The $1 billion Dubai-based firm Huda Beauty is looking to hire more talent as it eyes expansion across the US and Europe.

The brain child of prominent social media influencer Huda Kattan is a cosmetics firm boasting products ranging from skin foundations to false lashes and eyeshadow palettes. It recently hired a US and Europe president for its offices abroad, which also include one in the UK.

Speaking to Arabian Business, founder and chairwoman Kattan said the firm needs a bigger team to lessen the workload at its headquarters in Dubai.

“We don’t have a lot of people on the team. It’s crazy how much the people here do. But we definitely need support. People would feel better and more relaxed,” she said, adding that finding talent is one of the company’s main challenges.

“When we recently hired our European president, she came over and said, ‘I still don’t know how you guys are doing the numbers you’re doing with this few people.’ And I said, ‘Me neither.’ So I do feel that if we hired more brilliant people, we would be able to do much more. It’s hard hiring talent. We’re very particular with the people we hire. It’s part of the challenge,” she said.

The firm’s US office, which is currently being built, will mark its second headquarters, while the main office will remain in Dubai.

Huda Beauty co-founder and global president Mona Kattan said part of the reason behind the company’s success is its meticulous approach towards cost control since its inception.

“We all wore a million hats. Normally, to have run an organisation the size of our business at the time, would probably have needed five times the people we had. But we didn’t go out and hire a bunch of people. Whatever needed to be done, we learned how to do ourselves or our team did,” she said.

Huda added that part of minimalising expenses was opting out of using agencies for public relations or marketing purposes.

“We didn’t do agencies at all. We were always very diligent. We didn’t have a lot of expenses right in the beginning. A lot of team members said, ‘We want you to use an agency.’ And I said, ‘Why do you want to use an agency when you’re so brilliant?’ And it’s funny because we’ve pushed a lot of people and they really rose to the occasion,” she said.

Kattan, who has 27 million followers on Instagram and 2.4m on YouTube, initially gained fame on YouTube in 2010 after sharing free make up tips and tricks. She swiftly garnered millions of followers due to her credibility and limited sponsorships and ads.