The Ex Factor: Kate Foster
The longtime beauty exec had seen startup success before, and then Scarlett Johansson gave her a new role.
In 2020, Kate Foster had just sold her startup, the product review site SwearBy, when a friend suggested she talk to Scarlett Johansson, who was looking for a partner to help launch a skin care company.
Foster, 46, was reluctant to jump right back into the fray. “Startup life is allconsuming,” she says, and she wasn’t interested in being the workhorse behind a celebrity’s vanity project.
Curiosity, however, eventually won out. The longtime fashion and beauty executive took the meeting and quickly learned that the Oscar-nominated actress wanted to build a company on more than just her own image. Together, they agreed to share starring roles as co-founders of the Outset, which made its debut in 2022.
A year later, the New York City-based maker of “consciously clean” beauty products reports that it is on track to double its undisclosed annual sales, with nine products in more than 300 outlets across the U.S., including 268 Sephora stores as well as Goop, Heyday, Nordstrom, and numerous luxury spas and boutiques.
By the time Foster first met Johansson in 2020, the Avengers star had already done a lot of legwork in search of solutions for her own “problem skin.” Over the years, she’d suffered from breakouts due, in part, to harsh chemicals in the products she used. Determined to develop a moisture-packed skin improvement regimen, Johansson spent three years meeting with beauty executives and other potential corporate partners. In time, she realized this venture wasn’t a solo act.
“I needed to find my better half, my right hand,” says Johansson, 39. “Someone who could share the vision with me and had the experience in this industry, knowing that I was coming from another industry.”
Foster’s extensive résumé filled the
