a property it had occupied since 1994, citing an intent to reassess office needs. Reporting in Dallas media linked the move to declining net sales.