Laurie Lam has been a disruptor for as long as she can remember.
At just 11, she hopped on a New York City subway to convince the owner of a flower shop in Chinatown to give her a job. At 15—armed with working papers, braces and no eyebrows (it was the trend at the time)—she did the same at an Estée Lauder counter.
“I was always curious. I wanted to make an impact. I was humble. I had heart, I had drive, I had grit. I wasn’t afraid of hard work. And those things have stayed true throughout my entire life,” Lam, who now serves as the chief brand officer at E.l.f. Beauty, told Newsweek.
With Lam’s help, E.l.f.—which describes itself as “a bold disruptor with a kind heart”—has built a thought-provoking marketing machine that’s not only become one of the world’s fastest growing beauty brands but also one that has sparked meaningful conversations outside the industry.
The company’s viral success has extended beyond its collaboration with TikTok stars and celebrity-packed Super Bowl ads. Last year, E.l.f. also made headlines for its eye-popping “So Many Dicks” campaign, which called out the lack of diversity in American boardrooms.
Upon learning that there were more men named Richard, Rich and Rick (names that have all been associated with the nickname Dick) on U.S. public corporate boards than entire groups of underrepresented people, E.l.f. launched an entire campaign centered on the statistic.
The brand found that there were twice as many men named Dick than Hispanic women and 19 times more men named Dick than women of Middle Eastern descent. It also uncovered that for every two men named Dick, there were only three Black women. Asian women faced the same ratio.
“It became a catalyst for us,” Lam recalled.
E.l.f. used the “So Many Dicks” campaign to kick off a larger initiative that the company dubbed “Change the Board Game,” an effort to double the rate at which women and people of color are added to boards by 2027. The other goal, Lam said, was to shift the conversation from corporate circles to kitchen tables across the country.
“That’s exactly what we accomplished,” she said. “Our own board of directors was sitting at the dinner table with their daughters asking about this because they had seen [the campaign].”
The initiative supplied consumers with educational resources, answering questions like how boards are seated and what exactly a board of directors does, but more important, E.l.f. made a compelling argument—using its own board as an example—that diversity is profitable.
When the company launched the “So Many Dicks” campaign, it was only one of five publicly traded companies in the U.S. that could boast a board of directors that is two-thirds woman and one-third diverse. Today, E.l.f., with a board that is 67 percent woman and 44 percent diverse, remains only one of five companies that can say that.
“We don’t want to be alone in that statistic,” Lam said, explaining that E.l.f.’s diversity was a driving factor for the “patterns of success” that the company was seeing.
At the time that Lam joined E.l.f. in 2022, the brand ranked no. 5 in terms of profit within the beauty market and no. 6 in terms of units sold. Today, E.l.f. is no. 2 in profit and no. 1 in units sold.
“It’s not by coincidence,” Lam said. “Our board of directors was so unique that we knew that anything is possible—or ‘E.l.f.ing’ possible—when you have women in diversity, in the highest seats of decision-making power.”
On Wednesday, E.l.f. reported its 26th consecutive quarter of net sales growth and market share gains.
“[That success] is built on this back of a board of directors, and it is built on a firm belief that when you have diverse people in the highest seats of decision-making power, you can actually create positive change for the company,” Lam said. “We want to invite more people to the table.”
Lam’s decision to join E.l.f. was born out of a difficult time. Coming out of the pandemic with two young daughters and the recent passing of her father, she suddenly found herself “reevaluating her North Star.”
“That was a really pivotal moment in my life that made me evaluate what I wanted to be, where I wanted to live, what was going to be my legacy,” she said. “It led me to the word unleash.”
Lam learned that her North Star was the ability to “live by [her] truth.”
“Coming to E.l.f. and seeing a company that allows me to do that every single day and allows me to feel my purpose, when I was at a crossroad, is integral to that truth,” she said. “The day that that stops happening to me, there’s a day that I’m no longer here at this company.”
This year, E.l.f. has turned its attention to its younger consumers, an audience that Lam, as a mother of two girls, is passionate about.
On Tuesday, E.l.f. consummated the acquisition of Hailey Bieber’s skincare brand, Rhode, for $1 billion—an acquisition that E.l.f. said would “cement” its “place as the next-generation beauty conglomerate.”
And in June, E.l.f. announced that it was partnering with Hello Sunshine, Reese Witherspoon’s media and production company, to launch Sunnie, a Generation Z–focused experiential media and lifestyle brand.
“As a mother of two young daughters who are Gen Alpha, this is going to create ripple effects that they are going to benefit from,” Lam said.
“We are pioneering something that has not been done before. We are doing it to create positive impact to every eye, lip and face,” she added. “And it feels close to me knowing that my girls are going to be there really soon.”
To celebrate women in leadership and to help them connect with the next generation of C-suite executives and board members, Newsweek is hosting its inaugural Women’s Global Impact forum. The August 5 event, hosted at Newsweek‘s headquarters in New York City, will bring together some of the world’s top female executives and connect them with rising stars across industries and job functions. For more information on the event and entry guidelines, please visit the Women’s Global Impact homepage.
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