Chair Seminar 2021

On March 18th 2021, we had the honor to invite ESSEC Alumni, Axelle Venot-Hallu, L’Oréal Solidarity Sourcing Director, as our speaker. After greeting everyone, she shared her life story with us and proved that it’s possible to balance family life and professionally life. Then she talked about how L’Oréal is carrying out solidarity sourcing by focusing on every stage of the supply chain, making sure Diversity & Inclusion is passed on to the extended eco-system. Afterwards, she shared her experience in China as L'Oréal Global Category Manager and how she helped the female workers

in Guangzhou by relocating the factories to rural areas. After speaking about several projects  managed by her, she posed a question that sparked insightful discussions among students.

The session begins with Trevor Shah, the Corporate Responsibility Manager at L’Oréal, giving a brief introduction about his background and work. Next, he gives us an insight into the sustainability and social program – L’Oréal for the future, which focuses on 4 key areas: Climate, Water, Biodiversity & Resources. Then he dives into the definition of a Brand Cause, and how it differs from Brand Purpose. He goes on with the description of the process that various L’Oréal brands follow to decide what cause or issue they want to towards. Then we get an elaborate explanation about L’Oréal’s recent International Women’s Day campaign called #StandUp, a program that provides trainings for both women and men to combat street sexual harassment they witness. The last part of the presentation shows how various brands across product lines have partnered with various NGOs and non-profits across the world to work on issues and causes that make sense for the brand. These issues vary from country to country. The floor was then opened to the students of the Chair to ask questions, and Trevor answered them, giving more insights on how the company tracks progress of all its initiatives, what KPIs they use for the same, and potential collaborations. 

On March 4th, we were honored to have our old friend Sylviane BALUSTRE-d'ERNEVILLE (L'Oréal Fund for Women Director, L’Oréal Foundation AVP Inclusive Beauty program, Executive Coach (ICF and Activision ACTP certification), French Foreign Trade Advisor (CCEF), Administrator) as a speaker. She began with an introduction of herself and her inspiring career path, especially her experiences as a human resource director in Kenya and her story with a team previously working for Yves-Saint-Laurent. Then she answered questions from chair students about the integration with the YSL team, criteria of Fund for Women organization of, and how to ensure inclusivity while using beauty to empower women. In to end, she introduced one of the pillars of the L’Oréal foundation: Women in Sciences. 

Alexandra Palt (Executive Vice-President Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer of L'Oréal and Executive Vice-President of the Foundation L'Oréal) first introduced herself, which includes her background and her experiences in the fight for human rights, especially on the issues of violence against women and women in prison. Then she focused primarily on Corporate Social Responsibility - what L’Oréal is doing on that frontier. Later discussions also centered on environmental sustainability, SDGs, and how corporations need to take into account the environmental footprint of their products and services. In the next part of her talk concerning how L’Oréal can tackle the issue of systemic racism, which is the main topic of the chair this year, she shed light on the initiatives being taken internally within the company in terms of recruitment, promotion and training. She also expressed her views on how and when corporations and brands can or should express their standpoints on major social issues happening in the world, especially those affecting their consumers, and how to be prepared for backlashes from certain sections of society at the same time. She ended the session with her vision of what Leadership today in society means - Corporate leaders that we need - people who are sincere, authentic and connected with society.