Jamie Kern Lima

Jamie Kern Lima (née Jamie Marie Kern) is an American entrepreneur, investor, and media personality. She co-founded IT Cosmetics, which she sold to L'Oréal for $1.2 billion in 2016, becoming the first female chief executive officer of a L'Oréal brand. Kern Lima has been included on the Forbes' list of "America's Richest Self-Made Women" since 2017.

Personal life
Kern Lima was the first member of her family to attend college and went to Washington State University, where she graduated valedictorian. She received her Master of Business Administration from Columbia Business School in 2004. During college, she was a waitress at Denny's and bagged groceries at Safeway.

Kern Lima resides in Los Angeles, California. She is married to Paulo Lima and has two children.

Media appearances
Kern Lima won the Baywatch College Search in 1999, and appeared on an episode of the television series. She won the title of Miss Washington USA in late 1999 and competed in the Miss USA 2000 pageant held in Branson, Missouri. After considering a career in finance, she applied on a dare to be a contestant in the first season of the reality television series Big Brother. Kern Lima was the last female houseguest left on that season.

After Big Brother, she started her career as a morning news anchor at KNDU in Tri-Cities, Washington. She also worked as a field reporter and did live reports from Vatican City for KNDU in Kennewick on Pope John Paul II's death. In 2006, she left KNDU and moved to Portland, Oregon to work as a news anchor and reporter for KPTV.

Cosmetics career
In 2008, Kern Lima co-founded IT Cosmetics after having difficulties with makeup products due to rosacea and hyperpigmentation. The business struggled over the following years as beauty retailers rejected her products. Kern Lima was featured on a 10-minute QVC segment in which she wiped her makeup off, revealing her bare face to illustrate the use of IT Cosmetics concealers. All products sold out by the end of the segment.

By 2015, the company had more than $182 million in net sales. Kern Lima appeared in more than 1,000 live QVC shows, where IT Cosmetics became the largest beauty brand on QVC's network. Kern Lima remained with IT Cosmetics upon its acquisition by L'Oréal brand until August 2019, when she announced she would be leaving the company.