A conversation with Rare Beauty CMO Katie Welch

Katie Welch, CMO of Rare Beauty, doesn’t have much free time: She just got back from an international rollout of the brand’s Kind Words lipstick collection, and the brand recently debuted another collection based on founder Selena Gomez’s show, Only Murders in the Building.

But when Welch does have time, she—relatably—spends it on TikTok, where for the last two years she’s shared her work, her boss, and, most frequently, career advice with young marketers. Topics range from CMO career paths to who to follow on marketing Twitter.

“So many people love beauty and love this industry or want to work in marketing…and it’s daunting. It’s hard to figure out,” she said.

In the last two years, she’s accumulated more than 82,000 TikTok followers, hosted résumé consultations on Zoom, and now runs a community of 400 “career-minded individuals” on Geneva, most of whom came from TikTok.

We discussed what it’s like being an online mentor to so many while also running marketing for a company that brought in more than $60 million in revenue in its first year.

Executive insights

While Welch no longer has the time she did in the early days of the pandemic to do one-on-one consultations, she’s continued posting frequently on TikTok and said she hopes to scale her Geneva group to include more industry experts.

One of the most common questions Welch said young marketers ask is how to be a CMO like her—something she didn’t know she wanted to be early in her career.

“I was clearing voicemails off of an answering machine at Victoria’s Secret Beauty, making sure that all the stores had enough Love Spell [perfume],” she said. “Did I know that I was going to one day be a CMO of beauty brands? Heck no.”

But Welch said being a communications specialist at Victoria’s Secret taught her about the beauty industry, which is why she tells people to always pay attention to what’s happening around them.

After Victoria’s Secret, Welch went on to work in PR at Tractenberg & Co. and Weber Shandwick. In 2010, she became VP of integrated marketing communications at skincare brand Bliss World and has since been the CMO for Hourglass Cosmetics, general manager of beauty at The Honest Company, and now CMO of Rare Beauty.

She cites Gail Heimann, CEO of Weber Shandwick, as an influence on her own career growth, having been able to work with and observe her on projects over the years. Welch called that kind of access “invaluable.”

But realizing access to that kind of mentorship is not universal, Welch said she wanted to remove barriers to entry and help those who may not have connections. “I’m passionate about helping people, and I’ve been fortunate to have great mentors. So I wanted to make sure that I could do the same,” she said.

In 2020, an ASU student who worked at Sephora reached out to Welch asking how to get a job in beauty. “I was like, Hold up. Time out. You work in beauty!” she said. Welch helped her through what she liked about retail while also teaching her about things like visual merchandising. Now, Welch said, that student works in PR and influencer marketing at Makeup Forever. “She did it,” she said. “It’s just so cool.”

Rare opportunity

While celebrity beauty brands can often be flops, Rare has brought in millions in revenue and Welch confirmed certain products, like the cream blush, have gone viral organically on TikTok.

Welch said she’s fortunate Rare allows her to be open and maintain her own TikTok presence, but she’s never used her account as part of the company’s marketing strategy. She has explained marketing tactics, like Rare Beauty mailers, on TikTok but said “that’s more because the people who follow me maybe want to go into PR.”

Still, she said, being active on TikTok has indirectly influenced the brand’s approach, allowing her to keep up with content and audio trends, as well as understand analytics. She said she hopes she can “actually help, not hinder, the team’s brainstorming.”