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Dive Brief:
- Estée Lauder Companies announced this week that Mark Loomis, group president of North America, will retire from the company after a 28-year career there, per a news release.
- Loomis will officially leave Estée Lauder at the end of the current fiscal year in June. He’ll be succeeded by Tara Simon, who will become president of North America, and Amber English, who will be president of digital and online in North America. Both executives will assume their new roles on Jan. 1 as part of a longer transition period.
- Simon will report to Fabrizio Freda, president and CEO, while English will jointly report to Freda and Gibu Thomas, executive vice president of online.
Dive Insight:
The executive shakeup in Estée Lauder’s North American unit marks another leadership change the beauty conglomerate will undergo as Freda prepares to step down from the CEO post at the end of the fiscal year.
“As we embark on the next phase of growth for North America, Tara and Amber bring incredible experience that make them uniquely well-suited to capture the promise of this evolving market while advancing our strategy and ambitions,” Freda said in a statement.
Simon joined Estée Lauder from Ulta Beauty in 2020 as senior vice president and global manager of Too Faced. She was Ulta’s senior vice president of merchandising for prestige beauty prior to that. Her current role has been global brand president of California Brands, which includes oversight of Too Faced and Smashbox. A successor to that role will be announced at a later date, per the company.
English joined Estée Lauder from Amazon in 2022 and most recently led Estée Lauder’s North America digital transformation focused on developing digital experiences for consumers across owned Brand.com properties, Retailer.com and Amazon, per the release. English spent 14 years at Amazon, most recently leading the global Amazon Fashion Private Brands business.
Estée Lauder is in the midst of a restructuring that started earlier this year, as sales and earnings continued to decline. The company in February said it planned to cut 3% to 5% of positions beginning in its third quarter.
In its fiscal year that ended June 30, Estée Lauder reported net sales fell 2% year over year to $15.6 billion from $15.9 billion in the prior year. Within its Americas unit, Estée Lauder said net sales increased by double digits in Latin America, but were flat in North America, which the company attributed in part to declines in the makeup category.
At the time, Freda projected persistent challenges in the year ahead. “For fiscal 2025, we anticipate continued declines in the prestige beauty segment in China, mainly reflecting persistent weak sentiment among Chinese consumers,” he said. “While our sales and profit outlook for fiscal 2025 is disappointing, this year we will make important strides, as we implement our strategy reset to continue rebalancing regional growth, deliver improved annual profitability, and strengthen go-to-market and innovation capabilities to elevate our execution in response to a more competitive market.”
In the year ahead, the company projects global prestige beauty to grow between 2% and 3%, driven by strength in emerging markets as well as tempered growth in larger markets. That growth, however, is expected to be partially offset by declines in China “due to low consumer sentiment and conversion rates,” per the company.
Estée Lauder in September brushed off a “mini-tender offer” from investment firm TRC Capital Investment Corporation to purchase up to 1.5 million shares of Class A common stock.