Who Owns Ulta Beauty?

Ulta Beauty was founded in 1990 in the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook, Illinois, by Terry Hanson and Dick George, former Osco Drug executives. Their idea was to break the department store stranglehold on prestige cosmetics: put mass-market and high-end beauty under one roof in a self-service format, add a salon, and let customers move freely between price tiers.

The concept struggled at first. Early investors wanted to reposition downmarket, and the founding team was replaced before the model proved itself. Through the 1990s and 2000s the company refined the mass-plus-prestige formula, expanded beyond the Midwest, and went public on NASDAQ in October 2007.

The next decade was one of the great retail growth runs. Ulta opened hundreds of stores, built the Ultamate Rewards loyalty program into one of the largest in retail with more than 40 million members, and rode the prestige beauty boom as department stores declined. Revenue grew from under $2 billion in the early 2010s to $11.3 billion by fiscal 2024. CEO Mary Dillon led the company through its strongest expansion era from 2013 to 2021, followed briefly by Dave Kimbell, who retired in January 2025.

Kecia Steelman, the company's longtime chief operating officer, took over as president and CEO at the start of 2025 and launched the Ulta Beauty Unleashed strategy to reaccelerate growth after a 2024 comparable sales slowdown. Her moves have reshaped the company's footprint: acquiring UK retailer Space NK in July 2025 for a reported price above 300 million pounds, opening nine stores in Mexico through a joint venture with Grupo Axo, launching two Middle East stores with franchise partner Alshaya, and creating the UB Marketplace digital platform with more than 200 third-party brands.

Fiscal 2025, ended January 31, 2026, showed the strategy working: net sales rose 9.7% to $12.4 billion with comparable sales up 5.4%. In August 2026 the Ulta Beauty at Target shop-in-shop partnership concluded as both companies declined to renew the five-year arrangement, redirecting the brand's retail presence back to its own stores and digital channels.