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Almost a year into his mayorship, Daniel Lurie is navigating the challenges and opportunities of keeping a leading tech hub on top. In this discussion, he'll talk about the transformative role of artificial intelligence in city governance, what role the tech community plays in the city's future, and how he plans to bring more business to the city by the bay.

Leading San Francisco: A Conversation with Mayor Daniel Lurie

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Thank you so much. Hey Daniel, how are you? I'm good. How are you? Good. So you're a year in, almost, not quite. January 11 months. Yes, sir. Are you tired? No, no, not at all. No, I don't. That, that doesn't enter into the vocabulary. Impressive. I think he's part robot, folks. OK, um. It's been an extraordinary year. Um, you have, I, I, I believe at this moment, last I checked, 7 71% approval rating. That's pretty good for anybody. That's pretty good for anybody who's a year into anything, I would say, um. And you avoided a Trump immigration standoff in this city. Um, you have dealt with a litany of civic issues. What are the biggest challenges you face in your opinion as the mayor of San Francisco? I think when we started, I think it was, um, making sure that San Franciscans knew that this city, uh, when we are at our best, is still the greatest city in the world and turning around sentiment, turning around that hope and that optimism, that was our big challenge. We had so many voices from outside of this city. Saying and defining who we were, that we forgot that we are the ones that are going to define San Francisco, and I think we've done a really good job of that. I think those that stayed and fought for our city, that didn't flee, that stayed and fought and invested deeply into our city have seen huge payoffs. I mean. Everything is rushing back in. I mean we've got retail rushing back in. We have people buying office space and buying hotels, and I think sentiment was the big challenge, and I think we've overcome that. At this time last year, 25% of San Franciscans felt like we were heading in the right direction. Today 62% of San Franciscans think we're heading in the right direction, and that's where we can now build from and now we have to execute. We've got to execute on public safety, which we are. Crime is down 30%. We've got to execute on the behavioral health crisis and getting people off the street and into the right kind of treatment beds and recovery beds. And then third priority, we have to strip away the red tape to help our small businesses, our restaurants. Our our galleries get up and running more easily and have a City Hall used to be kind of an opponent for our small businesses. We want to be a partner and we have changed that drastically as well, and we can go into that. But I think the biggest challenge was sentiment. We've gotten there and now we need to go execute, keep people safe, keep our streets clean, and, and create the conditions for success. Well, the sentiment thing is very interesting because you started off talking about everyone else's sentiment outside the city. But in fact it seems like the biggest nut to crack was San Franciscans' opinion of themselves. Absolutely you have to start. You, you got, you gotta love yourself before, um, anyone else is going to love you, uh, and this is now a mental health, yeah, we're gonna, well, we need a couch, um, and I think it's really important that San Francis, you know, we, we lost a little bit of our mojo, you know, we, we also took things for granted. Granted we took our restaurateurs, we took our entrepreneurs, we took our business community for granted we said we can just keep punishing you, we can keep being, you know, uh, a an opponent of yours and you're gonna stay well that didn't happen. People fled. Um, I wish they hadn't, but I understand, uh, to a degree why people felt like this the elected class in San Francisco took people for granted. Uh, from our artists to our restaurateurs to our entrepreneurs, and we're not gonna do that again. And so, uh, this is the greatest city in the world when we're at our best, and I think people are starting to see that again. Yeah, and you were born and raised here, so you really mean it, born, born and raised. So, so this being an artificial intelligence conference, I do have to ask where. Among these priorities that you had and please tell me if they've changed, by the way since you took office a year ago, what, how are you using technology to address them? Are there areas where. It's a lot easier or more difficult. These are big entrenched problems. Probably every major urban mayor has to contend with them. Yeah, I've been clear for now the last couple of years from the time I started my campaign till today, uh, with you here, public safety is my number one priority. Nothing else matters if you can't keep people safe. And so with crime down 30%, uh, citywide crime is down 40%. In Union Square in the financial district where we are right now here in San Francisco and why is that? Is more bodies on the street? I