What Huda Kattan Learned From Handing Over the CEO Role in Dubai

When Huda Kattan stepped down as chief executive of Huda Beauty in September 2020, she remained founder and chairwoman. Nathalie Kristo, who had been leading the company’s North American business, took over as CEO. Kattan described the change as a way to give someone else the chief executive job while she concentrated on the company’s vision, culture and creative direction. The Dubai beauty company would still have its founder involved in the work customers associated with her. It would have a different person running the business. Kattan’s 2020 announcement as reported by The National

In February 2024, Kattan told her audience she was back in the CEO role and had had to relearn what it took to run the company. She also reconsidered her original decision. Bringing in experienced people had made sense to her, she said, but she felt she had moved too far away from work that mattered to her, including product development and creating content. Her account offers a useful starting point for a UAE owner planning to step back. Which work should the business stop depending on the founder to do, and which work will the founder still have a defined role in doing? Kattan’s 2024 account as reported by Harper’s Bazaar Arabia

Huda Beauty’s February 2024 Instagram reel shows Kattan addressing her audience directly about returning and making changes at the company.

Separate the CEO job from the work the founder wants to keep

In 2020, Kattan publicly described a distinction between leading the company as CEO and shaping the brand as founder. Her later account makes the boundary harder to draw. Product development was part of the work she cared about. It can also affect the operating plan through launch dates, stock commitments, supplier work and what the company can promise retailers. A founder can hand over the executive role while still influencing those decisions. The practical question is where that influence enters the process and who settles a disagreement when creative and operating priorities compete. The National on the 2020 handover Kattan’s retrospective account

Consider a hypothetical Dubai beauty company deciding whether to put a new product into stores in time for a seasonal campaign. The founder may see a problem with the final concept and want to revise it. The CEO may have promised retailers a delivery date. If the founder keeps authority over creative approval, put that approval early enough in the schedule for the operating team to act. Agree what happens if a problem surfaces after orders have been placed. The company can then decide whether to change the launch plan, accept the current product or escalate a choice that has become too expensive for either person to take alone.

Start with a month of real decisions. List the ones that came to the owner and why. Some might have reached them because they held a particular authority. Others might have arrived because colleagues had learned that asking the founder was the quickest way to get an answer. Ask which decisions the CEO should handle once appointed, which require founder input and which belong in a scheduled review. Use decisions with real trade-offs. It is easier to agree on a broad division of roles than to settle what happens when a product is ready to ship and one person still wants to change it.

Put the successor in charge of decisions the team can recognise

A new CEO can have the title while colleagues continue to ask the founder for permission. For a founder trying to reduce their daily role, one test is to trace a routine exception from the person who spots it to the person who resolves it. A UAE distributor wants to amend an order. A supplier cannot deliver on time. A manager wants to spend more than planned on customer support for a launch. Ask the team who has the decision and see whether their answers match the arrangement the founder and CEO have agreed.

Consider how the founder will respond when someone brings them a request outside that arrangement. A direct answer can solve the immediate problem and send the organisation back to its old habits. The founder can send the question to the person who owns it and explain what input they can contribute. If there is an urgent exception, agree how it will be handled, how the CEO will be informed and when that exception ends. The point is to let managers act with authority they understand even when the founder is available and has an opinion.

A written note to the team can explain the new working arrangement through examples. Say who approves routine spending, who settles conflicts between functions and how creative feedback will be collected. Where the founder remains the public face of the business, give customer-facing teams a way to get a response without promising that every issue will go directly to them. Review the arrangement after a few weeks using requests that took longer than expected. The delay can help identify an unclear boundary or a person who needs information earlier.

