Barbara Lavernos

A graduate of the École des Hautes Études d’Ingénieur (HEI France), Barbara LAVERNOS joined the L’Oréal Group in 1991 to pursue a highly diversified career. She was first a buyer, then purchasing manager at the Aulnay-sous-Bois plant, before taking over the management of the Rambouillet plant in 2000, which she managed until 2003. In 2004, she was appointed General Manager of Purchasing for the Group. During six years, she succeeded in positioning purchasing at the center of the Group’s strategic plan and set up a centralized purchasing Department with 600 employees. In 2011, she conquered new territories by moving away from her area of expertise in operations to focus on commercial activities, taking over the General Management of Travel Retail, of which L’Oréal is the pioneer and historical leader. Also known as the Group’s “6th continent”, this is the sector which includes the commercial activity carried out in duty free shops, mainly in airports. She joined L’Oréal’s Executive Committee in 2014, becoming the Group’s Chief Operating Officer: she now manages all factories, packaging laboratories, as well as purchasing and logistics, on a global scale. Her teams of nearly 20,000 employees worldwide manufacture and manage the entire supply chain of more than 7 billion finished products per year. At Operations, she initiated a profound digital transformation, and established sustainability as a core value in all team actions. In December 2018, she extended her responsibilities by integrating all the Information Technology (IT) teams on a global level, where she piloted a profound transformation aimed at establishing technology and data at the heart of each of the Group’s businesses. She is thus at the forefront of L’Oréal’s ambition to become the global champion of “Beauty Tech”. In February 2021, she was appointed to head a new Research, Innovation and Technology Department, where she manages 4,000 researchers and over 3,000 IT and Tech experts worldwide. Following the decision of the Board of Directors held on October 2020, she is appointed Deputy CEO of L’Oréal, alongside the Chief Executive Officer, Nicolas HIERONIMUS, as of 1 May 2021. Barbara LAVERNOS is a 2023’s WWD x FN x Beauty Inc 50 Women in Power, a Forbes 2022 Top 40 Most Powerful Women and has been recognized as the 36th most powerful woman in the world by Fortune Magazine in 2021