Welcome trailblazers! I’m Simi, and in this newsletter, I dive deep into the journeys of South Asian trailblazers. Follow us on Instagram/LinkedIn for more content + upcoming events. Find our podcast on Apple and Spotify.
Hot off the Pod 🎧 Prama Bhatt, Chief Digital Officer of Ulta Beauty
Joining me for the penultimate episode of Season 5: Ulta Beauty's first-ever Chief Digital Officer, Prama Bhatt. Prama brings 20 years of digital expertise to this role, having brought to life innovative experiences and initiatives like Virtual Beauty Advisor, GLAMLab, real-time recommendations and more to meaningfully disrupt the future of beauty.
Before serving as CDO, Prama served as Senior Vice President and Vice President of digital and e-commerce at Ulta Beauty. Prior to that, she led teams at Toys R Us and Kenneth Cole and held several roles across product strategy, design and development at Ford Motor Company. Prama holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Oakland University, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Wayne State University, and an M.B.A. in corporate strategy from the University of Michigan. She also serves on Hormel Foods Board of Directors and the Advisory Board for Shoptalk. Read on for episode excerpts:
Human progress over the past 20 years: Our world is big and complex, but human progress is still about life on the ground, up close and in detail. Take a granular look at human development around the world here.
Simi: After spending time as a management consultant, you shifted over to Toys R Us in 2002. It seems that this the place where you cement your future in digital and e-commerce. What were some of the early experiences you had at Toys R Us that started to put you on that path and eventually led you to be VP/GM of US e-commerce for the toy giant?
PB: Now that I'm answering these questions, I laughing at my own journey. I credit this leader who brought me into Toys R Us for giving me the opportunity to move into digital. But I remember going in a bit kicking and screaming because it wasn't a core part of the business. In my head, I was thinking, ‘I'm new to retail, I've only been here two years, I have so much to learn.’ At the time, I was in their supply chain and inventory area, and I was learning about their growth strategies. And so I was like, ‘I can't believe you want me to move to this other part of the company that is super small.’
Interestingly, we were partners with Amazon, which was also really a happenstance moment for me to learn about digital in different ways. But I remember thinking, ‘Oh, gosh, this person is pushing me out.’ But that wasn't it at all. She was actually looking out for my best interest in terms of a growth opportunity. And then when I got there, I had so much fun discovering it. Most retailers at that time really didn't have a clue about e-commerce, including me. And so those are those moments where you have an opportunity to actually like learn on the job, dig in, not get stuck in one function, and start to really understand every element of how things come together. So I would say in my case, it was not well-architected. It was a mentor with goodwill in mind that pushed me along. And that was an important life lesson. Sometimes you think you have a good idea of what's best for yourself. But you have to get input. In this case, it really set the stage for the rest of my career.
Simi: Today, under your leadership as CDO of Ulta Beauty, you've brought to life disruptive initiatives like the virtual beauty advisor, virtual try-on opportunities, real-time recommendations, etc. Is there any innovation effort you’re particularly proud of?
PB: Our team and our partners did something for our company that was really important in terms of disrupting the space. We put together the strategic rationale for why it was important to have access to technologies like augmented reality and virtual try-on not just for the sake of having them but because it’s core to what Ulta Beauty is all about. We’re all about: come into our stores, play around with beauty, swatch products up and down your arm, and see what works for you. It’s a playground — and being able to do that physically is fun. We want you to be able to do that digitally too.
That rationale led to us realize we need to really build an expertise in augmented reality. And on that journey, the company was really supportive in enabling us to not only partner and work with startups, but actually acquire a startup. And so that was a really proud moment. With the acquisition of GlamST, we now have an innovation team in Uruguay with expertise is virtual try-on and augmented reality. We did the same in the artificial intelligence space. We felt really strongly about being able to mine our data and understand how to better serve our customers with those deep insights. And along that journey, we worked with a startup that was building out the capability around recommendation engines and natural language processing. And through that journey, we built enough of a relationship and showed value that we had the opportunity to acquire that company into our digital team. Those were two journeys I couldn't have planned on, but standing up an innovation team, doing that within the constructs of a brick-and mortar-retailer who was committed to the digital space, and then having the opportunity to bring startups into the family that now have led us to starting a venture fund in the interesting of disrupting beauty experiences has been a blast. Just this year, we launched Prisma Ventures. That journey has been especially fun, because it's something we've been able to co-create with the innovation team and the company has been really supportive.
Interested in the future of beauty? Trends shaping e-commerce? The life of a CDO Catch the full episode on Apple, Spotify, or our website!