mean, what it's, it's we're still short staffed and the police, but we've, we're using technology, we're using drones as a first responder. We're using, uh, license plate readers called LPRs, uh, so that when something, uh, uh, an a criminal act is committed, we can get a drone up quickly. We can track people. Can do it safely so we don't have to have officers, uh, you know, flying through the streets because that is where accidents can happen and we are catching people now when they commit a crime. So we have, we just launched, uh, relaunched this thing called the Real Time Investigation Center called Arctic here in downtown San Francisco, uh, you know, think the television show 24 where we are. Really able to watch and see what's happening and keep the residents, the business owners, the small business, the retail shops safe, um, and so we're seeing a huge precipitous drop in crime. We are looking at the lowest homicide rate right now since the 1950s in San Francisco. Uh, we are an incredibly safe American city. We still have issues. We still need more officers out walking the beat, so we're going to continue to recruit officers. We have a 40% increase in people wanting to be SFPD now. More police doesn't solve all of our issues because we still have a behavioral health crisis on our streets, so we're trying to get people off the street and into the right kind of beds. But you know the Arctic is one example of technology being used. On all of our fleet of cars we're putting sensors on them to make sure that they're being used efficiently. We know where they are. Our homelessness response, we're managing what beds are available in real time. We're doing a better job. We're rerouting calls, 311 calls, streamlining it using and. With the help of AI and AI agents, and, and so, uh, but we're in the early innings of that, as I know, of course, many people in this room are too. So let's talk about the tech community. You mentioned downtown. That's a big priority for you. You, you, you, you said in previous interviews that, you know, unlocking downtown is unlocking the whole city, right? And so goes downtown, so goes the whole city. So. You know, the tech community has a, shall we say a lot of opinions, yes, uh, about San Francisco and in particular the downtown experience you've been trying to work with them as you said just just earlier a few minutes ago, um, trying to bring them in as open arms, trying to bring them in as partners, um. Opinion sentiment is still divided, right? Some people still talk about SF as it was. Some people still see it as the tech capital, the beacon on the hill. What are you doing to continue to work with them? You're deploying all this technology for your own needs and your citizens' needs, but what are you doing for the tech community to bring them back to downtown, to have them to, to, to make San Francisco what people think it is? Well, first, we are. Working with the community, we work with the business community, we work with the tech community, the tourism community, we want anyone that is home based here, and that is a lot of incredible AI companies that are here, we want them back in the office, and we don't actually have to have this discussion about whether or not it's 3 or 4 days a week in the office when you talk about some of our major companies anthropic, OAI, they're like. 3 or 4 we're in the office 7 days a week and so we're getting people back in the office because we're creating the conditions that people want to come back downtown. Clean and safe streets. I know I sound like a broken record, but my job as the mayor of San Francisco is not to tell people to be in the office 5 days a week. It's to create the conditions so people want to be in the office. So Muni, our public transit, is running efficiently and safely and is clean. Our streets feel safe for people to walk down. You go to Union Square now and it is bustling. A year ago it was not, uh, and so, uh, we, we want their input. We've started something called the Partnership for San Francisco modeled after what New York City started in the 1970s when they were going through a real rough. Time there we launched that there's 35 business leaders, not by the way, not just tech, but tech is engaged and involved, but we have tourism leaders, we have, you know, Visa, we got the San Francisco Giants, we got Ripple, we got, you know, all the companies around the table, and we want to hear their voice. And yes, everybody in San Francisco, it's not just uh tech that has opinions. 