Cookie Lee, who turned her jewelry-making hobby into a nationwide empire of home-party consultants selling flashy trinkets and female empowerment, has sold her privately owned company.
The deal, made public, caps Lee’s nearly 23-year reign as one of the most successful home-grown success stories in Orange County. Buying the firm is Debbie Millar, who with her husband, Ron, is founding partner of HÔM, a luxury residential real estate group in Newport Beach. The brokerage reported $1.4 billion in sales in 2013.
“As I got older, I thought ‘What will happen? How can I continue a legacy, very much like how Mary Kay did?’” said Lee, 57, the effusive founder and now former president and chief designer of the Tustin-based business, in an interview with the Register.
“I thought how awesome it would be to have the opportunity to pass the baton,” Lee added. “Like a Mary Kay or a Kleenex, you can’t run it forever.”
Neither party disclosed the terms of the deal, which has been in the works for several months. What’s clear is that Millar will be leading and further modernizing the firm, which went through a rebranding last summer. Lee will not hold an official company role but will help if