Beautycounter founder Gregg Renfrew sold her $1 billion clean beauty brand and then lost her job. Now’s she back as CEO with ‘unfinished business’

But Renfrew is now returning as CEO, Beautycounter’s parent company Counter Brands announced last month. It’s an unusual boomerang for a founder whose company is still majority-owned by the same firm that asked her to give up the job not so long ago.

“This has been a very humbling experience,” Renfrew admits. But she decided to take Carlyle up on its offer to return as CEO to address “unfinished business” at the brand she founded.

This wasn’t the first time Renfrew navigated a tricky situation with a boss. In the mid-2000s, she was CEO of Best & Company, then owned by Susie Hilfiger—until she was fired in front of her team via messenger. She also previously built the weddings platform the Wedding List, which she sold to Martha Stewart Living—and left “after a turbulent stretch” working with Stewart.

This time around, Renfrew initially stayed on in another capacity after stepping down as CEO; she later took some time away from the business entirely. The transition was “incredibly difficult,” she says, but the hiatus gave her the opportunity to reflect on her leadership and her goals. “I was able to look in the mirror in a calm, safe space and figure out if I want to lead again,” she says.

“Everyone’s replaceable, even a founder,” Renfrew says she concluded. “I realized the business was able to continue on—maybe I could have done a better job, maybe not, but it was able to go on.”

In Renfrew’s time away from Beautycounter, the company has cycled through two CEOs. With her return, she wants to make sure the brand is in a sustainable place—and work in a more sustainable way, with a new focus on work-life balance for herself and her team.

Renfrew advises other founders considering selling their businesses to be clear and honest with themselves about why they’re doing so and what it will mean.

“Are you wanting to monetize the asset because you want the financial windfall? Are you doing it because you feel that particular sponsor is going to be accretive to the business at large? Understand why you’re doing it,” Renfrew says. “And don’t be naive thinking that once you sold it, you have control anymore, because you don’t. It’s neither good or bad—it just changes everything.”

Emma Hinchliffe
[email protected]
@_emmahinchliffe

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