Kate Morris

Kate Morris's Biography

Kate Morris is the co-founder of Adore Beauty, growing the business from its inception in her garage in 1999 to Australia’s leading pureplay beauty e-tailer. In October 2020 Adore Beauty listed on the ASX (ASX:ABY), setting a record for the largest ever IPO with a female founder and female CEO.

Kate sits on the Board of Directors as Non-Executive Director at Adore Beauty. Kate is also a co-founder of successful SaaS startup Findation, and growth equity firm Glow Capital Partners, as well as an angel investor and mentor at Startmate.

Kate is a two-time winner at the Telstra Business Women’s Awards, and in 2021 was awarded the Alumni Excellence Award as well as a Fellowship at Monash University.

Starting with just $12,000 and two little known cosmetic companies on board, Adore Beauty has grown to more than 200 brands, 13,000 products, and hundreds of thousands of customers.

A university job on the cosmetic counters led Kate to realise that most women found department stores intimidating and unpleasant. Kate was inspired to create a disruptive beauty shopping experience that empowered consumers.

In May 2015, Adore Beauty announced an investment from retail giant Woolworths Limited. Kate was awarded the Business Innovation Award for Victoria at the Telstra Business Women’s Awards in 2014, and was inducted into the Australian Businesswomen’s Network Hall of Fame in 2015.

In 2017 Kate was the first woman to be awarded the Industry Recognition Award for online retail in the 9-year history of the StarTrack ORIAs. A passionate advocate for gender equality, Kate was named the Top 3 person in e-commerce for 2018 by Inside Retail.

Adore Beauty has also been scooping up accolades, making the lists for Deloitte’s Tech Fast 50 Australia and Tech Fast 500 Asia-Pacific for the last four years in a row

Speaking Topics Include

Adore Beauty – The successful entrepreneurial journey of innovative culture, customer centricity, equality, purpose, passion and persistence