our expertise

Building a transformative beauty brand takes more than great products. It requires insight, strategy, trusted relationships, and relentless dedication. At True Beauty, our team brings decades of investment and operating expertise across beauty and wellness.

Capital is only the starting point. Real partnership means being more than investors. We are counselors, coaches, confidants, and cheerleaders, offering the guidance and support founders need to unlock their full potential.

OUR TEAM

Rich Gersten Co-Founder & Managing Partner
Rich has more than 30 years of experience investing in and partnering with founders to build high-quality, scaled consumer brands. Over his career, he has held senior investing roles at top private equity and growth equity firms including Tengram Capital Partners, L Catterton, and North Castle Partners, where he led and supported numerous successful investments across the beauty and wellness landscape.

Over the past two decades, Rich has focused exclusively on the beauty industry, partnering with dozens of founders and management teams to build brands that achieve meaningful scale, operational rigor, and strategic value. During this time, he developed an extensive network of founder and industry relationships that enabled him to source emerging growth brands with very limited access to institutional capital.

Recognizing the opportunity to better serve this underserved segment of the beauty market, Rich went on to found True Beauty Ventures to provide founders with both capital and deep sector expertise, and to partner closely with management teams to build durable, category-defining beauty and wellness brands.

Rich holds a BS in Economics from Union College and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Cristina Nuñez Co-Founder & general partner
Cristina is a consumer investor and operator with more than 18 years of experience across investing, brand building, and executive leadership in beauty and wellness. She began her career in private equity and investment banking, with roles at Tengram Capital Partners, L Catterton, and UBS Investment Bank, where she developed deep expertise in financial strategy, value creation, and consumer brand investing.

Cristina later transitioned into senior operating roles exclusively within the beauty industry, bringing an investor’s discipline to hands-on executive leadership positions. She served as General Manager and Chief Operating Officer of Clark’s Botanicals and held executive leadership roles at Laura Geller Beauty, partnering closely with founders and management teams to navigate growth, operational complexity, and brand evolution.

Drawing on this combined investing and operating background, Cristina brings a valuable perspective to early-stage founders as both an investor and operator, with deep sector expertise in beauty and wellness and a practical understanding of what it takes to build durable, category-defining brands.

Cristina graduated magna cum laude from Duke University with a BA with Highest Distinction in Public Policy Studies.
Caroline Weintraub Vice President
Caroline plays a key role in sourcing and evaluating new investments, leading due diligence, and supporting portfolio strategy. She works closely with founders to drive brand growth, manage capital allocation, and strengthen retail and operational execution, bringing a deep understanding of the beauty and wellness landscape. Caroline joined True Beauty Ventures in 2020 as she completed her degree at Columbia Business School. Prior to receiving her MBA, Caroline spent 4 years at Accenture as a management consultant. While at Accenture, Caroline assisted prestige beauty brands in a variety of strategy and operations projects, including new product launch improvements, effective risk management, and sales and operations planning.

Caroline graduated Magna Cum Laude from Northwestern University with a degree in Journalism and received her MBA from Columbia Business School.
Caroline Phipps Senior Associate
Caroline supports in sourcing, evaluating, and executing investments, with a focus on market research, financial analysis, and diligence. She plays an active role in portfolio management, helping brands with performance tracking, reporting, and strategic initiatives to drive growth across retail, digital, and operational channels.

Prior to joining True Beauty Ventures, Caroline worked at Perella Weinberg Partners in the Consumer & Retail group as an analyst. While at Perella Weinberg Partners, she advised clients in the beauty and personal care sector on a variety of M&A transactions and broader strategic initiatives.

Caroline graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Southern California with a B.S. in Business Administration, as well as a minor in Applied Analytics.
Maclean Liotta Senior Associate
Maclean supports the investment lifecycle, from sourcing and evaluating new opportunities to conducting diligence and financial analysis. She works closely with portfolio companies on strategic initiatives, performance monitoring, and growth planning.

Prior to joining True Beauty Ventures, Maclean worked at CHANEL in the Fragrance & Beauty division across the strategy, finance, and marketing functions. While at CHANEL, she gained a deep understanding of the prestige beauty landscape, including competitive positioning, distribution models, and product category dynamics. Maclean began her career at UBS Investment Bank as an analyst in the Consumer & Retail group.

