L'Oreal exec appointments reinforce active cosmetics
executive committee, in a move aimed at emphasizing its focus on
the group's active cosmetics division, together with the increasing
importance of the Asian and Latin American markets.
To reinforce this direction the company has appointed Brigitte Liberman as managing director of the active cosmetics division, Jochen Zaumseil as managing director of the Asia Zone and Joseph Bitton as managing director of the Latin American Zone.
All three are L'Oreal veterans, having clocked up 82 years between them. Liberman is a French national, whereas Zaumseil is German and Bitton has dual French-Canadian citizenship.
Commenting on the appointments CEO Jean-Paul Agon said he was particularly pleased at the appointment of Libermann and the fact that it brought another female into the executive fold.
"The different perspectives and professional expertise they will bring to the team can only help to boost the level of creativity and innovation that are key to accelerating our growth model", Agon said, referring to the three appointments.
The appointments are a change in the company's executive structure, meaning that now each of its four main divisions, as well as the three major multidivision regions, will be represented within the company's executive committee.
L'Oreal's active cosmetic division has repeatedly shown the strongest growth of the four divisions in recent years, underlining the importance of the division.
In October last year, the company announced second quarterly like-for-like sales growth of 5.6 per cent to reach €11.6bn, however, in the active cosmetics division, growth came in at $864m, reflecting an increase of 12.4 per cent - by far the highest of any of the four divisions.
The group's active cosmetic division includes the Dermablend, La Roche-Posay, SkinCeuticals, Vichy Laboratories, Innéov and Ombrelle, together with the most recent addition of the Sanoflore brand.
The division concentrates on functional skin care brands that primarily focus on one of the fastest growing categories in the business - anti-ageing products.
Taking into consideration the company's renewed regional emphasis, the appointment of divisional heads for the Asian and Latin American markets takes into account the significant growth rates represented by key countries within these regions.
During the last reported quarter Latin America had a particularly strong performance, with like-for-like sales growing by 16.6 per cent to reach €744m. Highlights included the Brazil and Mexico markets, with L'Oreal professional hair colourants and sales of the L'Oreal Paris brand in the consumer division proving to be particularly strong.
In Asia newly appointed Zaumseil will be trying to tap into the huge growth potential of the China market, where GDP has consistently remained in double figures during the course of the past two years - growth that has also been reflected in the cosmetics and toiletry category there.
