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Last updated on February 13, 2025
Mona Kattan, Founder of KAYALI and Co-Founder of Huda Beauty, reveals how she went from beauty pageants and hair salons to building a global beauty empire.
Mona Kattan always knew she wanted to work for herself. She remembers setting up her first beauty salon in Dubai and the sense of purpose she felt as clients left her chair feeling empowered. Her passion for beauty has since transformed into two powerful global brands.
Together with her sisters, Mona and Alya, she set up Huda Beauty in 2013, growing it into the billion-dollar cosmetics empire it is today. Then, in 2018, Mona launched her own perfume brand, KAYALI, now the fragrance arm of Huda Beauty Group, boasting more than 1 million followers on Instagram and sold by major retailers, including Sephora, Walgreens Boots Alliance, and ASOS.
Today, age 38, Mona Kattan’s net worth is estimated at between $100m to $200m. With Dubai’s tech ecosystem reaching a combined market valuation of $43b, entrepreneurs like Mona are blazing a trail in the region.
And she’s not alone – our list of 33 Dubai Tech Startups to Watch reveals the most promising tech startups in Dubai, innovating in industries including AI, fintech, foodtech, proptech, and web3.
From Finance to Cosmetics: Building Huda Beauty
A self-proclaimed “pageant kid”, Mona was born in the USA to Iraqi parents before moving to the UAE and grew up watching her father working hard to support a family of seven. She learned the importance of resilience from an early age. When she left university she worked a brief stint in a bank to please her risk-averse dad, before realising she wanted to be self-employed.
“My main job was doing PR and business consulting for brands, most of them being startups from the region. It took me a few years to start working with international brands. But on the side I was making jewellery, making candles, selling things on Amazon to Dubai retailers, like every side hustle possible.”
Three years later, she opened a beauty salon with a friend in Dubai, and felt hugely rewarded as she was able to build confidence within her clients. Her sister Huda was a makeup artist at the time, and clients and friends would constantly ask where she got her false eyelashes. Huda made them herself, and Mona, seeing this demand, had a realisation.
“Why do I keep telling people that you can’t buy them? It can’t be that hard. I went to my sister and I said, ‘If I could help you with the manufacturing, find you suppliers, and help you with some sides of the business, how would you feel about starting a brand?’ and she agreed.”
With five eyelash styles and the $6,000 invested by their other sister, Alya, Huda and Mona Kattan created Huda Beauty. With Mona’s strategic direction and Huda’s focus on product, they grew into the beauty empire that it is today.
Mona Kattan & the Power of Self-Belief
As Mona reflects on the variety of challenges of being a business owner, she pinpoints one in particular: “everyone’s biggest obstacle is themselves.” Understanding blind spots and working on personal development is critical for scaling a business successfully, as Mona notes, “the business can only grow as fast as you grow, so it is important to check in with yourself.”
As a woman founder, Mona stresses the importance of not shrinking yourself, and having the confidence to voice your opinions.
“It was definitely a challenge for me to achieve a balance somewhere between arrogance and humility. The key is to know yourself and your product inside out, and then you will have the confidence to lead effectively.”
Encouraging Women in Business
Startups founded or co-founded by women raise just 10% of total VC funding in Europe, and women-only founded startups raise just 2% of funding in the US. Companies led by Black women receive less than 1%. The skewed investment landscape is particularly crazy when you consider that 1 in 6 women globally intend to start a business, compared with 1 in 5 men, and women control more than $30t in consumer spending.
To encourage more women-led startups, Mona suggests that women need greater support, encouraging them to take risks and put themselves out there. “We have to support women, especially mothers, to believe that business-ownership is entirely possible.”
This means creating opportunities and providing resources, such as access to childcare or more women founder networking events.
“Try and get your foot in as many doors as possible, see if people will allow you to attend board meetings, or sit in on an investor pitch, or even look at old decks. Familiarise yourself with the patterns of the industry, know what it takes to raise capital, know which questions to ask, and what conversations are happening.”
KAYALI Fragrances and the Future!
Mona’s business style thrives off making others feel empowered. She felt it working in the salon back over ten years ago, and again with Huda Beauty, and the same feeling has inspired her latest venture, KAYALI.
Following a life long obsession with fragrance (her YouTube channel still holds a video of her displaying her 3500+ bottle ‘fragrance library’), Mona launched KAYALI in 2018. The perfumes are inspired by middle eastern scents and aim to incite confidence in those who wear them.
KAYALI’s fragrances are available in over 2,700 stores in 30 countries, and KAYALI is ranked as one of the top 10 fragrance brands at Sephora.
Along with a surge in merger and acquisition activity in the beauty sector, the global fragrance market is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 4.7% for the next five years. Mona says she’s focused on disrupting the fragrance industry, developing KAYALI and solidifying its position in the global market.
“Lean into your feelings and intuitions. If you only act off logic and data, you’re never going to disrupt.”
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