840,000 of us all have our own opinions. And I welcome that and that's what makes us such a unique and and great city indeed, um, I wanna come to the audience for a question in a in a minute, but I, I wanna ask you about, so we are both California residents, you and I, um, there have been a flurry of AI laws principally at the state level going on about all that sort of thing. I can't help but imagine that you feel like you're in it whether you are or not as the mayor. Of San Francisco, what's your thought on where the state needs to be in terms of AI policy? Should it be pushing aggressively, you know, we're seeing a fragmentation across the United States in terms of what the states want to do. I mean, listen, I was elected to take care of San Francisco and San Franciscans, and yes, the companies are here. I have not weighed. In on AI policy as of yet, I do think that if you do something that is just focused on San Francisco, we've seen it companies can move to 2 miles away in South San Francisco. They can move to Brisbane. So I'm always a believer in making sure that we have regulations and guardrails in place for this incredible technology that The companies here are unleashing. I think any time you do something that's just city specific or maybe even state specific, you get into a territory where you drive people to other locations, so. Um, not that we shouldn't be leading, uh, not only with the technology but also with, uh, regulations, but I would love to probably see a more, uh, broad based approach, uh, uh, from, you know, our electeds in, in, in the federal government, but, uh, I think we should be always pushing, and I think that's what they're doing in Sacrament pushing pushing. All right, let's go to the audience for a question. Oh look, they're timid after lunch. All right, I've got another one for you, sir. So, oh there's a lot of people we talk a lot about this, yeah, now we, now we can see all of you with the lights up. All right, great, um, you, we talked about the citizens, um, we talked about the tech community. I wanna come back to the citizens. How are you using technology to actually elevate. The non-tech community, the rest of this city, which you, you know, of, of which you're also an elected official representative, um, are there things that can be done? Yes, you talked a little bit about like homelessness and getting folks off the street, but I'm, I'm also thinking about upskilling and. Just elevating the entire city instead of just 11 thing that is around permitting, uh, right now we have a great and good looking permitting office where you can come, you know, to get, you know, your business license and, and, and, and to open a new restaurant and you, but you, you, you, you get in line and you start realizing you gotta fill out, uh, paper forms using. Pen and paper and you go to the fire department at one window and you fill out one form and then you go to planning at another window and then you go to the Department of Public Health at another. I mean those days have to be over um we have we're we're streamlining that we want you to fill out one form on a tablet or on a computer and it goes to all eight departments that oversee, you know, approval process that's right uh and so we've created something called Permit SF. We had a 100 day sprint. We had a 200 day sprint actually later this week we're unveiling some, uh, new. easements around a 300 day sprint just making things easier for the residents, for the small business owners if you want to put new stairs in your backyard or if you want to just redo windows, we have to make things easier for the residents of the city. That's what. Technology is meant to do. It's meant to make our lives easier. We are still living in, in an age where we are not fully utilizing what is right here in our backyard. So we, we are through Permit SF trying to make life easier for the residents of San Francisco. Yeah, I mean, it takes a special person to get excited about. We've got a good looking permit office, you know, um, and, and but we might have those folks here in the room. So, so, uh, as a homeowner, of course I thank you for that. Um, you actually, let's talk about Permit SF just a little bit more. So you, you, you were embroiled in a little bit of a scandal earlier this year around the selection of the technology for that initiative, um, YouGov, I think it was, or OpenGov, excuse me, OpenGov, um, and, and you were criticized because, you know, folks thought that it was not the best tool available, the, the, the selection of that technology was not. Not it and they were, uh, my understanding is your family has ties to that software or something like that, um. It's past you now, but what did you learn from that experience? Uh, well, listen, um, I don't have ties to it, um, but, but let's, let's be clear, uh, when you want to change a system, a legacy system where you have 8 different components to something and you want to streamline and you want to. You know, make life easier for 840,000 people, but change is happening in a really large bureaucracy. You're going to get pushback, and I get it. I understand people are scared of change. I, I am not scared of change. I am not scared to push the envelope and to make sure that we do what's right and make sure that we have more efficiency, more effective government for the people of San Francisco, and there's always going to be pushback when you, when you do that. I think if you come back a year from now and you ask me how has this implementation gone that that'll be the test we're in the midst of of overhauling this there's going to be pushback. I get it that's cool, um, but, uh, it'll, I, I want people to test me on whether or not