“Oh, I wasn’t expecting that one,” said David Greenberg, chief executive officer of L’Oréal USA and president of North America zone, when asked about his leadership style.
On the heels of his 29th anniversary at L’Oréal, working across markets, divisions and brands, how is he approaching his new title?
“What I know is that at the heart of L’Oréal is product innovation, excitement, creating desirable brands,” he went on. “And what I really think my role is, as the CEO of L’Oréal USA, is to nurture that, to help this company in the U.S., which is also the home to many brands in the group.”
Greenberg is a L’Oréal veteran. He succeeded Stéphane Rinderknech, who left the company in February to head up LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton’s hotel division.
Greenberg, an American, follows a long list of Frenchmen in the role. He was most recently president of L’Oréal Professional Products Division in North America, and has been president of Maybelline New York, Garnier and Essie in L’Oréal’s Consumer Products Division. He also directed marketing for the L’Oréal Paris brand.
“It’s the most dynamic, the most competitive and the most diverse country in the planet,” he said of the U.S. “So, it’s a place also where we can showcase best practices in beauty and help the group in all parts of the world be even more successful. My role is to foster all of that to create the right culture and climate of openness, of transparency, of simplicity, of collaboration and of positive spirit.”
The executive was inside L’Oréal USA’s new West Coast hub — marking the company’s first headquarters outside New York City. Officially opened on Aug. 23 at 888 North Douglas Street in El Segundo, Calif., the space unites NYX Professional Makeup, Urban Decay, Pulp Riot and Youth to the People under one roof.
Sitting on a 25-acre campus, it’s more than 100,000 square feet of office and communal spaces. It was developed by Hackman Capital Partners and designed by Blitz.
“We were so fortunate to find this building,” said Carol Hamilton, group president of acquisitions for L’Oréal USA, revealing it was once an aerospace facility.
“Most of the people who worked in this building were women, because the men were fighting the wars,” continued Hamilton, who’s been at L’Oréal for 38 years. “They built the planes for the men to fly.
And so, it’s a source of great pride for L’Oréal that this is one of the places where women were emancipated to work. It’s very meaningful to us.
And we didn’t know that until after we’d signed the lease. It was a great discovery for us. And we feature it on that poster there.”
She pointed to aircraft imagery, steps away from the main entrance — a bright, open and airy lobby.
A L’Oréal ad campaign is prominently displayed near fresh plants and four 25-foot embalmed palm trees; the colors are a warm, golden hue, recalling the California sunset. To the right is a permanent store, offering special discounts to employees.
(“Every division, every product and every function is represented here,” said Hamilton. “Isn’t that great?”) And in the background hang the words “Café California,” a barista and natural juice bar.
Keeping the original structure and wood, with a 45-foot-tall ceiling, the design is a “river concept,” Hamilton continued. “You can see all the way to the end of the building.
It creates a flow of movement and spaces, where community gathers. We thought that was so important, with people coming back to work. They want to come back to socialize, not to be isolated into separate offices. That was one of the important aspects.”
There’s a main gathering area with seating, which leads to the upstairs — equally open and airy office spaces. NYX Professional Makeup is on one side while Urban Decay is on another.
Further back, it’s Pulp Riot and Youth to the People, adjacent to an empty section ready for the next acquisition.
The layout is reminiscent of start-up culture, with clear glass walls as barriers. (It’s also dog friendly, with a gym, solar panels, full of recycling bins and healthy food options on the lunch menu.)
“Being able to see activity going on,” Hamilton said of the importance of transparency. “We’re still learning and balancing people’s desire for privacy and confidentiality with keeping everything open.”
Unsurprisingly, the decision was a topic of conversation.
“We call them neighborhoods without boundaries,” Hamilton added. “But [we] also wanted to still create and maintain brand identity, because each of the brands came from a different office, and they were really afraid of losing their identity. That was a balancing act.”
Malena Higuera, Urban Decay’s general manager, admitted the openness between brands created a bit of consternation in the beginning. “I’ll be open about that. Change always comes with some trepidation.”
“Obviously, there’s an adjustment,” added Yann Joffredo, global president of NYX Professional Makeup. “People are creatures of habits.”
But employees are finding their rhythm, he added, discovering nooks for privacy when needed, and after working from home all this time amid COVID-19, they’re craving in-person interactions.
Agreeing, Higuera said collaborating across brands will help productivity. “For me, this represents such a new chapter for the brand, for the team.
