Performance Beauty Group’s New CEO JuE Wong Eyes Lash Category Dominance

In her new role as CEO of Performance Beauty Group, JuE Wong is set on lash domination.

“The lash space has no clear authority or leader in it,” says the former CEO of Olalpex. “This is for our taking. I want the team to know that we can get there because it’s not about us willing it and wanting. There’s just no one else in the mix at this time. Why can’t it be us?”

To get there, Wong plans to harness the momentum of powerhouse lash treatment brands in private equity firm Gauge Capital-owned Performance Beauty Group’s portfolio, Grande Cosmetics and Babe Original, and grow other brands in the portfolio, namely Lilly Lashes, Velour Beauty and FlutterHabit, into category leaders in strip lashes. Haircare brand Bondi Boost is in the portfolio, too.

Wong isn’t starting from nothing. Performance Beauty Group’s brands have already generated between $500 million and $700 million in global retail sales and are sold at Sephora, Ulta Beauty, Macy’s, QVC, Dermstore, Lookfantastic and Amazon as well as professional spas and salons.

Gauge Capital clearly would love for Wong to repeat at Performance Beauty Group what she did at Olaplex, which she guided through an initial public offering in 2021 that valued it at $15 billion and resulted in one of the largest paydays in the history of the beauty industry for its previous private equity firm owner Advent International.

Wong, who prior to Olaplex held president and CEO positions at Moroccanoil, StriVectin, Elizabeth Arden and Astral Brands, departed the bond-building haircare brand in October 2023 after its sales plummeted by almost half as consumer demand declined and it battled a class action lawsuit claiming that its products caused hair loss and scalp blisters.

Beauty Independent spoke with Wong about Performance Beauty Group’s growth opportunities, the company’s acquisition and retail strategies, the difficulties brands face achieving exits today and lessons from past experiences that inform her now.

What are your key goals as CEO of Performance Beauty Group?

I really want to lead this group of brands to be on a top-of-mind basis for customers. I talk a lot about brand relevance and less about brand awareness. These brands have some awareness, but are they top of mind? Are they relevant to consumers? That, to me, is more important than anything. Going deeper with our technology and our retail partners is important, too. The retailers serve our consumers, and we can support them with data from our direct-to-consumer channels. A lot of the brands at PBG started off as direct-to-consumer brands.

Which brands would you characterize as leaders within Performance Beauty Group’s portfolio now and which have to room to grow?

Grande Cosmetics is the lash serum authority. I don’t even have to talk about it because, if you look at data from Circana, they are always ranking in the top at either No. 1 or No. 2 under The Ordinary or vice versa. So, leading the pack with Grande will give us a lot of tailwinds.

Babe Original is very unusual in that this is truly a collection of SKUs that really resonate on social media and with a younger set. It’s a great way to graduate them into a brand like Grande Cosmetics. They need to start somewhere, and Babe Original is a great place to start because it’s user-friendly, social media-savvy, and the younger consumers don’t feel the pinch when they’re starting out that way. For me, those two are really going to help us with the eye authority piece.

There’s tremendous opportunity with Bondi Boost because no one has been talking about boosting your hair bonds. Everybody talks about repairing them. Think about it, when you are not healthy and you get yourself to a good place, you really want to sustain it. That is what Bondi Boost can do. It can sustain your hair bonds that way.

Is your goal to build Bondi Boost the same way you did Olaplex?

Olaplex is really the brand that, when people say, look, my bonds are damaged, they think of them. It’s top of mind for a lot of consumers. With Bondi, what is so good is that, if you look at the numbers, it’s one of the top haircare brands at Ulta. So, it definitely resonates with a group of customers.

Why are they buying Bondi? Are they buying Bondi because they think it’s an alternative to bond repair or are they really buying Bondi because of results that they have seen, but they can’t articulate? That’s the thing with a lot of brands today. Sometimes the name tells you what it is. Other times, the message tells you what it is.

In the case of Bondi Boost, the name itself is halfway there. It’s boosting your bonds, but obviously Bondi isn’t about bonds, it’s referring to a beach in Australia. But playing on words, I think that’s a lot of equity, and there is a social media relevance where we can bring the message to the people.

What will define Performance Beauty Group’s acquisition strategy moving forward?