the the software works and makes people's lives easier, and we're not there yet, but we'll get there, right? I, I believe this is the first time a robot has ever crashed the stage. What's going on at. Brainstorm, um, high germanium. I'm not sure what to say right now. Ah. Could you hold this for me? Yes sir. Thank you. I get to see what questions are coming up next. Very funny, germanium. Thank you. You can keep it. Thank you very much. All right. So let's, let's wrap it in. Come have a seat. Um, the, the, Let's talk about the red tape a little bit. Um. They're so cute, aren't they? Oh yeah, yeah, cool. I didn't know they could parallel park either. Fantastic, um. There you go, um, the, the red, uh, uh, tape of, of, of San Francisco is well known. It is also hardly unique to San Francisco. My hometown of Philadelphia also deals with this problem. My, my residence in, in Long Beach, California, same deal. Like every, a city of, of significant size has bureaucracy. To contend with SFS is particularly well known. You, you have commissions, commissions all over the place. Yes, all over so many commissions, 150 commissions. It's about almost triple what Los Angeles has, and they have 10x the population. A lot more people, right? So is. Artificial intelligence or just technology a way to solve that, or is it simply the way to govern? It absolutely need it can be helpful, uh, to us. I, I, you know, it should not displace people. It should help the people of our city, the workers at, at City Hall and all of our departments deliver more effective services for the people of San Francisco. should free up our employees to do better work for the 840,000 residents and you know sometimes technology works incredibly well and sometimes it doesn't and and and so we've got to be thoughtful about how we implement new, new, new things and I know that's what. The private sector is always looking at and we at the government sector, we tend to be slow to change. I'm going to push forward because what we have been doing in San Francisco in terms of delivery has not always been the most efficient or effective, and we're going to try to lean in on it and use technology. Uh, it's right here, so let's test it out. Fair to say move fast and break stuff a little bit for I, I don't think we should be breaking things, uh, uh, in government, um, but we should absolutely use tools that are well, uh, you know, well regarded, uh, um, that have been tested, um, always with safety, always with, uh, uh, that in mind and regulations and guardrails, but, but, um, I absolutely think we have some amazing. Innovators and entrepreneurs and companies here in San Francisco, we should be using the products. So final question, um, you're almost 1 year in. I asked you backstage if you felt like you were just going, going, going, and, and you, um, and if you ever got tired, and you said no just as you did at the top of this conversation, and then you said I've got 3 years left. It's a ticking clock for you. What are your priorities for the next 3? I think, um, I, I wanna leave San Francisco, uh, in a place where people around the world are like, oh my God, I have to go visit San Francisco. You know, we're, we're here. I know we're at an AI conference, but our number one industry is not technology, it's tourism, uh, and we have been the envy of the world for generations and, you know, hundreds of years now. Like we got away from that, uh, for a few years. We took it for granted as the elected class in the city. Like I'd never been in politics before. I was never, you know, I came from, uh, another field and, and, and people, you know, I think there was probably 4 or 5 people that thought I had a shot at winning and, uh, and so what I, how many were the family, yeah, probably 4 or 5, yeah, and, and so I think, um, what we are trying to create. Is is once again, uh, San Francisco being a world class city that is the envy of the world, and I think we're closer to that than most people realize considering where we were, you know, a year or two ago. Uh, this city is a city on the rise. Uh, we have. We are the innovative ecosystem of the world. That's why this conference is here and and and we also have the most incredible arts and culture scene. We have the greatest restaurants, I believe, on the planet here. Just great a great creative class and we happen to have some pretty unbelievable AI companies here as well so we have it all, uh, we just have to go tell the, tell that San Francisco story to the world and I hope everybody out there is paying attention and come see us here in San Francisco. There you go, Mayor Laurie. Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much. So may I thank you very much. Thank you.

Earlier this year, Ulta Beauty promoted former COO Kecia Steelman to CEO. Nine months into the role, she'll share how she’s leading the $11 billion beauty retailer into its next chapter—via its most ambitious international expansion to date, strategic acquisitions, and experiential retail—at one of 2025’s buzziest pop culture moments: Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter Tour.

