Katia Beauchamp

Founder & CEO Buff Beauty

Founder & CEO, Buff — 2025–Present
Katia Beauchamp is the founder and CEO of Buff, a nail care brand built around a simple, deliberate idea: bare, buffed nails are a finished look, not an unfinished one. Buff is launching direct-to-consumer with a fast-following placement in Target Beauty Studio, and extends its point of view from hands to feet under the Barecare umbrella. It’s Katia’s second time starting something from a blank page, and third time building from a small base to a scaled global business. She’s approaching Buff the same way she’s built every company: starting with a consumer insight, creating product and a brand that is worthy of scaled success, and in parallel building a top team to realize the opportunity.

CEO, Victoria Beckham Beauty — August 2022–January 2025
Katia joined Victoria Beckham Beauty to accelerate its growth and build a company that could become a true leader in luxury beauty. Her mandate was broad: scale the DTC channel, launch fragrance for the first time, build out a wholesale strategy for long-term distribution, and reinvigorate the brand’s partnership with Augustinus Bader. Over two years, she led the business through a real shift in brand awareness and industry credibility, launched a full fragrance line, and grew wholesale from a negligible part of the business into a meaningful growth channel. She also evolved the Augustinus Bader partnership into a new skincare-powered complexion collaboration, and rebuilt the team into a highly engaged, high-performing group across both the corporate office and the field. Katia considers the team and culture she built at VBB among her proudest work.

Co-Founder & CEO, Birchbox — 2010–2021
Katia co-founded and led Birchbox, the discovery commerce beauty business that became one of the most disruptive companies in the beauty industry over the last two decades. She co-created the original Birchbox concept, bringing demand generation and demand capture into a single experience, and built the business from the ground up into a multi-country brand serving millions of customers. Early on, she built Birchbox’s B2B foundation, forging revenue-driving partnerships with hundreds of brands, including major partnerships with L’Oreal, LVMH, and Estee Lauder. She led Birchbox’s fundraising efforts across multiple rounds of institutional capital, orchestrated an acquisition that expanded Birchbox into new European markets, and launched new business lines including Birchbox Grooming and in-house beauty brands to strengthen margin and defensibility. In 2018, she built a strategic partnership with Walgreens Boots Alliance that opened the door to physical retail and expanded Birchbox’s footprint significantly. She later led the sale of Birchbox’s French subsidiary, and ultimately the sale of the business, in 2021. As a founder, Katia’s proudest accomplishment is the talent she attracted and developed, and the meaningful work experience she built for a global team.

Education & Recognition
Katia holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in International Studies & Economics from Vassar College. She has been recognized with honors including Advertising Age’s Women to Watch, the CEW Achiever Award, Fortune’s 40 Under 40, Inc.’s 30 Under 30, Marie Claire’s New Guard, WWD’s Digital Innovator of the Year, and YMA Fashion’s Entrepreneur of the Year, among others. She is also a Henry Crown Fellow, 2021 class.

Personal
A native Texan, Katia lives in Long Island with her husband and four children