Making a Rare Impact: Rare Beauty CMO Katie Welch Discusses Brand & Community Building at SXSW 2025

By Payton Cavanaugh

“Beauty is not about perfection, it’s about embracing every side of you,” said Rare Beauty’s CMO, Katie Welch, a featured speaker at South by Southwest 2025. 

Welch highlighted the immense impact the company has, prioritizing not only your external beauty but also internal health and wellness. As Welch spoke out to a packed house, she discussed the importance of makeup that accentuates your natural beauty, and brands that prioritize their customers as community. 

Rare Beauty was founded in 2020 by Selena Gomez, with the hope of challenging the status quo in the beauty industry and promoting the imperative intersection of self-love and mental health.

“It’s not just about us, it’s about our community,” said Welch as she discussed what a vested impact Selena has made on the world of beauty, but also the lives of their supporters. 

Outside of selling makeup products, Rare Beauty launched a youth-based non-profit organization called the Rare Impact Fund to make mental health services and education more widely and globally accessible. The Rare Impact Fund has mobilized one hundred million dollars for organizations that are contributing to this mission. 

Following the session, Welch spent time in the hall meeting young aspiring women in the marketing and communications industry, giving tips, advice, and invaluable perspective. 

“I think one thing I’ve learned a lot in the last five and a half years is the importance and the power of empathy…. Selena is an incredibly empathetic person and even as a start-up company, there are a lot of stressful situations,” said Welch, “The more that I can put myself in someone’s shoes to understand why someone’s feeling a certain way… I try to practice that as much as possible… and I’ve learned that a lot through Selena, and through Rare Beauty.”