How Ulta Beauty Stays Innovative

Keisha, thank you so much for being here and joining me. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much to Fortune for having me. I'm excited about our conversation. Of course. So you made the transition from COO to CEO about 10 months ago, one of those rare few. So tell me, in your 1st 10 months, what was the boldest or the riskiest thing you did that you think is paying off now? Oh wow, that's a fantastic question. I will tell you that I think one of the things that you need to be really focused on when you transition into a CEO role is to have a very clear plan, especially if you want to get a lot accomplished in a short period of time. I partnered with the board early on and I said, here's what my objectives are. It was really around 3 different things. First, to get the right team around me, not only for today but for the future, you know, that could be maybe viewed as bold because when you're making people decisions pretty early in your career, I have the benefit of being in the role for 11 years with the company, so I had a pretty pretty good perspective. I would say the second thing was to have a really good framework of strategy that the frontline associate could understand, so could the board and so could the investors. So building a strategy that everyone could understand the role that they played and it made sense. I had heard pre previous strategies and other companies in this one where I was like, I don't know exactly what that means. So if you don't understand what the strategy, it's hard to execute it. And then third, really clearly having decision making rights and streamlined decision making processes, I say often spinning is my least favorite move. So when you get stuck on a decision and you can't move things forward in an organization, it's, it's, it's difficult. So you ask the bold part. I would say that I focus on all of those at the same time and that's bold's that's bold. It was, I felt like we just couldn't wait too long. We needed to move. Quickly and that's exactly what we've done. Now Ulta, which has been such a US centric brand, you made the decision to do a big global expansion. You announced Mexico earlier this year. You're talking about the Middle East. Tell me about the consumers in each of those markets and how are they different and talking to you about what they want versus what US consumers want. Well, I'll start with that they all love beauty and the role that social media has played. has really expanded our brand outside of the US even though we are a US-based brand for 35 years. They were asking for us. You know what I'm hearing in those markets is that they really love the democratization of beauty that we offer everything from low to lux in services components with it. No one's really doing that in a large way that's focused. beauty and wellness outside of the US either, so that's one thing that they're they're excited about. The other thing that they're asking for that's unique that I actually am very excited about even bringing back into our ecosystem in the United States is brands that are true to the region, and they would like to have presence of regional brands in our stores, and I like that because as we continue to be even more global. As a company, bringing new brands into the United States, I think is part of that whole ecosystem too. We do it with fashion. You see what's on the runway in Paris and it comes to the United States. We should be doing the same thing with beauty too. Now you mentioned social media, which is a big part. It's changed the way I think a lot of us shop for beauty. Same with with Amazon. When thinking about that space, what do you think is Ulta's biggest competitive vulnerability right now and how are you standing out? You know, I will say no one does what we do at all to Beauty the way that we do it, and I'm a big believer in focusing on controlling what you can control and leaning into your strengths as a business and futureproofing them. So that's what really we are really focused on is um leveraging our digital assets. We've been investing in our foundational systems the last few years. This year we've really transitioned to. Go to market, uh, and then introduction you were talking about the cowboy Carter, etc. we have to be in the social areas where our guests are, and we need to be a part of the conversation and that's what we've really been leaning into. Beauty has been taking off on social media just for a lot of the young users as well. I know your demographic is skewing towards younger girls age 9 and 10. How do you think about the role. That Ulta and society should ultimately play and you know, young girls shopping for anti-aging products is how do you feel responsible for that type of thing and how do you, you know, kind of police what consumers shop for? Yeah, I will say that I do feel as a retailer we do have a responsibility to make sure that we're serving all of our guests and giving them the best experience with the great products that we can offer for all age ranges. So, um, you know, from. The very first starting, uh, with 8910 all the way to, you know, my 90 year old grandmother or my 90 year old mother-in-law. So you know, we, we have that responsibility I believe as a retailer to make sure that we're offering the right products for the right associate right right occasion, um, and the right experience that's needed. We have a lot of training that we do with our