Chasing the Consumer

FEATURING WELL+GOOD'S ABBEY STONE (VP, CONTENT). COVERING WELL + GOOD'S 2022 TRENDS FORECAST. TOPICS DISCUSSED INCLUDE:
*THE USE OF PSILOCYBIN MUSHROOMS FOR MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT
*SMART DEVICES FOR CLEANER HOME AIR  / ENVIRONMENTS 
*INNOVATION AROUND NON-ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES 
*GENDERLESS BEAUTY 
*BETTER FOR YOU + YOUR HOME 

Meet Tara Hyland. Tara serves as Vice President at Main Post Partners, a growth-oriented private equity firm focused on investing in leading companies across the consumer value chain. A few of Main Post Partners current investments include Dr. Dennis Gross, Milk Makeup, Duke Cannon, and Not Your Mothers hair care.  In addition to identifying and evaluating new investment opportunities across the consumer industry, she works closely with founders and management teams to support the execution of growth opportunities and strategic initiatives, with the goal of building world class brands and companies that have staying power.  

Meet Rich Gersten. Rich has spent the last 30 years investing and building great consumer brands at top private equity firms including Tengram Capital Partners, L Catterton, and North Castle Partners. Rich spent the last 9 years dedicated specifically to investing in the beauty industry, where he developed an extensive network of relationships that sourced many emerging growth brands with very limited access to institutional capital. Realizing the significant opportunity to address this underserved area of the market in beauty, Rich founded True Beauty Ventures.

Rich currently serves as a Senior Advisor to Tengram Capital Partners, and currently sits on the board of directors of Aquis, Algenist, Cos Bar, Lime Crime, Revive and formerly sat on the board of directors for Laura Geller Beauty, This Works, Active Ride Shop, NEST Fragrances and Deva Curl.

Meet the visionary Lead Marketer at Liquid I.V., Alexis Warchalowski. Alexis has led a thoughtful career spanning publishing, media, beauty and health & wellness. Alexis and her team have played an instrumental role in helping to scale and position Liquid IV for acquisition with Unilever Prestige, which was announced in September of 2020. Alexis leverages her well-rounded upbringing, across a myriad of industries, to bring a disruptive and relevant strategy to marketing. Tune in to learn more. 

Get to know Reuben Carranza who is the visionary CEO and leader of Kate Somerville, a California based skincare brand founded by celebrity aesthetician, Kate Somerville. Reuben is a beauty industry veteran with over three decades of experience that span the mass consumer, luxury, specialty, professional and e-commerce markets; Reuben has built a career comprised of broad and diverse experiences delivering growth in revenue, profitability and building high performing organizations.

Reuben started his career with Procter & Gamble and for more than 24 years, he managed and grew a diverse portfolio of brands across beauty, health and consumer goods. As CEO of North America Wella, (including Wella Professionals, Sebastian Professional, Clairol Professional and Nioxin.), he spent his last eight years at Procter & Gamble. In this role he led a 550-person team in a business turn-around resulting in the re-staging of three of the flagship brands in the professional portfolio and grew the company to be the number one professional color portfolio in North America. Prior to that, Reuben was the Leader of the Market Strategy and Planning team for Retail Beauty for the U.S. where he spearheaded marketing and innovation initiatives and managed 9 billion dollars in retail sales for brands like Pantene, Covergirl, Nice ‘n Easy, Secret, Olay and Clairol Herbal Essences.

Reuben joined brand incubator Luxury Brand Partners (LBP) in 2014 as a Partner and President and spearheaded the launch of R+Co Luxury Hair Care which he quickly scaled to global distribution, profitability and successful positioning as an omni-channel brand. 

In 2018 Reuben was appointed President of Olaplex where he partnered with the founders to help scale the brand and position it for sale. In June 2019, Marcey Stamas and I here at DHR International had the opportunity to recruit Reuben to Kate Somerville. Within the last year and a half, Reuben has been able to not only foster an incredible partnership with Kate herself, but helped to re-engage the workforce and re-establish Kate Somerville within brick & mortar, digital and ecommerce. 

Take a peek into the brilliant mind of Michael McNeil who is a veteran beauty industry marketer and digital disrupter. Michael started his career at Anastasia Beverly Hills where he played a strategic role in helping to pave a way for the brand's formidable success to date, to having helped position Milani for significant growth and an exit to Gryphon Investors. To date, Michael serves as the VP of Marketing at Huda Beauty which is the world's leading beauty brand. Huda Beauty is currently outperforming it's prestige peers and continues to make waves across digital, direct-to-consumer and across product innovation. 

Michael brings a refreshing perspective and dynamic approach to digital, marketing and consumer behavior that has played an instrumental role in his serial success to date.