At this point, it’s about leveraging the foundation that has already been laid by the team. I’m very fortunate. A lot of people coming into a company have to redefine what could be or really enhance what could be. There is nothing for me to change up, except to really make it more relevant. I want to build what we have and make it stronger and deeper rather than acquire anything new at the moment.

Obviously, that is why the group exists. Acquisition is not out of the picture, but, at this point, let’s make sure that we are not only strong, but the strongest. Then, we can really have leverage when we look at other brands that are synergistic with our existing portfolio of brands.

When we do acquire, it will be about building the eye and hair authority pieces. What is exciting is seeing the technology that will be available that we can embed in the performance to make it more user-friendly and message-friendly. If we can do that, then we are serving the customers the way they want to be served.

How do you build brand relevance?

Relevancy means top of mind. It’s bringing the communication directly to your end consumer. That’s what this portfolio of brands under the PBG umbrella does well. They all were direct-to-consumer brands, so they understand the importance of bringing that message directly to who we serve. Then, you bring that information to the retailers and to the professionals to help them augment it.

Today, there is no easy path. A couple of years ago, brick-and-mortar was getting inundated. Space was limited and everybody diverted to online thinking that was an easier hurdle. Today, it’s just as crowded and noisy. So, it’s about truly getting back to our DNA of who we are, what we do and how do we do it best.

I call it mission, vision and purpose. The mission is always for us to deliver what the customer wants. The vision is how do we get there and how we get there is looking at each of our brands’ top SKUs and making them the performance drivers. Then, the purpose is always evergreen. Our purpose is always going to be top of mind for our customers. To do that, we’ve got to be true to our mission and true to our vision.

Have all the brands under Performance Beauty Group expanded into retail at this point?

Most of them have except for FlutterHabit, which is a do-it-yourself brand that’s still very much in the professional channel. They just ventured onto Amazon 3P last year. There’s a lot of room for growth in retail. Most of the brands already have a footprint, but instead of trying to expand and dilute the equity and the resources, what I really believe is that we can go deeper with every one of our distribution partners.

It’s one thing to be there. It’s another thing to be a category leader or one of the top five brands for them. This means working with our existing partners with our innovations, launches, merchandising and using data to help us all make informed decisions to serve our customers where they are, on or offline.

I think of it as domination versus proliferation when it comes to retail. The disciplined road is the harder road to take. Everybody loves new products, innovation and the excitement of it, but, at the end of the day, when you look at data, it’s always the 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of your revenue is always generated from a very small set of your products. When you’re more disciplined, you get more rewards because you learn more about your business. You can double down on things because you’re not gambling. You’re making very informed decisions.

Why is it more difficult now for brands to achieve big exits?

People are seeing a lot of slowdown, but I believe it is temporary. There’s a recalibration of expectation. Gone are the days where people are looking at 8X, 10X multiples just on the top line. People are now focusing on multiples at the bottom line, the EBITDA line.

Founders are going to have to be more disciplined in how you operate your business. You cannot spend indiscriminately. You have to understand what your cost of acquisition is. You have to know what your return on investment is going to be. Those are the questions that acquirers are asking.

It’s not, look how fast I’ve grown. It’s, is your growth sustainable? Money is still there because there’s been a lot of pent-up demand. Founders are coming to a realization now. Vennette Ho from Raymond James said, “The new $100 million is now $200 million.” It used to be great that you get to a $100 million in sales, but you might have to get to $200 million now.

Growth is great, but sustainable, long-term growth is even more important. You have to show that. If you look at the average multiples that have traded from 2023 into the first half of 2024, everything is averaging five times the multiples. It means that acquisition is smarter money.

It’s a good time to recalibrate expectations, and I think it will make the industry stronger because it will make founders be more disciplined in growing their businesses. Acquirers will then expect that from founders, and when they do acquire a brand, they have ability to grow that brand more materially.

What lessons are you bringing to this role from past experiences?

We are as good as the mistakes that we have made and as good as the success that we learn from. This is my sixth time as CEO and president. The key thing in anything is to listen and learn. Once I do that, I can then help make informed decisions with the team.

The second thing is to understand that a crisis is always going to come. It’s not a question of if, but when. When it does come, what are you going to do about it? So, it’s about looking ahead, looking around corners and keeping an eye in your rearview mirror, but not constantly looking at the rearview mirror because then you will get into an accident.

I want to be sure that I can bring not only the knowledge I have learned and the challenges that I have faced, but also be very informed about looking forward with this team.