This feature is part of the Voices of the Now & Next series—a collaboration between VaynerSpeakers and the New York Stock Exchange, highlighting influential leaders shaping markets, culture, and business today.
Bobbi Brown, Legendary Beauty Entrepreneur & Founder, Jones Road Beauty
Bobbi Brown helped build the beauty industry, then reinvented her own rules.
Brown's career spans three decades of beauty industry evolution. She built her first empire in 1991 with Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, pioneering the "natural beauty" movement that would define an era. Her revolutionary approach, creating makeup that enhanced rather than masked natural features, established her as one of the most influential voices in beauty.
After building a multi-million dollar brand and selling to Estée Lauder in 1995, Brown remained at the helm for over two decades, expanding the brand globally and cementing her reputation as an industry visionary. Her expertise in product development, brand building, and consumer psychology made her one of the most respected names in beauty.
When her non-compete lifted in 2020, the beauty industry was changing quickly. That same month, Bobbi launched Jones Road Beauty: a brand rooted in cultural relevance, built for the modern consumer.
Three years later: $100M in revenue.
When Brown's 25-year non-compete clause expired in 2020, the beauty landscape had fundamentally transformed as traditional retail was dying and social media was exploding.
The inspiration for Jones Road Beauty came from a simple realization: The same principles that made her first brand work—authenticity, education, inclusivity—were exactly what modern consumers craved now more than ever.
Her secret sauce was simple: reinvent the industry by building conversations with consumers where they are—not where brands wish they were. The difference wasn’t in the message, but in the medium. And that medium was social media.
Bobbi saw what mattered most when building Jones Road:
She didn’t outsource that message; instead, she delivered it herself. On TikTok and Instagram, Bobbi showed up makeup-free, demoed products, broke down pro techniques, and even sparred with critics in real time. Those unfiltered moments turned her into a creator in her own right, and her audience into collaborators.
Instead of pumping out dozens of SKUs, Jones Road launched smart, multi-purpose products born from TikTok feedback.
The payoff? $100M in three years—without celebrity endorsements, splashy ad budgets, or traditional marketing. Proof that in today’s beauty landscape, authenticity and expertise scale faster than polish and spend.
More on the story of Bobbi’s reinvention:
Bobbi Brown didn’t just launch another beauty brand—she built a blueprint for relevance that stretches far beyond beauty. Her formula is simple but hard to copy: deep expertise paired with cultural fluency. Her story isn’t just about reinvention, but anticipation. She saw where the culture was heading and moved before anyone else.
This feature is part of the Voices of the Now series, a collaboration between VaynerSpeakers and the New York Stock Exchange, highlighting influential leaders shaping markets, culture, and business today.
