06.28.22
BeautyUnited has appointed Julee Wilson executive director.
The beauty industry veteran joins the BeautyUnited team during a pivotal time to help further their mission to provide community, education and access to support the next generation of beauty and wellness leaders.
“We are thrilled to have Julee join the BeautyUnited team,” said Kendra Bracken-Ferguson, cofounder and advisory board co-chair, BeautyUnited. “As a friend of the organization and leader in the beauty industry, she is an exceptional visionary and perfect executive to lead and further the mission and initiatives that Moj [Mahdara] and I set forth when we founded the nonprofit.”
BeautyUnited started as a grassroots effort in April 2020 by Moj Mahdara and Kendra Bracken-Ferguson in response to the impact of the health crisis spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. BeautyUnited has developed through an economic crisis followed by a crisis of racial justice to form the BeautyUnited coalition, an organization committed to activating our networks of celebrity and influence to raise awareness on intersectional fronts. BeautyUnited is committed to making the Beauty industry a more diverse and inclusive place, providing community, education, and access to support the next generation of underrepresented leaders through professional development and access to the industry's most influential leaders and companies.
BeautyUnited offers education programs, and professional development, creating the blueprint for the next generation of beauty and wellness leaders. Since BeautyUnited’s inception in 2020, their mentorship program has provided 75 Black and Indigenous Beauty leaders with 468 hours of mentorship, 22 hours of education curriculum, and supporting documents on everything from new business financing to setting a meeting agenda, as well as conducted eighty-five private speaker sessions that serve to educate and inform beauty professionals. Past speakers at 411 have included: Alok Vaid-Menom, Evan Spiegel, Hilary Rodman Clinton, Professor Loretta Ross, Adam Grant, Marc Lore, Reshma Saujani, Jon Wexler, Payal Kadakia, Professor Ella Bell and Opal Tometi, Jen Wong, Sarah Willersdorf, Ian Rodgers and Bozoma Saint John to name a few.
BeautyUnited has received widespread support from industry and industry veterans since 2020, including American Express, Bliss Beauty, Charlotte Tilbury, Creator IQ, Dr. Barbara Sturm Skincare, Dr. Woo and Estee Lauder Companies, among many others.
Julee Wilson’s Colorful Beauty Background
Previously the beauty director at Cosmopolitan, Wilson will remain with the brand as beauty editor-at-large, writing a monthly column, contributing to select features and projects, and representing the magazine in the beauty industry. Prior to, Wilson held the roles of global beauty director at Essence and served as the magazine’s fashion and beauty director for three years. Before her tenure there, Wilson was the senior fashion and beauty editor at The Huffington Post. She started her career at Real Simple magazine where she worked her way up from assistant to the editor-in-chief to staff fashion editor. Her writing has appeared in InStyle, Conde Nast Traveler, The Business of Fashion, and The International Journal of Fashion Studies, to name a few. Wilson has also appeared on CNN, The Today Show, and the CBS Early Show. She received her bachelor of arts degree in leadership studies from the University of Richmond and is an alum of Stanford University’s former Professional Publishing Course.
“I feel incredibly honored for the opportunity to pour even deeper into an industry that I truly love,” said Wilson. “There’s an incredible amount of work to be done — especially within DEI, sustainability, economic development, and beyond. BeautyUnited is positioned to move the needle in all those realms and more. I have endless admiration for what Moj and Kendra have created and can’t wait to help take this organization even higher.”
Wilson sits on the Black In Fashion Council’s executive board and the advisory board for Harlem's Fashion Row, as well as a member of the board of trustees at the Museum of the City of New York.