Hong Kong
Company Leaders Address WWD Beauty CEO Summit
Company Feature, Aug 5, 2016
August 5, 2016 -- The annual Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) Beauty CEO Summit is a highly anticipated industry event. This past year, William P. Lauder, Executive Chairman, The Estée Lauder Companies; Karen Buglisi Weiler, Global Brand President, M∙A∙C Cosmetics; and Kilian Hennessy, Founder, Kilian, inspired more than 250 global retail and brand executives as featured speakers at the Summit in Palm Beach, Florida.
With this year’s theme focused on change, William Lauder kicked off the Summit in an intimate chat with WWD’s Executive Editor of Beauty, Pete Born, covering a broad range of thought leadership topics – from launching new brands, to changing consumer dynamics amidst the digital revolution, to creating a workplace culture that embraces and inspires leadership and innovation.
“First and foremost in a larger organization, there’s more of a fear of failure and that creates caution,” William noted. “So one of the things we try to do in our culture is say: ‘it’s OK to fail if you are trying something new. Just fail fast and fail cheap.’ Change is constant,” he continued, “If you’re standing still, you’re going backward.”
Karen Buglisi Weiler, M·A·C Global Brand President, engaged the crowd in her presentation entitled “Changing, Growing and Keeping M·A·C.” She spoke about the importance of maintaining the brand’s ethos while pulling the levers of diversity, creativity and artistry to propel M·A·C through the constant and aggressive changes in the marketplace. Karen connected the ever-changing industry and the importance of the business of beauty while articulating M∙A∙C’s mission to continue revolutionizing beauty and developing cosmetics while retaining the core essence of the brand.