Estée Lauder’s New Faces: Who, When, and Why?

Effective January 2025, Estée Lauder will appoint Stéphane de La Faverie as its new president and CEO. He will succeed Fabrizio Freda, who announced his retirement earlier in the year.

Faverie joined the company in 2011 as the Executive Group President, overseeing many of the company's brands across its powerful portfolio. He has helped scale and develop the billion-dollar Estée Lauder brand and also developed brands such as Le Labo and The Ordinary.

Estée Lauder recently began a reconstruction program; sales were declining by 7% in the second quarter, and they would trim their workforce by 5%. Their sales have been falling since 2023—one of the biggest reasons is ongoing challenges with the Chinese market, which makes up for around one-third of the company's businesses. 

Continuing with the changes, Mark Loomis, the group president of North America, will be retiring and be succeeded by Tara Simon. Simon joined the company in 2020 as the Senior Vice President and Global Manager of Too Faced and was promoted to Global Brand President at California Brands, which includes oversight of Too Faced and Smashbox. With so many changes, Estée Lauder is still facing many challenges.

In the most recent quarter, it was revealed that the company's first-quarter net sales fell 4%. They also suffered a huge loss, reporting a net loss of $156 million compared to a net income of $31 million in 2023. 

It has truly been a huge year for the mega multinational cosmetics company. Pauline Brown, the former chairman of LVMH North America, shared her beliefs on what went wrong. She argued that the CEO change should have occurred much earlier, as the current leadership structure put the company on a downward slope.

Do you believe this incredible shift of the brand Estée Lauder will benefit them? Leave a comment below!