Global beauty giant Estée Lauder Companies – whose brands include Clinique, Bobbi Brown, Tom Ford Beauty, Too Faced and Jo Malone – has appointed its first ever chief technology, data and analytics officer to drive more seamless and personalised digital experiences for customers.
Brian Franz joins from State Street, where he most recently served as executive vice president, global chief information officer and head of enterprise resiliency. Prior to that, he held senior tech leadership roles at Diageo, PepsiCo International and GE Capital.
Franz join the company’s executive team and report to president and chief executive Stéphane de La Faverie, who said: “As we drive our bold Beauty Reimagined vision, Brian’s deep expertise and fresh perspectives will be pivotal in executing the biggest technology and operational transformation in our company’s history.
“His experience in modernising infrastructure, building resilient and sustainable platforms, and advancing AI driven capabilities will be critical as we accelerate our evolution into a more agile and consumer focused organisation.
“Brian’s strategic leadership, combined with his passion for innovation and talent development, makes him the ideal leader to shape the future of technology, data and analytics at The Estée Lauder Companies.”
As the company’s first ever combined chief data technology, data and analytics officer, Franz will be responsible for leading the transformation of The Estée Lauder Companies’ global data and technology capabilities.
He will head up the company’s global tech organisation, guiding efforts to scale systems while ensuring they are agile enough to meet the changing needs of the business.
Franz will also oversee the digital technology and experience and enterprise data teams, focusing on platform integration, delivering personalised digital experiences, and harnessing data as a strategic asset to drive faster, smarter decisions across the enterprise.
The beauty giant recently developed an AI tool to identify trends and drive marketing innovation as part of a major turnaround strategy.
It now uses AI to marry trends with its existing products and innovation to more quickly respond to market demand to drive increased consumer recruitment and loyalty and optimised promotions.
The data-driven approach takes the company’s 200 million-plus customer profiles and merges them with AI functionality to better target new consumers through product assortment, distribution, and media.
De La Faverie added: “By bringing these critical areas together under one leader, we are simplifying our structure, removing operational silos, and creating stronger alignment across our data and technology strategies – key enablers of our Beauty Reimagined transformation.”
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