Barbara Lavernos
Courtesy of Pierre-Olivier/Capa Pictures/L'Oreal
- TitleDeputy CEO
- AffiliationL'Oreal
- 2020 RankNew
- CountryFrance
L’Oreal’s veteran CEO Jean-Paul Agon appointed his long-awaited successor in October 2020. He did not, as some had hoped, appoint the first woman to run the 111-year-old beauty giant; the job went to Nicolas Hieronimus instead. But in the management reshuffle Agon did promote Barbara Lavernos to deputy CEO, a role that had groomed Hieronimus for the top job. Lavernos, L’Oreal’s first female No. 2, heads the research, innovation, and technology divisions at the Paris-based behemoth that earned $32 billion in sales in 2020, down 4% from the prior year. The engineer by training previously served as L’Oreal’s chief operations officer; she joined the company 30 years ago as a purchaser at its Aulnay, France, plant.
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