Maclean graduated Cum Laude from Colgate University with a B.A. in Mathematical Economics and earned her master’s degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing and Management program, where she was a Capstone Lead and Department Medal recipient.

OUR PARTNERS

Cassie Cowman retail strategy
Cassie’s innate affinity to all things aesthetic brought her to the luxury fragrance world in 2006, laying down the foundation of a remarkable 18-year career in beauty. She continued to cultivate her merchant’s intuition at Sephora helping brands develop innovative and impactful strategies that were also financially sound and profitable. After an enriching 6+ years there, she moved to NY to be the Skincare Director for Tarte Cosmetics while simultaneously working with other brands of the parent KOSÉ group in Japan.

In 2018, she became VP of Strategic Marketing at Briogeo Hair Care until she co-founded View from 32 while working as a Senior Consultant for Sephora.
Lindsay Ullman Retail Strategy
Lindsay started her career as a buyer for Bloomingdale’s, which coincided with the nascent stages of online shopping, giving her a valuable front row seat to the inevitable rise of e-commerce. Sephora came next, where she spearheaded the Clean Beauty movement through a digital lens as Senior E-Commerce Merchant, developing and executing digital strategies for over 90 brands.

In the past few years, she has held senior positions at brands such as MAC and The INKEY List. Lindsay’s leadership skills, proven track record and extensive understanding of technologies help improve the consumer online experience to help enable brands to win.
Gabriella Giron Retail Strategy
Gaby has navigated her way through various areas in the beauty industry for over 15 years . Her rise in the industry began at Sephora where she worked her way up from an assistant position to a buyer in the skincare category. During this time, she worked directly with brands like Farmacy and Youth to the People, collaborating with them at every growth stage and expanding the retailers’ Clean Beauty and Wellness category.

After 12 years at Sephora, she worked as Digital Lead for Estée Lauder Companies in Paris. Her key areas of expertise are buying, e-commerce, business leadership, visual merchandising and brand development.
Colleen Walsh Human Resources And Talent
Colleen Walsh is a seasoned Human Resources Executive with a deep emphasis in the beauty industry. With over 15 years of experience at both global CPG and smaller founder-led brands, she has played a pivotal leadership role in brand growth and acquisitions. Colleen is committed to crafting thoughtful HR strategies that prioritize talent management, resource allocation, and fostering positive and productive organizational cultures.

Through her partnership with TBV, Walsh provides support around key areas for our partner brands. Some examples include: talent planning & management, evaluating current and identifying future roles required for growth, succession planning to fill key open positions, resource allocation with a review of costs, budgets and benefits packages, review and creation of performance evaluation and bonus plans and much more.
Aaron Mizrahi Amazon
Aaron Mizrahi is a seasoned Amazon leader with over a decade of experience driving growth for beauty and wellness brands on Amazon.

He led Amazon Sales & Marketing at Hero Cosmetics – best known for the Mighty Patch – leading to a $660M sale to Church & Dwight. After overseeing Amazon Ads, content, promotions, and Amazon Marketing Cloud initiatives during his role, he left in January 2024 to found Amiz, an agency and consultancy focusing on beauty and wellness brands who are seeking expertise and guidance for scaling and launching on Amazon.

Through his partnership with TBV, Aaron acts as a resource and advisor for brands who are considering Amazon or have already launched and need to accelerate their growth
Marcel Lopez Supply Chain And Ops
Marcel is a seasoned beauty supply chain executive with over 20 years of experience helping brands scale efficiently and sustainably. He has led supply chain and operations initiatives across all stages of growth, driving process improvements, operational rigor, and meaningful cost savings.

Prior to launching his consultancy, Propel Beauty, in early 2024, Marcel held senior supply chain and operations roles at Josie Maran and Rare Beauty, where he helped build the infrastructure and systems needed to support rapid growth. Through Propel Beauty, he partners with emerging and established brands on sourcing strategy, production planning, and cost optimization.

As a TBV platform partner, Marcel serves as a dedicated resource to our portfolio on all supply chain and operations-related needs, and has already delivered tangible impact across several TBV portfolio companies.