Navigating Complexities and Driving Excellence in Supply Chain Management

Amiee Bayer-Thomas is Chief Supply Chain Officer at Ulta Beauty, a position she has held since September 2020. Since joining the company in 2016, Amiee served in multiple store leadership positions, including Senior Vice President, Stores - West Division and Corporate Store Operations, where she led a team of 21,000 associates across more than 700 stores. Amiee currently oversees supply chain operations for 7 distribution centers across the United States, reimagining how Ulta Beauty delivers for its stores and ecommerce guests. She also leads Ulta Beauty’s Continuous Improvement Center of Excellence, a transformational team that champions cost optimization, operational excellence, and efficiencies for growth across the enterprise, as well the enterprise Loss Prevention team promoting the safety and well-being of all in this increasingly complex retail landscape. Together, Amiee and her team of nearly 4,000 associates drive Ulta Beauty’s foundational success, enabling the beautiful possibilities for all.

Prior to joining Ulta Beauty, Amiee was the President of Thomas Advisory Group LLC, a consulting firm within the retail and beauty industry. She previously held various positions of increasing responsibility with JCPenney from 2007-2015, including Divisional Vice President Store Operations and Vice President of JCPenney Salons, and at Limited Brands Inc. from 2002-2007. Amiee was also a former member of the International Salon/Spa Business Networking Board and a recipient of JCPenney’s Chairman Award and Limited Brand’s President’s Award, as well as several culture awards at Ulta Beauty – recognizing her as a transformational, values-based leader with a passion for developing high-performing teams and delivering outstanding customer experiences. Amiee has a bachelor’s degree in management from the College of St. Benedict, where she focused on international business including studying at the International College of Cannes. She holds a Lean Six Sigma Belt and advanced facilitation, presentation, and communication certifications. Amiee also serves on Shoptalk’s advisory board helping to shape the future of retail. When she isn’t transforming iconic beauty and fashion retailers, Amiee is passionate about giving back to her community by serving as a Board Member for the YWCA, mentoring several young professionals, and spending quality time with her husband and daughter in Chicago.

As the Chief Supply Chain Officer at Ulta Beauty, could you provide an overview of your role and responsibilities within the company?

Since being named Chief Supply Chain Officer in 2020, I have had the privilege of leading all of Ulta Beauty’s Supply Chain operations, as well as our enterprise-wide Continuous Improvement efforts and Loss Prevention.  As a people-first leader, I’m proud to oversee our supply chain strategy, and the many teams who are helping drive operational excellence across our organization, including operations and systems, supplier operations, eCommerce fulfillment, retail distribution, transportation operations and logistics.  In the spirit of always improving, I have the great responsibility to lead initiatives that drive cross functional, highly complex work for the nation’s largest beauty retailer.

Within this work, I build supply chains poised for growth and strategies that fuel enterprise development and productivity. In addition, I lead the enterprise Continuous Improvement Center of Excellence, providing strategic and operational expertise to drive cost optimization, simplification, efficiencies, quality, compliance, and other CI initiatives.

As a member of Ulta Beauty’s executive leadership team, I work collaboratively with my fellow leaders to drive enterprise strategy and growth in service of our guests and passionate associates. I also take pride in helping develop the next generation of leaders by fueling our supply chain and organization with top talent and providing opportunities for them to thrive. This is an area I am personally passionate about and is a direct reflection of how I lead successful teams.

What are some of the key challenges you face today and how do you empower teams to navigate through those challenges?

I would say our biggest challenges tend to be time and resources. Not having enough time in the day and wanting to move faster than time allows. The complexities that come with running a supply chain of our size requires us to operate within the confines of financial and people resources—that’s where the art and science comes in. 

“Be curious and make mistakes.  Be open to learn new things and to take some risks.  Be courageous to reach beyond the obvious!”

It’s important we level set expectations and drive high-levels of execution through high-performing teams.  To do this successfully, we recognize high-performing teams come through investment and prioritization of their development and trust in their ability to deliver outcomes.   The strong culture we have built at Ulta Beauty promotes high levels of engagement and discretionary effort.  With the ever-shifting retail landscape, the one thing we can be certain of is change and with change comes challenges.  It is important for me that we remove barriers to execution for the team and empower them to navigate challenges and come up with solutions to those challenges.  It’s also critical to have deep partnerships and alignment with our cross functional leaders across the business, as this drives greater efficiencies for all.

In short, it is important to level set your own and others’ expectations, develop a short and long-term roadmap, trust the expertise of the team, lead through the team, be patient, celebrate the wins along the way, and stay the course.

With the rapid pace of an evolving supply chain industry, how are you staying informed about emerging trends and how best to respond to them?

The supply chain industry and retail overall are continuously evolving.  Today, we are building a dynamic, agile supply chain that is fueling growth; those aren’t words historically used to describe supply chain.  To be enterprise drivers requires us to be very plugged in to newness and trends in tech/automation, new capabilities, and people.  It is a bit of an art and science.  I have an incredibly talented team of leaders who are experts and have a deep passion for what they do.  We work together and trust each other to deliver operational excellence in all we do. To do this, every member of the team, including myself, are connected internally cross-functionally, tapping into what is happening in other parts of the business. We’re also highly engaged and aware of what our peers and competitors are doing externally with organizations that provide insights and trends, and we purposely push to explore and look outside of our purview.

We are always focused on our strategy and continuous improvement, challenging ourselves to better our best.  We quickly assess trends, newness, and innovation to determine if we want to lead, follow, or take time to decide if something is relevant to what we want to achieve.  We try new things, we fail fast—and that’s ok. We keep moving. 

What advice would you give to young professionals who are interested in pursuing a career in STEM and/or Supply Chain, and what qualities do you think are essential for success in this field?

Career paths are no longer linear. Unless your focus is highly specialized, I believe to be ultimately your best and to maximize your potential, it is a lattice versus ladder approach. Master the transferable skills and leadership competencies.  Cross over and get experiences and become an expert in multiple areas.  This gives you so many more ways to have impact and provide value as well as more opportunities and paths to pursue.  While gaining and collecting experience, one will also build advocacy. Having leaders advocate for you when you are not in the room is a distinct advantage for an emerging leader.  Self-advocacy is also very important; don’t ask, don’t get.  Be bold in going after what you want. 

Be curious and make mistakes.  Be open to learn new things and to take some risks.  Be courageous to reach beyond the obvious!