Preserve the founder’s knowledge where it changes a decision

In her retrospective, Kattan described valuing experts while regretting distance from the parts of the work she felt strongly about. That distinction matters to a founder whose own judgement has been part of the product. Some of what they know can be taught through examples. Some may still be best exercised in a defined review. The team can start by asking the founder to explain two recent decisions in detail. What did they notice that others missed? Which customer reaction were they trying to avoid? Which compromise would they have accepted? Kattan on product development and content

Turn those conversations into something a team can use. For a product business it could be an annotated set of past briefs showing why a concept was approved or sent back. Give the next product lead a chance to apply the criteria to an actual proposal, then have the founder explain where they reached a different conclusion. That discussion can make part of the founder’s judgement repeatable. It can also identify the small number of decisions where a live review is still worth everyone’s time.

The same applies when the founder is particularly good at speaking to customers. Let the operating team see how their comments are collected and used. The founder may notice that customers describe the same problem in several ways. A support or research lead can check whether the pattern extends beyond the messages that reach the founder. When both have access to the same evidence, they can decide which issue goes into the next product review and who owns the follow-up. The founder stays close to the work without every comment becoming an instruction.

A return to management and a change of ownership are separate events

Kattan’s public timeline has several stages. Kristo took over the CEO role in 2020. Kattan and Christopher Goncalo became co-CEOs in 2021, according to reporting on her return. Her February 2024 video publicly discussed her return to the CEO job and changes she wanted to make. In June 2025, Huda Beauty separately announced that Kattan had bought back equity from TSG Consumer Partners and described her as sole owner, with Kattan and Goncalo serving as co-CEOs at that time. The ownership statement and the executive titles answer different questions about who owns the business and who runs it. Harper’s Bazaar Arabia on the executive timeline Huda Beauty’s June 2025 ownership announcement

If you plan to keep ownership while leaving daily management, discuss when you would reconsider that decision. One option is to schedule an early review after the CEO has led a complete operating cycle. Ask whether decisions are moving at the right pace, whether staff know whom to ask and whether the founder’s defined role is working. A later review can cover results that need more time, such as what customers did after a launch. Agree which evidence would lead to more support for the CEO, a clearer split of responsibilities or a formal change in roles.

If an owner wants to intervene before that review, write down the problem they intend to solve. A team may lack a skill, be waiting for a decision or disagree with the founder about the direction of the product. Those are different situations. Adding a specialist, clarifying authority and changing leadership each affect the company in different ways. When a return to management is the choice, set out which responsibilities the founder is taking back, when the change starts and what authority the rest of the team still has.

What to test before the founder steps away

Use an upcoming week when the business is operating normally. Let the proposed decision owners handle work as agreed, while the founder participates only at the points the team has set. Keep a record of where people sought an informal override, where a decision was delayed and where the team needed founder knowledge it could not access. Pick two decisions that went well and one that did not. Review who had the necessary information and who had authority to act. A decision that moved without the founder’s daily involvement can give the team a concrete example to follow next time.

Test one awkward scenario too. A major customer asks the founder for a commitment that would change what the CEO has already agreed with the team. The founder can acknowledge the concern and route it to the person who can assess the cost, check the timing and respond. Practise what the team would tell the customer and what would happen if the request went beyond the CEO’s authority. Doing this ahead of the change makes it possible to sort out an ambiguity before a relationship depends on the answer.

Decide what the owner will read once the trial is over. A weekly note can show decisions taken, exceptions still open and the handful of topics on which the CEO wants advice. Keep it short enough to discuss without replaying every operating conversation. If the founder wants more detail, ask which decision it will help them take. The answer can improve the report or show that the information belongs with the executive team. Over time, the handover should give both people a way to see when the arrangement needs attention without relying on the founder to follow each issue personally.

Kattan’s time away from the CEO role and her subsequent account show how difficult it can be to draw the line between running a company and doing the founder’s distinctive work. A Dubai owner considering a similar change can begin with the next product, customer or budget decision that would usually land on their desk. Give someone else a clear mandate to take it. Define where the founder’s input belongs. Then watch what the team does when the two roles have to work together under ordinary pressure.