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The Estée Lauder Companies is parent to over 20 beauty brands — including Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, Clinique, Jo Malone London, La Mer, Le Labo, MAC and Tom Ford Beauty — and is a leading global player in prestige beauty with products sold across 150 countries and territories around the world.
Founded by entrepreneur Esteé Lauder in New York in 1946, the beauty conglomerate’s values are embedded in its family history.
After 14 years in the business, Stéphane de La Faverie was appointed president and CEO of The Estée Lauder Companies at the start of the year — ushering in a new chapter of leadership and the largest organisational change in the company’s history.
De La Faverie is propelling a new strategic vision entitled “Beauty Reimagined” to drive significant transformation, which is focused on placing the consumer at the core of decision making and doubling to reignite profitability and growth. One of the five pillars in the plan sees the company committing to tripling the percentage of innovation that is launched in less than a year.
Since its inception almost 80 years ago, The Estée Lauder Companies has aimed to champion career growth and development by offering a centralised and transparent experience for employees across all labels. This approach serves as a wider reflection of the company’s core value of inclusivity.
To learn more about how The Estée Lauder Companies is prioritising its workforce in a time of transformation, BoF sits down with Pernilla Nyberg, senior vice president and general manager of UK & Ireland, to understand the company’s approach to embracing a new era while preserving its culture, values and heritage.
What are the core values that shape The Estée Lauder Companies’ workplace?
The company culture is based on respect through all seniority levels. We are inspired by [our founder] Mrs. Estée Lauder and her challenger spirit — who was first of her kind: bold, courageous and entrepreneurial. By maintaining her innovative approach, we continue to push boundaries in how we operate.
Staying close to the consumer is at the heart of everything that we do. We demonstrate this in our commitment to delivering high-quality products and a high-touch experience for our consumers.
How does The Estée Lauder Companies foster an environment of inclusivity?
We try to foster a culture where everyone has a seat at the table. We have always spoken about leading from every chair, and that still sits strongly within the company values — we encourage everyone to share their ideas and try something new.
We have multiple platforms and programmes to encourage teams to embrace that philosophy — whether that’s a talent development programme, or our employee resource groups, such as “GenNext”, “Mental Health & Wellbeing”, and “Families@Work”.
We also have a reverse-mentoring programme. We pair senior leaders with young talent who provide mentorship on topics such as young consumers’ shopping habits, social media and innovation. We want to ensure everyone feels included and empowered to shape the future of the company.
How is The Estée Lauder Companies fostering talent under new leadership and organisational change?
As an organisation, we are undergoing a number of changes designed to create more opportunities for collaboration. Our new CEO is implementing a flatter organisation to break down silos that allow us to make decisions faster — and with greater agility.
We try to foster a culture where everyone has a seat at the table.
— The Estée Lauder Companies' senior vice president and general manager of UK&I Pernilla Nyberg.
The company provides opportunities for employees to expand their skillsets and experiences. We strive to be a place where the best talent in the industry is inspired to join and grow. What’s more, we actively seek talent of diverse professional backgrounds: no matter if they are at the beginning of their careers, or are more senior. For example, my job before here was at Nike.
Employees here come from all walks of life. The beauty industry attracts the best talent from around the world, and we want to make sure that our team feels they can have an amazing career and fulfil their ambitions here. You are always going to have a fresh and new perspective if you are entering the business with different points of views and experiences — something we really value.
What new skillsets is The Estée Lauder Companies encouraging among its workforce?
We are focusing on innovating as quickly as trends emerge — including implementing artificial intelligence (AI) to move faster and unlock creativity. Our CEO has fully embraced such next-generations technologies through a number of company-wide initiatives and in smaller localised ways that support day-to-day operations. For instance, we encourage — and provide access to — tools such as Microsoft Copilot, Mintel and Adobe Firefly. These programmes help to reduce workloads — particularly for administrative and research tasks — while allowing more focus on strategic and creative work.
The UK&I region has also set up an internal content creator programme — something particularly popular with younger employees, but open to anyone. Participants can upskill in, and showcase their passion for, content creation. This initiative is something we can then plug into our campaigns, and is a great opportunity to represent the voice of our employees who reflect our consumer base.
We also partner with learning platforms such as LinkedIn Learning to tap into the wealth of programmes they offer, and we encourage our employees to make the most of these — particularly for those who want to learn something new which might not ordinarily sit within their wheelhouse.
How does The Estée Lauder Companies demonstrate opportunities for internal development and mobility?
To inspire employees to unlock their potential, it’s important for us to showcase different internal career paths and success stories.
In addition to upwards mobility, we encourage our team to build on their skillsets and experiences to help achieve their goals and get exposure to different areas. We provide many opportunities for stretch assignments to develop cross-functional skills — something I had the opportunity to do, since the role I was originally hired for quickly expanded into different areas of the business.
We are focusing on innovating as quickly as trends emerge — including implementing artificial intelligence to move faster and unlock creativity.
— The Estée Lauder Companies' senior vice president and general manager of UK&I Pernilla Nyberg.
Spending time in different regions and functions like finance, strategy, transformation and marketing ultimately equipped me to lead our team here in the UK and Ireland.
What is The Estée Lauder Companies’ involvement in social impact within and outside of the business?
We strive to bring a positive impact to everyone with whom we interact. The wellbeing of our employees is a top priority. We host a number of internal events to foster conversations around mental health and financial wellness — examining how to cope and ensuring that wellbeing is viewed holistically. These conversations take place in safe environments so employees can learn and share their points of view openly.
Evelyn Lauder, who was Mrs. Estée Lauder’s daughter-in-law, co-founded the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (and co-created the iconic pink ribbon), to which we have committed more than $1 million in the UK. We have many internal initiatives to support breast cancer awareness, like company-sponsored screenings for women employees over the age of 40, and talks and support on topics surrounding women’s health — like the menopause.
We also focus on enhancing accessibility through innovation. For example, in the UK we have developed a voice-enabled makeup assistant. This is an AI-powered mobile application designed to support and assist the visually impaired in applying makeup. It empowers users to have greater independence and confidence, and we feel it represents a significant step towards making beauty accessible to everyone, reflecting our commitment to ensure that technology is used for social good. I’m proud to work for a company that fosters a culture of inclusion and supports initiatives for our employees and communities around the world.
This is a sponsored feature paid for by Estée Lauder Companies as part of a BoF partnership.
