Meet Manuel, Building Brand Value And Driving Growth At L’Oréal

Beauty Tomorrow
Beauty Tomorrow
Published in
4 min readApr 24, 2017

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L’Oréal’s finance team plays a key role in the success of L’Oréal Group’s 36 iconic brands. Partnering with different brands means that you get involved in all the projects and everyhting that is happening in the local business. You get to be at the forefront of how the Group evolves to meet its ambitious goals by developing an understanding of the strategies that drive the Group’s growth.

From brand or commercial P&L management while interacting with various functional areas: Marketing, Sales, Operations, and Purchasing to Corporate and Operations finance: Manufacturing, Supply Chain or Corporate Operations providing strategic support for production, distribution and M&A, no day is the same. That means, it adds a huge variety to the role while building up the right experiences and letting you progress fast in line with your potential.

We caught up with Manuel, Chief Finance Officer at L’Oréal Spain, to learn more about his exciting career journey at L’Oréal.

Give me one fun fact about yourself?

I know more about make-up than my sister!

What made you apply to L’Oréal?

I always wanted to work for an international company with people from different backgrounds. It is a fantastic opportunity to have an international career. L’Oréal ticked all the boxes so I went for it.

How is L’Oréal different from any other place you have worked before?

The atmosphere is very dynamic, things change constantly and that makes every day different so you never get bored. This can be confusing at the beginning though. When I started I thought I wouldn’t last more than two months, 14 years later and I’m still here!

Where did your L’Oréal story start?

I started as Commercial Controller in Spain. Shortly after my boss went on leave for a few months they gave me the opportunity to take over the position in the interim even though I was a fresh face in the company. To me it was an example of how L’Oréal takes risks in order to develop it’s people. It was a great experience where I had the support of everybody and this prepared me for future challenges.

What is the L’Oréal project that you are most proud of?

The acquisition of NYX Professional Makeup, a US make-up brand that we acquired in 2014 stands out. It was a lot of work involving people from all areas of the company and we enjoyed every minute of it. The results are worth it!

Can you tell us about a bit about your team, how do you work together?

We have specific brand teams that work hand-in-hand with the sales and marketing teams to maximize the results of the business, market share, financial KPIs, etc. We also have corporate teams that work transversally with the brands on topics such as tax, accounting, internal control. Then to work on specific topics such as the expansion of retail for example we organize multifunctional teams that also help to to promote collaboration between people.

How are disruptive innovations reshaping the way financial services are structured and consumed at L’Oréal?

Digital is changing dramatically consumers behaviors and the way we interact with them so the whole organization needs to adapt. In terms of finance that means on one hand learning about the digital world with new areas to invest where the measure of the ROI is not always evident. On the other hand the amount of information available is huge and growing exponentially so our challenge is to be able to sort through that information to understand what is really meaningful for the business and not to get lost in the details.

What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?

Keep pushing and keep it simple! It’s about the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple, as there is tremendous genius in the ability to keep the complicated simple.

What’s the advice you would give to any future talent who would love to join L’Oréal?

Understand what/where you are getting into. If you like fast paced organizations, a flexible framework that allows you to experiment and step out of your comfort zone then this is your place.

What is your passion project outside your day to day job that inspires you?

Sounds typical but I like travelling and knowing different places, ideally outside the tourist season! And of course football, I am a big Betis fan :)

If Manuel’s story has captured your imagination and you’d like to pursue a career at L’Oréal then check out our careers site. Here you’ll find everything careers oriented from jobs available to a Coaching Centre where we give you some tips on getting your foot in the door!

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If you’re an impact seeking inventor, a driver of disruption, join us to lead the Beauty innovation to the next level www.careers.loreal.com