associates, um, we have a lot of the conversations with the parents. Because a lot of times when they're in they're shopping with their parents, so we want to make sure that we're just providing all the educational elements that we can so that they're buying the products that are the right products for them. I'm going to come to the audience for questions in just a second, but first of all, um, I don't know if you noticed Keisha say the magic buzzword, which is Beyonce, so I have to ask about that. Um, I know you've met Beyonce, also partnered with Beyonce and her Cowboy Carter tour. Tell me about one meeting her and to the partnership and That came about. Yeah, well, what I will say is she's just as beautiful in person as what you see on the stage, and she's a beautiful person from the inside out. She's been really engaged with the brand. That's what I see successful with the celebrity brands are those celebrities that are actually very, very engaged. This has been a long process that she's been working on building the brand and her mom's really engaged too, so it's really a family engagement. Um, the product is fantastic. It's for all hair types. Uh, the fixturing if you come into our store is on a really unique beautiful fixture, um, that's in a prominent location. Uh, it's hit the ground running. It's one of our largest hair. I do believe it is actually our largest hair makeup launch or launch that we had in the company and. You know, it's just exciting to be part of the conversation. It's so important that we are at the center of where our guests are, and that activation where we had pop-ups in local stores in the areas where the concerts were happening, it's just bringing music, her brand, our brand all together in a really authentic way, and when you can do that, it really resonates with the guests. Do you want to do more of that going forward? Yeah, I think where it makes sense, absolutely, very cool. All right, any questions from anyone out here? Up front we got one. And if you could say your name, title, and company please? Betsy Bay and Danny Herman, head of research at Phillips. We had dinner last night together, and there was a quote, and I know we don't talk about dinners, uh, they're off the record, but about not being bitter and being better, and I think the rest of the folks here might actually appreciate hearing that as well. that you're, we're breaking the rule on dinner, but it's a good one. No, it's a good one. Yeah, what, what we were talking about is like there have been times in all of our careers where we've been passed up or we didn't get that that next role when we even felt like we were ready for it. And I said that the one thing that's really true to me is I think that you can either choose to be better or you can be better, and I took this opportunity the last few years getting ready to be the CEO of Alta Beauty to really focus on being better. I really supported Dave Kimball, who was our CEO. I Learned as much as I could to prepare myself for the next role, and I think that actually allowed me to hit the ground running. If I would have been bitter, I could have left and taken a CEO job someplace else. I had plenty of opportunities, but this is the company that I wanted to be with, and I took that opportunity to be better instead of being bitter. That's a that's I love that that phrase. That's a really good one. Um, and you've had such a long career. You've been at Ulta for, for a decade, right? Target before that, and you actually had a partnership with Target, I think, probably thanks to all the relationships you built there recently you decided to part ways. Can you talk to us a bit about the lessons you learned from that and what you're taking into partnerships going forward? Yeah, well, what I will say is that I'm really proud of the work that we had done with Target and we did make a mutual decision to go in different directions. I think that's just a natural occurrence of business and you know, with me coming in as a new CEO, my responsibility is to make sure that I'm focused on the right processes and you know, investments for Ulta Beauty and our Ulta Beauty Unleashed plan, which we've talked about since day one when I hit the ground, is where I really feel that I want to focus my team, my assets, and that's where I feel like I can get the greater shareholder value in return. It's in the Alta Pia unleash plan is around 3 different pieces, uh, for those of you that maybe don't understand, it's the first one is our core business. So clearly our day in and day out business that's running 80% of our sales still come from our stores, but really working on brand building and store execution and our investments in our digital assets. Personalization is really important. That's that's driving the core business of and of itself. And then we've got margin of creative businesses that, you know, can help us continue to make more money and to continue to grow in an asset-like way. So international is one of the pillars of my margin of creative plan. Marketplace, which we just launched and officially shared today, it hit the wire that we have 100 brands that are now being sold on our online capabilities at the really seamless transaction, so marketplace is up and running, which is great. Wellness is a $400 billion category that's highly fragmented. I've got space in stores to really do this right. The guests are telling us that we have the right to to drive that business. Uh, and then UV