L’Oreal Deputy CEO Barbara Lavernos Is Creating the Future of Beauty

Barbara Lavernos has never let the status quo get in the way of progress.

Ever since joining L’Oréal 33 years ago as an intern in the purchasing and supply chain department, through her steady rise in procurement, plant management, travel retail and technology, she has not just broken down barriers — Lavernos has obliterated them altogether.

Now, as deputy chief executive officer of the world’s largest beauty company overseeing research, innovation and technology, she’s bringing that same limitless ethos to the industry itself, reshaping, reimagining and redefining the parameters of beauty for generations to come.

She is clearly up for the challenge.

“The world has changed radically,” said Lavernos, a polymath whose natural exuberance permeates all aspects of her conversation, whether she’s talking about cell renewal or her summer holidays. “Today, the revolution that science and technology are experiencing is opening new doors. The knowledge — and how far we can go — will last for years because of the depths and transformation we are seeing. The next 10 to 15 years are undoubtably years of huge discoveries.”

Named deputy CEO in May 2021 concurrently with Nicolas Hieronimus assuming the top spot at the company, Lavernos’ remit is enormous. On the Research & Innovation side, she oversees 4,000 scientists in 21 research centers around the world — from the U.S. to Europe to South Africa, India, China and Japan. L’Oréal invests more than 1 billion euros in R&I annually, and has a portfolio of approximately seven billion products across its 37 brands. Annually, it produces about 35,000 formulas, conducts 17,000 evaluations and in 2023 alone, filed 610 patents.

On the tech side, L’Oréal counts more than 8,000 technology and data specialists and spends more than 1 billion euros a year on IT and technology. Last year, the company won seven awards for innovation at CES, the world’s largest tech event, and it’s chalked up 18 awards there in all since 2017.

Most recently L’Oréal’s chief technology and operations officer and a chemical engineer by training, Lavernos is well suited to orchestrate and coordinate the vast resources at her disposal. For her, the sky’s the limit.

“Barbara is on a mission — her role is to make sure that L’Oréal is still the number-one beauty company 10 years from now,” said Stéphane Lannuzel, director of the group’s Beauty Tech program, who has worked with Lavernos for eight years. “What she strives for, in a very evolving beauty landscape and industry, is making sure we always stay ahead of the pack. That means making sure L’Oréal is performing, but also shaping the future of the industry. As we are the leader, that is the art of what Barbara is doing — shaping the future of beauty.”

Embracing Change

During the course of her career, Lavernos has seen enormous change — in L’Oréal, in consumers and in the world at large. When she joined the company in the ‘90s, L’Oréal was a French company whose purview was primarily Europe versus the global behemoth it is today. Back then, it had fewer than 10 brands which, from a marketing and product development point of view, largely reflected the prevailing beauty standards of the day. The digital revolution was in its earliest phases, and there weren’t many women in operational roles.

“We were in a world where archetypes were the model for everything,” said Lavernos, “whether for beauty, where it dictated what you had to look like, or inside companies, where we were shown archetypes of leaders that we had to stick to or imitate — who were usually men, by the way.

“Now,” she continued, “we’ve moved from a single archetype to many different communities. Our world has become so diverse — gender-wise, sexual orientation-wise, disabilities, culture, origins. That is a huge change, and it explains why our brand portfolio has increased so much. We have brands for every need or demand or wish or dream.”

For Lavernos, seismic change shows no signs of slowing, and as societies and demographic markers continue to shift and evolve, beauty manufacturers must follow suit or run the risk of becoming obsolete. “By 2030, 40 percent of the world will have curly, wavy or coily hair. By 2040, 40 percent will have a melanin-rich skin tone,” said Lavernos. “That is a radical shift in our business, because it means the solution to treat and manage your skin or hair is radically different from the previous majority — not of our offer, but of what humankind was — and that is extremely interesting.”

Layer on top of that the revolutions in science and technology and the implications for beauty are enormous. It is Lavernos’ job to understand and harness those forces in the service of tomorrow’s consumer, and it’s a challenge she relishes. “What I love to do with my teams, with the brands and with the executive committee, is look at what we know and must continue to do, which is already very demanding,” she said, “but also look at what is possible, what is plausible, what is probable and what is preferable.”

