Name: How CEO Jean-Paul Agon Built L'Oréal into a Beauty Powerhouse
Uploaded: 2019-04-22
Duration: 5 min 18 s
Description: Revenues of $30 billion rank L'Oréal on the Fortune 500 list of the largest companies in the world.

[ MUSIC ] Jean Paul, in L'Oreal's 100 plus year history, there have been very few CEOs running the company. And you're the fifth one, and you've been at it for 12 years. So when it comes to leadership, what would you say has been the secret to your success? You know I think that honestly I know very well this company, and I love this company. It's the story of my 40 years, you know I started there when I was 21 years old. I think that I know instinctively what is good for What will make L'Oreal succeed and apparently it works. As you've said, you've been at the company for 40 years. And there have been a lot of changes over the last four decades, what change has surprised you the most? Mostly I think the digital revolution was a fantastic change. It has been a fantastic change because it has completely revolutionized the way we work but for the better. For the better because we interact much better now with consumers. The way we do marketing is much more interesting and richer than the way we used to do before So, in fact, it has really brought a lot of benefits. Well, I understand you were one of the early adopters of digital. You fell in love with it. But, many people were afraid of digital coming, they saw it as a competetive threat. You didn't see it that way, how do you feel? You know from the very beginning I saw a mutual opportunity. First again because I thought that it would transform for the better the relationship with consumers. It would put consumers at the heart with the conception of the product and development of the product and the relationship. And I thought of so it was a great opportunity to go faster than the competitors. And what happened? And Amazon is just a one example of taking advantage that hold digital or revolution. Many people were very worried and threatened by Amazon. And yet, L'Oreal has had a very nice partnership. Why you are feel so good about Amazon? No, I feel good with the everything new. Maybe my. My spirit. I'm always optimistic and positive. So I'm always trying to see where the opportunity, and it's clear that when you create a beauty product, when you want to serve hundreds of millions of consumers with your beauty products and as only offering a great new opportunity. It's true too for other players like Chinese players like Alibaba or others This e- commerce is a fantastic new channel to serve the best of duty to our billions of consumers. You have a very good relationship with Amazon's founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos. How has your relationship with him influenced the business decisions you're making For L'Or �� al. So I'm a great admirer, he's always future thinking, he's not in the present time, he doesn't really bother about what he's going to do or what the company will do in the next few weeks. He always try to think for the next two, three, four or five years and I think it's a It's a very good discipline. So it's not easy to run a century old company where there are so many entrepreneurs and startups that wanna disrupt your legendary business. What do you have to do to stay relevant? In fact, what we do is that we try exactly to behave like a startup. That was also my My vision is to make sure that L'Oreal is a leader but behave like a challenger, and L'Oreal is a big company and behaves like a startup. For example, we are very decentralized. We are strategically concentrated of course but very operationally decentralized. Which means many, many teams around the world are really behaving like entrepreneur in their markets. And I think that's one of the super successes for [ INAUDIBLE ] As you know part of being a great leader is also having a great Succession plan now. I see that you're still very young and energetic. [ LAUGH ] Thank you. But what is your timeline for naming the next CEO of L'Oreal? It's no secret no taboo, I've always said that I will pass the baton when I will be 65 which is in a few years. What are you looking foward for that next year? What do you think are the important leadership characteristics for the next person running the company? The most important thing is to have the right vision. So, I think that the next CEO will need to really understand the world around him and to adapt again and change again the company to be perfectly in tune with this new world. You've never had a woman running [ INAUDIBLE ] in its 110 year history? Now, we have a. More than 68 percent of the people that fly are women of course. And they are 50 percent of the ( inaudible ). One third of ( inaudible ) committee, 50 percent of all management positions. So, very Very soon a woman will be CEO of L'Or �� al. I don't know if it's going to be the next one or the following one. But very soon, obviously. What do you want people to say was your legacy to L'Or �� al? We'll see. I don't want, first, I'm not finished yet what I have to do. If they say that I [ UNKNOWN ] bold as I told you to adapt L'Oreal to this new world and strengthen the leadership of L'Oreal on all these aspects, financial, market share, but also in financial, I'd be proud.

How CEO Jean-Paul Agon Built L'Oréal into a Beauty Powerhouse

Leadership

Revenues of $30 billion rank L'Oréal on the Fortune 500 list of the largest companies in the world.