Media, which is our retail media network, uh, we have 46 million loyalty members in our ecosystem. Now that's a clean database, so they've shopped within 12 months. That's a huge asset that we have that we can partner with our brands and really drive the business and also look at non-endemic advertising too, uh, and then you underscore that was just operation. Excellence and that's what my also beauty unleash plan is and that's what we're seeing working right now internally I talk a lot about we had to get our swagger back. I felt like we lost our swagger just a little bit and I feel like we've got our swagger back, uh, the company you can feel it internally in the company. You can see it, uh, in the interaction in our stores and. And it's great. I have one of my uh chief leaders here with me, my chief retail officer Amy Bear Thomas. It's the people that make all the difference with your team, and I feel like I have the best team in retail working with me right now. Operational excellence that's really the COO and you just shining through which I love Keisha um so I wanna end also by talking about the future um what does you know. Future consumers like Gen Alpha, what do they want that millennials, Gen Z, Gen X, all of them haven't wanted before that you're right now planning for? Well, what we're seeing with the Gen Alpha consumer is yes, they're getting their information online, but they really, really like that experience in store. They like trial, they like, uh, you know, hands on. K Beauty is really. Important to them, so Korean beauty, they're, they're very much into that. They like clean beauty. They really do want great products that uh the value, it's not necessarily just about the cost, but the value for what the benefits are. They are a very smart segment and they're going to, they have very high expectations, so we've got to make sure that we're always prepared to deliver for them. And my last one for you Keisha, I feel like beauty is such an industry that thrives on reinvention trends are constantly coming and going. How do you decide what trends are worth investing in and what you're just gonna pass on, and it's a passing thing? Well, we have a great group of merchants uh and a and a great leader leading our merchandizing teams, you know, I, I think that's where their expertise is. I I like that we have new avenues to be able to try some brands and maybe a little bit. Less risky way with bringing them into our marketplace to see if they sell well then we can always convert them onto our econ platform and then ultimately into our store but you know I think that's part of the art and science of retail and that's what makes it so fun is that you've got to look out there to find that that one that's the next one and that's what our merchants do just such a fabulous job of and I couldn't be more proud of what they do day in and day out and quickly favorite Ulta product. Oh, that's like asking me my favorite child. You can pick top three. You can take top 3. Alright, I will say, um, my, my favorite, uh, is gonna, I'm gonna start with an Ulta Beauty product. So an Ulta Beauty lip oil, we have a great, uh, Ultra Beauty lip oil. It's got a nice flavoring. So if you're one of these that talk and eat your lipstick at the same time, it's a good one. Um, I like SA ladder Advanced Night Repair. It's, uh, you can take it and it works for all skin types. It's a, it's a great one, yes, I know SA ladder up there, um, and then, you know, I'd say the other one is, um, I do like skin Iceland. I'm a big, I'm all about skin right now and know these. that you can put on your eyes and go to bed and you look a lot better in the morning, especially as much as much travel as I have. It's like a micro needling eye patch that you can put on. Don't pull it off because it will hurt, put it on and you wake up the next day and you look a little bit more ref. Alright, well, you heard it here first. Thank you so much. Thank you I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Bayer Pharmaceuticals executive Sebastian Guth says the decision to cut middle managers was an "effort to accelerate momentum and growth across the organization."

Bayer's move to cut middle managers was not "slash and burn," exec says

Bayer Pharmaceuticals Chief Operating Officer Sebastian Guth

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18 months ago we embarked on a very radical transformation and leaned into a new operating model which we termed dynamic shared ownership as part of that, I eliminated here in the United States, for example, 40% of all middle managers, which is hard, um, but it was necessary to. Uh, see our organization transform into a world that is significantly more agile and in fact empowers teams to take decisions as they see fit. So this wasn't an effort to just, uh, slash and burn and take out cost, but this was an effort to accelerate momentum and growth across the organization. Uh, today, 18 months later, we're seeing evidence of amazing success. Uh, we just reported, uh, in our quarter one results last week, a growth of 23%. So we're, we're on a journey and a journey that gives us every reason to believe that we're building a better, a faster, and a more successful organization that is really tuned into its core purpose of uh serving patients.

Reinventing Bayer: CEO Bill Anderson’s Push for Agility and Innovation


Photo courtesy: Bayer AG. Graphic by Fortune. 

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