Mecca founder Jo Horgan has been named Melburnian of the Year in recognition of the impact the business she founded 28 years ago on Toorak Road has had on the city.
The City of Melbourne award comes after Horgan opened Mecca’s flagship three-storey department store dedicated to all things beauty in Bourke Street Mall in August.
Jo Horgan at the new Mecca flagship store in Bourke street. Credit: Kelly Chandler
Horgan says it is an “extraordinary honour” to receive the accolade, “especially when you look at those who have already received it and the incredible impact they’ve had on this city”.
Horgan runs Mecca with her husband, co-chief executive Pete Wetenhall, and the couple have grown what was a single store into Australia’s biggest cosmetics retailer, with 110 stores around Australia and New Zealand and more than 7000 employees.
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“Melbourne has everything – it’s the home of art, culture, beauty, fashion, and inspiration,” Horgan says. “That’s why my husband, Pete, and I chose to make it our home, to raise our family here and start the business here. That’s why when we wanted to build the largest beauty destination in the world, our most ambitious project to date, it had to be in Melbourne.”
As Mecca is a privately owned company, it has limited reporting requirements, but its most recent annual report, filed in June, reported revenue of $1.2 billion in the 12 months to the end of June 2023.
The transformation of what was the David Jones menswear store into Mecca’s flagship ran over budget and behind schedule, becoming at times “the nightmare of our dreams” according to Horgan. The risk has paid off, with between 50,000 to 70,000 people visiting the store each week.
“To see our collective vision come to life – and really there was the most incredible team on this project who dreamed big and then made it happen – to see how people have embraced every aspect of it, is phenomenal,” she says.
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