“A Season of Learning” for Beautycounter CEO Greg Renfro
By Stephanie Mehta | Published: 2025-10-20 11:00:00 | Source: Fast Company – leadership-2
Hello and welcome Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and Chief Content Officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week, this newsletter explores comprehensive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from pages… a company. and Fast company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to receive it yourself every Monday.
Greg Renfro returns. Four years after the entrepreneur sold her clean skincare and cosmetics brand Beautycounter to the Carlyle Group in a $1 billion deal — and more than a year after she and a private equity firm shuttered the company amid declining sales — Renfrew is officially launching Counter, a new company built on the Beautycounter assets she acquired from Carlyle’s lenders.
A season of learning
Counter, which has been quietly selling the products online since June 25, shares the clean ethos of its predecessor and uses some of its formulas. Renfrew has also secured the data of all Beautycounter customers. But Counter is a startup compared to Beautycounter, which reportedly had $400 million in annual sales at the time of the Carlyle acquisition. Despite her extensive experience as an entrepreneur — she previously co-founded a wedding registry site that Martha Stewart Living bought Omnimedia — Renfrew is, in many ways, going back to basics, focusing on profitability and listening to clients and vendors.
“I come to this day with a level of humility,” she told Modern CEO. “I don’t claim to have all the answers. I’m in a season of learning
Beautycounter’s demise was indeed humbling. (for me Fast company Colleague Elizabeth Seagran provides a comprehensive account of the company’s rise and fall.) Sales faltered and the company struggled to service its debt. Efforts to revive Beautycounter, such as a deal to sell its products at retailer Ulta Beauty, and changes in leadership, including Renfro’s return as CEO in 2022, were ultimately unable to save the company.
Buying back Beautycounter’s assets rather than creating a new company from scratch wasn’t just a way to start a business, Renfro says. It was an emotional decision too. “To completely let an old company go and die when it pioneered, created and led the clean beauty space — knowing that it was a very successful entity at one point — I didn’t want to give up all of that,” Renfro says. “My daughter Georgie was screaming in front of me, ‘You can’t let this thing die.'” Mum, she’s worked hard for a long time.
Second chances and lessons learned
Renfrew isn’t the first founder to feel seller’s remorse. In 2023, Ben and Nate Checketts regain control of Rhone, the clothing brand they started, from investor L Catterton. Sprout Pharmaceuticals founder Cindy Eckert sold her company to Valeant Pharmaceuticals (now known as Bausch Health Companies Inc.) in 2015 for $1 billion, then bought it back two years later because the giant didn’t make “reasonable efforts” to market Sprout’s female sexual health drug.
At Counter, Renfro is applying the lessons she learned the hard way from the collapse of Beautycounter. She is not the majority shareholder, but says she has a high degree of decision-making power. Its backers are mostly individuals, most of whom have invested with it before. The institutional investor came in “knowing that we would do things a little differently,” such as prioritizing profitability over growth. “Profitability gives you freedom of choice,” she says. “One thing I’m very aware of is that you never want to be in a situation where you’re not profitable. And if that means the business is a little smaller and takes longer to grow, that’s OK, because then your customers know that you’ll be there in five years.
She holds phone meetings with clients and vendors, asking what works and what doesn’t. “I seek to understand and learn,” she says, adding that she “realizes that we are here to serve others who will give us the opportunity to build a great brand and a great community.”
The success of the counter is by no means guaranteed. The clean beauty category that Renfro helped create is now crowded with competitors, and Beautycounter’s demise has left employees, vendors — the company sells its products through its website but also through so-called ambassadors who earn a commission on sales — and customers in the lurch. The counter may have to, well, confront lingering negative emotions. “Those who continue to buy from us in this new company, we owe them a debt of gratitude,” Renfro says. “We need to treat them with the respect they deserve.” For Renfrew, one way to show them that respect is, this time, to build a company that’s built to last.
What is your approach to business longevity?
If you are a founder or work in a founder-led company, in what ways do you ensure your business is sustainable? Share your thoughts with me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com, and we’ll include some of our best reader comments in a future newsletter. As a reminder, I am requesting nominations for Modern CEO of the Year via this form. Applications are due November 21, and we’ll share our picks — or picks — in a newsletter at the end of December.
Read and watch: Acts II
Cindy Eckert Regarding the buyback of the sexual health company Sprout Pharmaceuticals
Founder of Chipotle Steve Els He wants to revolutionize restaurants with his new concept, Kernel
Marc Lore talks about what it takes to be a serial entrepreneur
The early deadline for Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards is Friday, November 14, at 11:59 PM PT. Apply today.
(tags for translation) beauty
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