What we do
Strategy and growth
We help set strategic direction and identify opportunities for growth. Our work spans corporate finance, corporate strategy, digital strategy, portfolio strategy, and risk management.
Digital and analytics
We help clients unleash advanced analytics on rich data to turn consumer insights into commercial excellence. This data can be a unique asset to generate value through targeted product development, pricing, promotions, marketing, and supply-chain excellence. We also help beauty brands and retailers boost their e-commerce presence and digital marketing effectiveness.
Operations
We develop distinctive operations strategies by optimizing supply chain and ensuring world-class performance within individual functional areas. Our work ranges from operations digitalization and next-generation procurement to product development and lifecycle strategy.
Revenue-growth management
We guide clients in mastering the fundamentals of assortment, pricing, promotions, and trade investment. Our focus is on taking revenue-growth management (RGM) to the next level through strategic RGM, precision RGM, and RGM capability building at scale.
Organization
We help maximize company and functional performance through optimal organizational structure, processes, and performance management. Our deep expertise in transformational change and capability building helps companies foster innovation and build the business models needed to sustain long-term impact.
M&A
We partner with beauty companies to maximize the success of their end-to-end M&A activity through identifying complementary partnerships and integrating new businesses—including those with different business models and scale—into the organization.
Private equity
We help private equity firms make better investment decisions in the beauty industry at every stage of the deal’s life cycle and build greater returns through active management of portfolio companies. We also advise on investment-firm strategy and development, creating value through improved performance.
Featured insights
Article
The beauty market in 2023: A special State of Fashion report
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The glow of the beauty industry has proved hard to resist, attracting many new companies and investors. Brands must make differentiating choices to find success in this shifting and increasingly competitive landscape.
Podcast
Black beauty brands and consumers: Where do we go from here?
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Inequity is rife in the beauty industry, says a new McKinsey report. Ulta Beauty CEO Dave Kimbell and two of the report’s authors discuss how to better support Black brands and serve Black consumers.
Article
The beauty battleground: The sprint to win on services
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Beauty companies looking to capitalize on fast-evolving trends should act on the growing convergence of brands that offer beauty products and brands that offer services.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly
Black representation in the beauty industry
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Black beauty consumers and brands face deep challenges when it comes to equity. Removing those barriers can lead to greater opportunity for everyone in the industry.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly
Meet the Black beauty execs
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Creating a path to a more equitable beauty market for Black brands represents a $2.6 billion opportunity. McKinsey talked to four founders and entrepreneurs who are leading the way.
Article
From extreme to mainstream: The future of aesthetics injectables
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McKinsey research shows that the global aesthetics injectables market could grow by 12 to 14 percent a year over the next five years if manufacturers and providers capitalize on the underlying trends.
Report
State of Fashion report archive (2017-2024)
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McKinsey’s State of Fashion report offers the best of our research and insights into the fashion industry. View our archives for past reports from 2017-2024.
Collection
Global surveys of consumer sentiment during the coronavirus crisis
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Consumer optimism varies by country depending on what stage each country is in the coronavirus contagion cycle.
Podcast
Meet Generation Z: Shaping the future of shopping
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The newest consumer generations—Gen Z and millennials—are upturning retailers’ expectations. Here’s how—and what to do about it.
Article
What makes Asia−Pacific’s Generation Z different?
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Gen Zers in the Asia–Pacific region aren’t like their older siblings. Here is what you need to know.
Article
The young and the restless: Generation Z in America
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Connected and exuberant, the newest consumer generation in the United States is beginning to define itself.
Article
How COVID-19 is changing the world of beauty
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The beauty industry has been resilient in the past. Could this crisis have a different outcome?
Featured experts

Danielle Bozarth
Senior PartnerNew York
Brings more than 20 years of experience serving a broad set of B2C companies, including in travel, logistics, consumer, and retail...

Kristi Klitsch Weaver
Senior PartnerChicago
Advising a wide variety of consumer-facing, global organizations at pivotal strategic points on topics including strategy, growth,...

Sara Hudson
PartnerLondon
Works with consumer companies on strategy, growth, marketing and sales, M&A, and responses to disruption, and with private equity...