Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Carlyle Group removed Gregg Renfrew as CEO five months after buyout
“They made the decision in October that I was not capable of running the company, and they decided to remove me as CEO.”
Opinion
Gregg Renfrew felt Carlyle's replacement CEO Marc Rey was the wrong choice
“I felt better with his departure than I did with him staying there. So for me, I didn't feel that he was the right person for the job, and I felt more confident in the choice they made in their interim CEO, Mindy McKenzie, with whom I partnered really, really …”
Disclosure
Beautycounter's closure forced Gregg Renfrew to lay off employees without severance
“So I ended up having to let go of the majority of the associates for the company without severance or health insurance, which was horrendous.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Martha Stewart and COO Sharon Patrick fought constantly over everything
“Martha and Sharon fought a lot. They had differences of opinion on just about everything, so that was the first thing, and I think dual reporting of equal measure is challenging.”
Opinion
Gregg Renfrew claims Martha Stewart ran a fear-based organization
“Martha was very challenging to work for because she is a perfectionist, and she led, you know, a sort of, I would say, a fear-based organization.”
Opinion
Unregulated beauty industry allows companies to make baseless marketing claims
“The challenge in the beauty industry, which is not the same thing in the food industry, is that it is not regulated to the extent that it needs to be, and people can make marketing claims like safe, clean, anything.”
Disclosure
Gregg Renfrew sold to private equity to remain CEO and pursue IPO
“And the reason that I chose to sell to a financial sponsor versus a strategic, because I had been Approached by a strategic two years prior, which is why... I felt like I wanted to be that next generation leader in beauty, and I wanted to take the company publ…”
Assertion Supported
Carlyle Group halted capital funding for Beautycounter in mid-March 2024
“Well, in mid-March of 24, Carlisle made the very difficult decision to move away from funding, continuing to fund the brand.”
Disclosure
Bank of America unexpectedly offered to sell Beautycounter back to Gregg Renfrew
“The debt on the business was syndicated. Led by Bank of America and G.P. Morgan Chase, and I can't remember the other banks that were involved because I didn't interact with them, but in a crazy act of, I would almost say of kindness, Bank of America approache…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gregg Renfrew was fired from Best & Co. by a messenger
“Well, I mean, the end of the story, I'll start with that, is that I was fired by Messenger in front of my team when I was a CEO.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Early consulting by Gregg Renfrew steered Jessica Alba toward The Honest Company
“So the conversations that she and I are having during the time during which I was consulting for her were moving away from this clothing line and closer towards what ultimately became The Honest Company. And I was not a founder of The Honest Company, but I hel…”
Insight
Renfrew: Brands must diversify contract manufacturers to retain leverage and mitigate risk
“My opinion is you go to the company that specializes in the thing that you want to make, and so the company that's really good at doing a lipstick or a lip gloss may not be the company that's really good at doing shampoo and body wash or lotions, and also I th…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Less than five percent of Beautycounter sellers built secondary sales teams
“We had attributes of an MLM business in that we allowed women to build teams, and in tiny, tiny percentage of the women, like less than five percent Built teams.”
Assertion Supported
Gregg Renfrew acquired Beautycounter's assets out of foreclosure in April 2024
“So I acquired the assets of the business out of foreclosure in April of 2024.”
Disclosure
Relaunched brand Counter prohibits partners from building multi-level sales teams
“We do have a community of women we call brand partners, but one key differentiation is that they cannot build teams, so they are paid all
Exclusively on, commissioned on their own sales”
Insight
Gregg Renfrew advises calling CEOs at 7 AM to bypass gatekeepers
“The thing to do was you got up early in the morning and you started calling the office of the CEO because typically the person supporting them Wasn't in the office till like eight 30 or nine. And so if you got up at seven, most of these people were in the offi…”
Disclosure
Beautycounter flagged orders over $1,000 to prevent reps from stockpiling
“So if there was any order that came into our website over a thousand dollars, we would flag it because not only did we not want people spending money and losing money, but we also wanted to control the brand experience. And so I didn't want someone selling a b…”
Assertion Supported
Renfrew: Beautycounter hit hundreds of millions in sales in eight years
“We scaled to hundreds of millions of dollars of sales in, in eight years.”
Assertion Supported
Beautycounter had 60,000 brand representatives at the time of its sale
“When I sold the company, there were about 60,000 women that were representing the brand”
Assertion Supported
The Wedding List was Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's first acquisition
“And I was brought in under contract to fold this business into Martha Stewart Living Omni Media, which marked their very first acquisition.”
Disclosure
TPG Growth brought Bono in as an early Beautycounter investor
“We came in because TPG Growth was our first, you know, largest institutional investor. They had a relationship with Bono. Bono and his wife, Allie Houston, had started a brand called Nude. They were actually early pioneers in the area of clean, and that's how …”
