Anita Ryan, Ulta Beauty’s chief human resources officer, has been with the company for more than two decades.
But if you ask her how Ulta’s culture has changed, she says the company’s values have never shifted. “We’re open to learning and we’re humble — we’re one big family, and we hire people externally and we promote so much internally,” she said. “But the curiosity of being a continuous learner is the essence of who we are and that’s been a driving force since the beginning.”
For Ryan, internal culture is one of the most effective ways to drive growth at the retailer, which increased net sales by 4.5 percent to $2.8 billion in the first quarter. “We’ve all seen or felt it when you’re in a culture that you’re trying to grow and expand, but you’re not sure what the culture is,” Ryan said. “It’s not a strong foundation. Our values have not changed over the years, and how we bring them to life adjusts with the business, but the essence of what they mean remains the same.”
Given her time with the company, she’s also seen Ulta grow beyond the goals it has set for itself. “We used to say, ‘If we can open 150 stores, we’ve made it,’” Ryan remembered. “Then it was 200, and the bar never stopped.”
As of May, the company has 1,451 stores in all 50 states, with a joint venture set to expand to Mexico, a licensing deal in the Middle East and having acquired U.K. beauty retailer Space NK in July.
“We are a retail employer with stores, that has a corporate office. We’re not a corporate office that has stores,” Ryan said. “Those people bring this to life for us. Continuing improvement is something we always talk about. The dialogue is great, from the stores to corporate, and we always try to get better at how we cut the noise out and meet the associates where they are.”
In fact, much of Ryan’s goal has been to ensure a two-way conversation between leadership and employees, and it’s one that has broadened in scope as the company has swelled.
Anita Ryan
Darren Hauck/WWD
“Even the executive team — we say all the time, we don’t know everything — we know a lot collectively and we can figure things out. If you start thinking you know everything, you’ve missed the mark, you stopped learning, and you have to keep asking questions and you have to keep growing. We learn a ton from our junior associates,” Ryan said.
Ryan, who started her career in grocery stores, also sees the power in having a chief executive officer who began as boots on the ground.
“Retail is a long-term career play, but not everyone understands that,” Ryan said. “For Kecia [Steelman, CEO of Ulta Beauty] to be able to tell her story, or for me to be able to tell mine of growing up in a retail environment, gives people the lens that you can do this regardless of where you start.”
Building that growth path has become a key part of Ryan’s role. “We have so many stories of associates who started as seasonal, part-time hires, who are now running stores as general managers,” she said. “The executive team does something called a ‘chief chat’ that is open to any level of the organization, and no questions are off-limits. You can ask what’s top of mind and what you need to know.”
The chief chats have also become a listening ground for Ryan to better understand how to equip the company’s workforce.
“We learn from the associates, and it’s an open dialogue that allows us to continue to see what kind of training we need to add,” she said. “Kecia and I do the same thing, but we call it a Power Hour. Ninety percent of the questions we get are about career path.”
Ryan acknowledged that the company had room for improvement — and that’s the point. “The dialogue is good between the stores and corporate. We can always get better at how we cut the noise out to get out there and meet the associates,” she said. “We do a great job of traveling consistently to stores.”
Despite the seniority of the executives on each visit, listening is key, Ryan said. “Having a bunch of corporate people in your store, trying to tell you how to run it, is not helpful,” she said. “But asking, ‘Tell me what’s working and what’s not working’ — we can really move fast when we just listen.”