Future-Proofing the Business

Sustainability is one such area where all four of those Ps converge and Lavernos has led a major transformation within the company. Today, 97 percent of L’Oréal’s products have an improved environmental profile, with 65 percent of the raw materials the company uses either bio-based, renewably sourced or mineral abundant. The goal is to reach 95 percent by 2030. “This is more than just a ‘nice’ KPI — this is radically changing the company,” said Lavernos. “It has been a huge transformation, that decision to shift to the choice of Green Sciences, renewable packaging and marketing. Our systems, how we evaluate products, the ratings and the go/no-go of launch — all of the rules have changed.”

That complexity is demonstrated by the decision to make refillable fragrance packaging for the L’Oréal Luxe division, including blockbusters, bestsellers and launches. In addition to technical design challenges, it’s the kind of move that impacts every aspect of the business, from marketing and communications to retail logistics.

“This is a bold decision — imagine the shift it requires from consumers, from retailers, from our own teams. This was absolutely not the standard of the market,” said Lavernos, lauding L’Oréal Luxe president Cyril Chapuy for his willingness and foresight to give the project a green light.

As complex as it was to undertake, such a project lies at the heart of how Lavernos approaches her role — she is not one to think small. Not only does the successful implementation result in a significant differentiator for the brands involved, but it’s also an existential decision for beauty companies and a clarion call for others as to how L’Oréal views its responsibilities to the greater good.

“There is no brand that should or will survive in five, 10, 15 years if they are not in tune with the world that will exist then — and the world is going to require full environmental responsibility,” said Lavernos. “That takes a lot of time. It’s not just a decision,” she said, snapping her fingers.

Of course Lavernos knows as well as anyone that sustainability is not a big factor in influencing purchasing decisions today for most consumers. But that’s also not the point. “When you’re the leader, you have rights, but you have duties,” she said. “You’re not a leader because you’re doing the top sales versus the competition. You’re a leader because you’re influencing something that matters so much.”

Finding Innovation — and Inspiration — Everywhere

Part of L’Oréal’s transformation over the last decade has involved its Advanced Research department, which has evolved from traditional chemistry to the forefront of green science, increasingly tapping into biologists and biochemists to innovate in areas like ingredient development. One recent breakthrough is Melasyl, a molecule L’Oréal developed and patented that is said to visibly reduce dark spots by correcting melanin overproduction. It was commercialized in March with the La Roche-Posay brand.

But Lavernos has been equally as active in tapping external expertise, particularly when it comes to sectors that are outside the purview of traditional beauty enterprises.

Gjosa was one such example. After taking a minority stake in the Switzerland-based water fractioning concern via its corporate venture capital fund BOLD in 2021, this January, L’Oréal acquired the majority of the firm. The two partnered on a shower head, launched under the aegis of L’Oréal Professionnel, which has the capacity to decrease water consumption in hair salons by 69 percent.

“Many people asked why we would acquire them — they’re not a brand,” said Lavernos, “but I pushed very hard for it, because the issue of water management is a profound one for society.”

Over the last couple of years, Lavernos has spearheaded a number of outside investments and acquisitions, from biotech start-ups like Debut Bio in San Diego, Shinehigh in China and Microphyt in France to Prinker, a South Korean tech start-up that caused a sensation at Cosmoprof Bologna in 2022 with a machine that prints temporary tattoos directly onto the skin.

L’Oréal also works closely with a number of universities and research institutions around the world, including U.C. Berkeley, Harvard and MIT in the U.S., the National Institute of Material Science in Japan and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France.

“The future of science and tech lies inside and outside the company — that’s where I go looking for it,” said Lavernos, whose self-described “huge curiosity” means she’s constantly reading, watching, scrolling, listening. (“All of my direct reports know they will receive many times per month a copy of an article from me, a screenshot of a post or a video of a speech I saw. Usually this happens after the weekend,” she joked.)

“I encourage the teams to dedicate time every day to look at what’s happening in the world and to share it with me,” Lavernos said. “I want to instill this openness and mindset because, in the end, I also benefit strongly from their findings.”

