Mecca founder Jo Horgan named Melburnian of the Year
Mecca founder Jo Horgan has been named Melburnian of the Year for the impact the business she founded on Toorak Road 28 years ago 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 at Bourke Street Shopping Center in August.
Jo Horgan is at her new Mecca flagship store on Bourke street. Credit: kelly chandler
Receiving this award is “an extraordinary honor,” Horgan says, “especially when you look at the recipients of this award and the incredible impact they have had on this city.”
Horgan runs Mecca with her husband and deputy general manager Pete Wetenhall, and the couple have grown a single store into Australia’s largest cosmetics retailer, with 110 stores in Australia and New Zealand and more than 7,000 employees.
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“Melbourne has it all – it’s the home of art, culture, beauty, fashion and inspiration,” says Horgan. “That’s why my husband Pete and I chose to make this our home, raise our family here and start our business here. That’s why when we wanted to build the world’s largest beauty destination, our most ambitious project to date, it had to be in Melbourne.”
Mecca is a privately owned company so its reporting requirements are limited, 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 the David Jones menswear store into the Mecca flagship has gone over budget and behind schedule, and at times has become “the nightmare of our dreams,” according to Horgan. The risk paid off, with 50,000 to 70,000 people visiting the store every week.
“Seeing our collective vision come to life – and there really was an incredible team on this project who dreamed big and then made it happen – it’s been remarkable to see how people have embraced every aspect of it,” he says.
