Founders: Charlotte Tilbury on beauty, business and confidence

**Leanna Byrne** (0:01)
Welcome to Founders from Business Daily on the BBC World Service. I'm Leanna Byrne. Today, I'm talking to Charlotte Tilbury, the cosmetics entrepreneur behind one of the world's most successful beauty brands. We spoke on one of the hottest days in London this summer with three fans whirring in the background, perhaps not unlike the fashion shoots where she first honed her craft as a makeup artist.

**Leanna Byrne** (0:27)
Charlotte, will you indulge me? I'm going to give a little blurb about you.

**Charlotte Tilbury** (0:31)
Thank you. Thank you so much.

**Leanna Byrne** (0:33)
You're one of those founders whose products, they're everywhere, but whose story people don't always know. You started out as a makeup artist with a big vision, spent years working with some of the biggest names in fashion, film, beauty, and then built Charlotte Tilbury into one of the most successful beauty brands in the world today. Millions of people use your products, your company's worth billions, and you've also been honored with a CBE.
Welcome to meet the founders.

**Charlotte Tilbury** (0:56)
Thank you so much for having me on. It's a privilege and an honor.

**Leanna Byrne** (1:00)
Well, it must be funny when you might walk through airports, you go to one big department store and you just see your stuff everywhere. I mean, do you ever just kind of go past it and go, there's me?

**Charlotte Tilbury** (1:12)
It's always amazing. It's always amazing. I think when you have a vision to build the biggest beauty kind of brand that the UK has ever had was really my mission from the beginning. And I think when you see that, it does fill you with such pride and joy.
And you're so grateful to everyone, your consumers, your team, who helped you build the dream. I really saw a white space in the market, and I saw there was a massive gap. And having, as you said, worked on couture shows and runways and worked with supermodels and celebrities and red carpets, Oscars, film covers of Vogue, whatever. And I did that for 21 years before I built my brand. I was also a creative consultant. And so I would work with amazing entrepreneurs, super inspirational, people like Tom Ford, people like Mark Jacobs. And all of that kind of informed, really was a great sort of MBA, really kind of informing where I've ended up. And having worked on millions of faces, really kind of knowing undertones, overtones, looking at you gorgeously out with your beautiful blue eyes, dark hair, and sort of gorgeous peachy skin. Exactly for your face, what exactly would suit you with your skin tone, undertone, overturn, hair color, eye color. And really making sure that when I did something, it really had to be revolutionary because my whole thing is all about innovation, disruption, and not just being another MeToo brand. And that was really important. I felt also that I was very frustrated as a makeup artist. I was constantly using mixing mediums to create things and products that weren't there. And people would say to me, I want to look like, you know, whoever Kate Moss or whoever I was doing makeup on. And they were like, oh, but I can't look like that. And they were like, yes, you can. Whatever somebody I was working on, because they didn't have the, then I thought, oh, Christ, I don't have the total products to give them. And so I really, working with the biggest laboratories in the world and working on blue sky formulas and really, I got into this amazing relationship with them and being able to come up with incredible products and inventing products. And then I realized, so I would always have this mission that I would hone my craft, work with the biggest laboratories, get to the top of my industry and then create my brand.

**Leanna Byrne** (3:16)
Did you have any doubters? Did you have any people say, why is she doing this? Like she's successful in her own right?

**Charlotte Tilbury** (3:21)
Yes, I think, listen, I think there'll always be the neocayers, right? There'll always be the people. I mean, what does, you know, Steve Jobs always say, the people that are crazy enough to want to change the world are the ones that do. So yes, I think people said to me, you know, five conglomerates own the world. Why would you bother? You won't be successful.
You know what, if you see the space and you see the white space and you see the opportunity and you know that the customer need state is not being met, then you know it's going to be a success. And I think, certainly with myself, I had unwavering doubt that it would be a success. And I've done 21 years at the top of my industry and game, flying around the world, doing everyone. So I was like, oh no, no, I'm an expert. I'm a, and I have a unique artistry and I've got the top of my industry that's being arguably the world's number one makeup artist. So I knew what was missing. And, and I have a very unique way of creating it when I'm creating product, whether it's kind of the artistry of color, the magic of light, the power of layering, all of that that really didn't exist. So I've invented categories and reinvented categories. So I saw that. But then you also, once you create great product, you've got to build a brand. Right from the beginning, I had this vision of, you've got to anticipate where the world's going to be, where the customer is going to be, how is it going to pivot and change. And so from the beginning, I hired, you know, really a CDO, a chief digital officer, so really kind of, and I really, to build, you know, it was very unusual at that time, launching with a kind of website, the countdown and et cetera. But then I had this tech vision and it wasn't really there. I'd go and see my friends in technology and say, listen, I want to be able to do augmented reality. They're like, no, no, we're not there yet. We're trying to do face mapping and it's really slow and it's glitching and it's not working.