From Harley Street to Sephora

Great skin is one thing. Building a skincare brand that stands out in one of the world’s busiest beauty markets? That takes a little more than SPF.

Dr Sam Bunting has spent more than 15 years getting seriously under people’s skin. In the good way.

A cosmetic dermatologist, founder and straight-talking skincare expert, Sam built her reputation by cutting through an industry overflowing with products, promises and perplexing ingredient lists.

Then she turned that expertise into a business.

Dr Sam’s Skincare took the thinking behind her Harley Street practice and put it into bottles, bathroom cabinets and, increasingly, shopping baskets around the world. Now, with the brand expanding into Sephora and the US, things are getting interesting.

So naturally, we have questions.

For our next Changemakers event, Sam is joining us at Virgin HQ to talk about the leap from expert to entrepreneur, building a brand people trust and what happens when a business with your name on it starts getting seriously big.

We’ll get into the brilliant decisions, the inevitable tricky bits and what it takes to stand out in an industry where everyone claims to have discovered the next miracle ingredient.

Spoiler: good businesses need more than a nice serum.

What we’ll get into

Putting your expertise to work.
Sam didn’t wake up one morning and decide skincare looked fun. Her brand grew from years of specialist knowledge and thousands of conversations with patients. We’ll explore how you turn what you know into something people genuinely want.

Trust. The ultimate beauty ingredient.
Forget retinol for a second. In a market full of big claims and bigger marketing budgets, credibility matters. We’ll talk about building customer trust, protecting it and why sometimes saying less can sell more.

Making the complicated beautifully simple.
Dermatology is complex. Customers are busy. Sam has built a following by bringing the two together without dumbing anything down. We’ll explore how founders can make specialist knowledge brilliantly easy to understand.

Standing out without shouting.
Beauty shelves aren't exactly short of competition. So how do you build something distinctive when everyone wants the same customer's attention? We’ll unpack the decisions that helped Dr Sam’s find its place and keep it.

Going global. Staying you.
Harley Street. Sephora. The US. Growth brings brilliant opportunities and brand-new headaches. We’ll talk about knowing when you're ready to go bigger and keeping hold of what made people care about your business in the first place.

What to expect on the night

6pm | Come on in
Grab some nibbles and a mingle with other founders. Much better than another evening with your inbox.

6.30pm | Quick hello. Then, Dr Sam.
We’ll share what’s happening across Virgin StartUp and our Community before getting into the conversation. Bring questions. There’ll be plenty of time for those too.

8pm | Talk done. Chat on.
Compare notes and meet someone you didn’t know at 6pm.

8.30pm | That’s your lot
Home time. Ideally with a new connection, a fresh idea or ten.

The important bits

Date: 21 October 2026
Time: 6pm–8.30pm
Where: Virgin HQ, Soho, London

Come curious. Leave knowing a little more about turning expertise into something people trust, buy and tell their friends about.

Know a founder who’d want in? Pass it on. Brilliant rooms are made by the people in them.

On the panel