Lavernos thrives in the intersection of health, beauty, society and technology, and believes that longevity will be one of the most impactive forces on beauty moving forward. Today, she notes, there are approximately 1.2 billion people over the age of 60. By 2050, that number will double. “This is great — in a sense,” said Lavernos, noting we can add years to life but not necessarily health and vitality. So Lavernos and her team have been working with governments, the World Health Organization and internally to better understand cell health. “We want to be the serious leader of longevity — I’m speaking of real longevity, not marketing,” she said. “Skin is the largest organ of humans. It is the organ that protects all of your other organs. It plays the role of transmitter between the external and internal.”

In addition to adjacent industries, Lavernos works closely with key industry suppliers, many of whom she knows well from her days as chief operating officer and time spent in manufacturing and procurement. “Barbara has a horizon of building trustworthy partnerships and doesn’t start with the assumption that everything has to be done inside L’Oréal,” said Gilles Andrier, the CEO of Givaudan. “In fact, it’s the opposite and that is where she has made a profound transformation of expanding the innovation capabilities of L’Oréal. She has opened the company’s culture, which is very strong, very impressive, very effective.

“But at the same time,” Andrier continued, “that can go against you if you only rely on yourself. She has been at the helm of transforming that mindset. It is quite formidable what she has achieved.”

Where Beauty Meets Technology

In 2018, then-CEO Jean-Paul Agon stated his intention to transform L’Oréal into a leader in the beauty tech industry, a goal that Lavernos and her teams have embraced with gusto. Step one has to been to aggregate all of the data from the very earliest days onto one platform. The result is the Beauty Tech Data Platform, which has more than 11,000 terabytes of data including all of L’Oréal’s consumer, scientific and product information.

Another large-scale project has been the decision to put QR codes on 5.5 billion L’Oréal products (some, like eyeliners, are just too small), so consumers can access anything from the origins of the ingredients to virtual try-on to tutorials. Currently, about 1.5 billion stock keeping units feature the technology.

And L’Oréal has created its own internal application via AI, which collects and analyzes ratings and reviews from 14 countries for all of the company’s products — as well as the competition.

“At the click of a button, everyone in L’Oréal can look at the reviews and ratings on each of our launches in the first week, the first month, the first three months, on 15 different criteria,” said Lavernos. “This doesn’t prevent us from having direct contact with consumers, but it’s a game changer for employees who are in charge of brands or packaging or formula, to have this at the click of a button.”

In addition to creating its own internal databases, L’Oréal has tapped external partners, too, like Verily, a health tech company owned by Alphabet, and Clue, which tracks hormones and menstrual cycle activity. “We’re partnering in scientific terms, and wiring our tech so that our data and their data are on the same platform. This enables us to see how all of these different parameters are influencing skin health,” said Lavernos.

Some partnerships are consumer-facing, as with Breezometer weather tech, which is embedded in at-counter diagnostic tools for 10 brands to help improve the product recommendation process. “Everybody can take a picture and say you have a wrinkle,” said Lavernos, “but having the ability for a precise diagnostic makes a huge difference.”

In addition to software, L’Oréal is becoming increasingly active in hardware. This year, the company ventured into new territory. During a 60-minute keynote presentation at CES that starred Hieronimus, Lavernos and a guest appearance by Eva Longoria, it introduced two next-gen hair devices. (Longoria was on hand to demonstrate the ease of use of one of them — the Colorsonic hair color applicator — live.)

During a wide-ranging interview in L’Oréal’s repurposed original headquarters in the center of Paris called Le Visionnaire, Lavernos excitedly plays with the other one. Called the AirLight Pro, it dries hair with a combination of infrared-light technology and wind. “This dries hair but it’s not a hair dryer,” she said, switching it on and off as she waved the device around. “It’s much faster but with less energy consumption and more importantly, your hair is shiny and hydrated.”

As excited as Lavernos is about the functionality of the AirLight, the purpose wasn’t to take L’Oréal into new categories. The goal is to meet consumers wherever they are on their beauty journey, even if that means expanding into new areas for the company. “We didn’t decide to sell a hair dryer — that wasn’t the mindset. The thing was to look at the consumer journey and understand where tech can make some breakthroughs,” said Lavernos.

