Aimee Connolly

Why organisations work with Aimee Connolly

• She has grown a cosmetics brand from one product to more than 100, and from a founder-led startup to around EUR 32.6 million in revenue in 2024 without external investment, giving her a concrete view on capital discipline most consumer founders do not have.
• She has worked every stage of modern beauty distribution in person: independent pharmacies, Boots, Brown Thomas, Dunnes Stores, Selfridges, airport retail, direct-to-consumer and standalone stores in Kildare Village, Belfast and London.
• Her team has scaled from her alone to more than 100 staff across Ireland and the UK, which makes her credible on the operational and cultural shifts a founder has to make to stop being the bottleneck.
• She is preparing a US launch for Q4 2026 and speaks openly about how AI is being used inside the business to lift productivity and support that expansion, which is unusually specific for a consumer-brand founder.
• Her awards are from credible named bodies (EY Entrepreneur of the Year Ireland 2021 in the Emerging category, IMAGE PwC Businesswoman of the Year 2025, UCD Alumni Award in Business 2025), so her authority does not rest on a single category or year.

Biography highlights

• Founder and CEO, Sculpted by Aimee; founded the business at age 23 while finishing her degree.
• Scaled the brand to EUR 32.6 million in 2024 revenue, 47% year-on-year growth, with more than 100 staff and over 500 stockists across Ireland, the UK and the Middle East.
• Retail footprint includes Boots, Brown Thomas, Dunnes Stores and Selfridges, plus own-brand stores in Kildare Village, Belfast and London.
• EY Entrepreneur of the Year Ireland 2021, Emerging category.
• IMAGE PwC Businesswoman of the Year 2025; Young Businesswoman of the Year 2022; Business and Finance Elevation Award 2024.
• University College Dublin Alumni Award in Business 2025; BComm International (first-class honours), UCD.
• Founder of Sculpted: The Academy, a professional training business for makeup artists.

Biography

Sculpted by Aimee did not exist in 2016. By 2024 it was turning over EUR 32.6 million, growing 47% year on year, and sitting on shelves in Boots, Brown Thomas, Dunnes Stores and Selfridges. It got there without outside investors. That single fact changes the conversation about what a bootstrapped consumer brand can realistically do inside a category dominated by multinationals.

Aimee Connolly built the business at 23, while finishing a first-class BComm International at University College Dublin. The first product was a three-pan sculpting palette, which is where the name came from. The range is now past 100 SKUs, the team past 100 people, and the retail footprint covers Ireland, the UK and the Middle East, with own-brand stores in Kildare Village, Belfast and London and a US launch planned for the fourth quarter of 2026.

Her credibility on growth is not theoretical. She has lived each transition that breaks most consumer founders: from practitioner to operator, from single-market to multi-market, from independent stockists to listings with Boots and Selfridges, from founder-led decisions to a structured team. She has been named EY Entrepreneur of the Year Ireland in the Emerging category, IMAGE PwC Businesswoman of the Year 2025, and received the University College Dublin Alumni Award in Business 2025.

What she brings into a room is unusually specific for a consumer founder: the mechanics of self-funded scaling, retail buyer relationships, product discipline under rapid range expansion, and, more recently, how AI is being embedded inside the business to support the US move. She is the operator buyers want when the brief is how to grow without losing the brand, and without giving it away.

Key speaking topics

• Scaling a self-funded consumer brand
• Founder to CEO transition
• Retail and omnichannel strategy in beauty
• Direct-to-consumer and e-commerce growth
• International market entry
• AI in operations and brand building
• Building and retaining a high-growth team

Ideal for

• Founders and CEOs of consumer and beauty brands preparing for a step-change in scale.
• Retail, buying and category leadership teams looking at how challenger brands are winning shelf space.
• Women’s leadership and entrepreneurship programmes in large corporates.
• Marketing and e-commerce leadership teams in founder-led or founder-adjacent businesses.

Audience outcomes

• A concrete sense of what self-funded scaling actually demands, from working capital to retail terms.
• A clearer view of the decisions that break founders at the EUR 10 million to EUR 50 million transition.
• Practical perspective on how a challenger brand gets and keeps listings at Boots, Brown Thomas and Selfridges.
• A grounded read on where AI is genuinely moving the needle in a consumer business today.
• Renewed confidence in the case for patient, brand-led growth over capital-heavy expansion.