Every intention of this space was built with foresight for the future and work for the future….It leaves me with a lot of real good energy for what I think is going to come out of this, out of these walls…We are a motley crew of brands that are boldly different and stand for something, and yet, by coming together, we stand up taller.”
Greenberg shares similar thoughts.
“When I look around, and I see the collaboration, and I see the conversations going on, I see the sharing,” he said. (There are content studios for each brand.) “And I see people from different brands talking to each other.
I see a hairdresser talking to a makeup artist, and they’ve never met before and never would have met before.
When I see all of that happening, I can’t help but feel that that’s exactly the spark that creates great ideas.
And from there amazing things can happen. So I’m optimistic that this is going to be an engine of growth for us, that it’s going to really help us.”
It’s been a successful first half of the year for L’Oréal, with sales increasing by 20.9 percent, reaching 18.36 billion euros. In North America, sales grew by a reported 23.5 percent.
“Every brand here played an important part, without question,” Greenberg said of West Coast brands, singling out NYX Professional Makeup as a particularly strong performer. “We grew ahead of the market in every category.”
Located in the outskirts of Los Angeles, the new L’Oréal USA hub is well positioned; it’s between Silicon Valley and Silicon Beach, miles from Los Angeles International Airport — in proximity to ports with shipments coming from Asia.
By investing in California, L’Oréal is investing in the future of beauty, Joffredo said. It’s the land of influencers — the new celebrities — home of Hollywood, as well as sustainability and wellness.
“We tend to say the values of California are the values of this next generation,” Joffredo said. “It’s good to be at the center of the culture change. It was New York for a while.
I don’t want to be that person, but New York lost it a little bit. I think right now it’s happening in Cali, and this is where we want to be….This is where the party is going.”
Being on the West Coast is “a reflection of a vision of beauty, a voice of beauty that is more optimistic, more colorful, vibrant, more diverse,” he continued. “That shows everywhere here.”
“We have some of the best professional influencers on the West Coast, and most of our artists actually live out here,” said Leslie Marino, president of Professional Products Division. She oversees L’Oréal’s Professional Products Academy — the hairdressing school — which now has its first West Coast location, uniting all nine L’Oréal professional hair care brands.
“I find it to be extremely modern,” she said. “This is the new way of working. This is what it looks like. This is what the new workplace looks like in this new, hybrid world.”
Adapting the 3-2 hybrid work model, employees — about 500 in total (it’s currently at 55 percent occupancy) — are asked to be in-person three days a week.
“I’ve always felt that being part of L’Oréal is really leaving an imprint on the world,” Greenberg said. “Our brands are very cherished, they’re very public. There’s an enormous amount of pride at L’Oréal, in working here and working on our brands….We’ve moved into new areas in recent years.
From sustainability and diversity, inclusion to green sciences and beauty tech. We’re a company that is as equally a tech company as a beauty company.
We’re experimenting. We’re piloting. We’re investing in venture capital, acquiring brands. So, all these things make for an unbelievable, rich ecosystem full of exciting opportunities.
My goal is that all of our employees feel that excitement and feel connected to the mission of the company.”
How will L’Oréal USA continue to incorporate digital into different aspects of the business?
“It’s now fully integrated, it’s fundamental,” he said. “We’ve been on the journey of data, big data, customized data, personalization, now for a number of years. So, we’re really harnessing data for insights. We’re investing in technology for AI, for predictability and projections, for personalization.
We’re trying to help consumers find the right products for them through the increased knowledge of their needs, and then helping them through education and through clearer and more personalized communication to make the right choices for them. So, it’s amazing from the professional to the consumer, how well that can work.”
Internally, he revealed they’ve changed their vocabulary. Employees are now referred to as residents — a detail Hamilton shared as well.
“Employees to me is a transaction,” she said. “It’s cold. But residents, there’s a sense of elegance to it and caring about it. We’re really looking to change, take out corporate talk and make it as personal as possible.”
Nearing the end of the tour, she proudly presents the “cabana.”
“[It’s] where we will celebrate successes, announce major events and basically, party,” she said.
The West Coast hub has been a long time coming, said Greenberg, after realizing the company wasn’t “harnessing the true experience of California, that the brands weren’t necessarily fully benefiting from all of the resources of L’Oréal.”
And now that it’s complete, its construction and new company approach will influence other L’Oréal locations, he said: “From this, we’ll be inspired now to look at our New York space differently. We’ll see what that ends up being, but I can assure you, it will change.”