“That’s why we decided to take a 10 percent share in Galderma,” she continued, of the pure-play dermatology leader and largest brand in injectables worldwide that L’Oréal invested in in April, noting that aesthetic injections have a penetration rate of 10 percent in the U.S. and 30 percent in China, and have grown at a compound annual growth rate of 12 percent over the last five years. “More and more, we’re seeing a holistic approach in the consumer journey that we have to take into account. We have to be able to accompany them.”

Those changes have required a shift in the company’s internal culture, too, which employs about 90,000 people worldwide. “We’re training our teams like hell,” said Lavernos. “Of course, technology will never replace humans — that is bulls–t. But we want our people ready to embrace these technologies, to adapt and be augmented by it.”

A Multifaceted Leader

Such forthrightness is typical of Lavernos, whose voice rises and falls with excitement and emphasis as she talks. Hieronimus speaks often of the “poet and peasant” ethos of L’Oréal that was created by the legendary L’Oréal CEO François Dalle, and for Asmita Dubey, the group’s chief digital and marketing officer, Lavernos personifies those traits. “She has such a grand ambition for L’Oréal, which is always very inspiring — when it comes to what our group is today and what it should be tomorrow,” said Dubey. “On the other hand, she is extremely observant, very detail-oriented and she knows how to get stuff done. That passion together with her ability to get into the details is what makes her such an impactful executive.”

“She is deeply passionate about beauty and consumers and what we can develop to enhance their life,” agreed Nathalie Gerschtein, president of the Consumer Products Division for North America, who considers Lavernos a mentor. “But she also believes we don’t have to be perfect, because it is through the cracks that the light gets in,” Gerschtein continued. “She taught me that it is more about the journey than the destination, and failure is part of the learning curve. Her authenticity and approachability really make her a great mentor.”

Lavernos’ approachability was evident during her interview at Le Visionnaire. It was the first day back after summer holidays for many L’Oréalians, and Lavernos greeted her colleagues enthusiastically with a bise on each cheek. She herself was just back from Biarritz in the southwest of France, where she and her husband have a house and are renovating a Middle Age fortress to restore it to its original condition, “stone by stone.” Lavernos loves Biarritz for its down-to-earth mentality, and the way she describes it is similar to how others describe her. “It’s called the French California, as the style and way of living is what I adore — so cool and casual and not show-offy,” she said. “My friends are super eclectic — sports champions, artists, airline captions, hairstylists. I love spending time with my son’s friends, too,” she continued, referring to 20-year-old Max. “It is my delicious pleasure to listen to them, debate together and to dance!”

Her leadership style in the office is equally down to earth. While some female executives sublimate their feminine side as they rise through the ranks, Lavernos always rejected the idea of adapting to more masculine codes for doing business — even when she was one of just two female plant managers when she was promoted to that role. At the same time, she’s a realist, who recognizes that change takes time. “The reality is we are in a world where the work parameters, the work ideal, was set by men, so we did have to adapt,” she said.

 “Today, though, no more,” Lavernos continued. “Rather than gender it is more of an archetype of previous leaders, based on dominance, control and authority. I’m not saying that to do the job you’re doing, you don’t need to have control and make decisions, but the reality is today’s managerial and leadership skills are the opposite. It’s trust, push, empower, cocreate — surround yourself with people who are much more brilliant in each expertise. That’s the new leadership style and it’s achievable for women and for men.”

Over the course of her career, Lavernos has pushed hard to make sure that women achieve parity in STEM and she takes great pride that over half of the recruits in data and tech were female last year and 54 percent of L’Oréal’s 610 patents filed in 2023 were by female researchers.

While achieving gender-parity is a noble goal, it’s also a business mandate. “Tech and science are experiencing two enormous revolutions at the moment. Biotech, AI, if those two revolutions, for example, are designed by one dominating archetype, it will shape the future profoundly,” said Lavernos. “The reality is if you don’t have diversity, by definition, what you will develop has bias — huge bias.

“This, to me, is the most important question we need to manage,” she continued. “We are trying at our scale to engage in that diversity in the way we build things. It’s true that it’s a fight, because it’s not easy and we absolutely are not perfect. But are we convinced? Absolutely. Willing? Totally.”