L’Oréal Appoints Two to Executive Committee

L’Oréal announced two moves within its executive committee. Omar Hajeri is the new president of the professional products division and joins the executive committee. He succeeds Nathalie Roos, who is leaving the company following nine years with L’Oréal. Ersi Pirishi is the new president of the Latin America zone, and will join the executive committee. She will take over from Javier San Juan who has decided to retire later this year, after 30 years with L'Oréal. Pirishi will join the zone and the COMEX in the autumn of 2021.

A Franco-Tunisian national, Hajeri joined L’Oréal following an internship 21 years ago and has spent most of his career in the professional products division (PPD). Most notably, he led the division in the Netherlands and then in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where he is credited with modernizing the organization by moving it to a multi-channel model. In 2019, he became Western Europe Zone director for the division.

“Omar is a visionary leader, a seasoned business development professional and a generous manager. Always attentive to both his employees and the customer, he has the ability to grasp new trends and mobilize his teams toward ever greater innovation. He is also a pioneer in digital transformation,” said L'Oréal Deputy CEO Nicholas Hieronimus. “Omar played a major role in reinventing PPD in Europe, and has given the division a new momentum in this zone in 2020. I therefore have every confidence in him to successfully take over the management of the division, with the support of the fantastic PPD teams who will accompany him in this new challenge. In particular, he will be able to draw on the brand development talents of Arnaud Jeanteur, who is appointed deputy general manager of the division. Arnaud has played a major role in the development of the formidable innovation plan that is fuelling the division’s acceleration.”

A French-Cypriot national and pharmacist by training, Pirishi began her career with the group working for the Latin America zone, where she was in charge of international development for the La Roche Posay brand. Her international career in the active cosmetics division then took her from Brazil to the US, via the Netherlands, France and Spain, where she held brand, division and zone management positions. In 2015, she was appointed general manager for L’Oréal Greece, before being appointed deputy general manager of the active cosmetics division in 2018, in charge of Western Europe and subsequently all markets.

“Ersi is a multi-talented, all-around manager who knows how to combine strategic vision, execution skills, proximity to the field and team empowerment. Her international background and the variety of positions she has held make her the ideal person to take over from Javier,” said Hieronimus. “I am convinced that Ersi will be a fantastic leader for the zone she loves so much and in which she started her career, and I will be very happy to welcome her to the Executive Committee in this role.”

She succeeds San Juan who joined L’Oréal in 1991 and who has enjoyed an international career with the Group, notably as finance director for L’Oréal Russia, and then country manager for Romania, Argentina, Canada and Mexico. Since 2016, he has been in charge of the Latin America zone.

“I would like to pay tribute to Javier’s remarkable career over the past 30 years. He is an outstanding manager and has always shown a keen entrepreneurial spirit and a marked taste for innovation, while at the same time nurturing many talents. Under his leadership, L’Oréal has steadily gained market share in Latin America, becoming the number one in luxury in the zone in 2020 and achieving double digit growth in Brazil,” said Frédéric Rozé, chief global growth officer.