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.