When Heather Wallace joined Revlon as President of Americas just about a year ago, she had a plan— to reboot the iconic brand and help prepare it for the future. Then, before she could even meet her team, the pandemic hit.

And as Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

On this episode of the Reboot Chronicles, I talked with Heather about how she grabbed the wheel of this 90-year-old brand, took on a reboot challenge of truly historic proportions, and orchestrated an agile pivot inside an already tough turnaround.

“We are well positioned to capture the reemerging opportunities ... accelerating brands,

China and e-commerce.”

Revlon president and CEO Debbie Perelman

COVID Wrenches

Like many in-retail brands, the 2020 lockdowns threw a wrench into topline revenues—dropping a whopping 20%. However, these punched in the face impacts also created growth optionality that Revlon can seize upon now—my favorite being the growth of their ecommerce businesses, which was jolted up to 20% of revenues.

“We are seeing signs of broader positive momentum in the business, and with several major 2020 challenges behind us, we believe we are well positioned to capture the reemerging opportunities in the beauty industry…Revlon plans to focus on accelerating brands, China and e-commerce going forward.”  Revlon president and CEO Debbie Perelman

Right Team – Right Time

As Revlon quickly discovered, they brought in the right leader at the right time. Heather is an inspiring leader, and according to her competitors, a tough operator who delivers.

While Revlon had already been in the process of making much-needed changes when Heather joined, including the Revlon 2020 Restructuring Program, the pandemic brought about a whole host of new challenges. With the beauty industry getting hammered, the crisis forced her to navigate the existing culture while increasing the speed of change and adjusting—often on the fly—to significant shifts in consumer shopping habits.

Rather than focusing on the negatives that faced them, she and her team stayed unified in working towards a common goal, which she says enabled them to adapt well to a shifting environment.

The effort was anchored by an emphasis on consumer analysis, which Heather says allowed her team to assess how purchasing habits were changing and how to best meet new consumer needs and demands.

As a result, Revlon was able to effectively identify what consumers were looking for and where and what their preferences were for engaging with brands, influencers and products.

Way before Dermalogica, the world’s top professional-grade skincare brand, was acquired by Unilever in 2015, and even before the company had a product line, it was known as the International Dermal Institute, where innovative cutting-edge skincare treatments were taught. Unlike many indie-brands owned by corporate-motherships, who learn the hard way that tigers eat their young, Dermalogica provides a rare story about how a $60B corporation can continue to nurture the culture and growth of the asset they acquired.

A pioneer in the space, the DNA of education and engagement has served the company well throughout the pandemic, says Aurelian Lis, CEO, and is helping it even now to innovate in ways that will define the brand in the decade ahead.

Lis, a brilliant leader who recently joined me for a lively episode of the Reboot Chronicles, says that even though Dermalogica today is sold in more than 80 countries by more than 100,000 skincare professionals, it is still very much defined by the core principles established by co-founders Jane and Raymond—dedication to education, personalization, human touch and sustainability. Human Touch, in particular, he says, is a point of difference for the them, always driving the brand to want to find new ways to connect with consumers.

Saving an Industry (No Touching)

As the 2020 pandemic hit, Dermalogica saw the drastic impacts it was having on skin therapists—in 20,000 salons worldwide—that have been so central to the company’s success and immediately called upon their education roots to help them.

The brand implemented a number of programs to support this community including starting an affiliate sales program to help increase commission rates for all accounts; offering free returns; extending credit card payment terms; doubling digital streaming classes and creating business resources that ranged from financial planning guides to online marketing opportunities, digital classes and bi-weekly live streams.

Scaling Personalization and Education

They also introduced a program called Clean Touch, which provided a safe way for skin therapists and consumers to continue to engage, at a time when it was off limits. Dermalogica even scaled up certification classes to industry professionals on how to survive and thrive—and rapidly certified and astounding 60,000 therapists! This is now expanding into more hard-core educational programs across sectors.

Aurelian has also been an innovator in using technology to enhance consumer engagement. For example, Dermalogica utilizes AI powered face mapping, which is essentially a personalized assessment for consumers to get professional insights into their unique skin needs—making personalization both a product and a service—and they are just getting started.

Watch us here or tune in wherever you listen to podcasts.

In the Amazon fueled ecommerce marketplace wars, with aggressive competitors—from eBay and Google to Walmart and Target — Supermarket Mega-chain Kroger seized the lock-down pandemic era to launch its own marketplace in 2020. In this bold move Kroger’s shifted from its old store-based model into a co-created marketplace that offers tens of thousands of indie and global product brands—from food and household goods to health, beauty, and wellness companies.

With many organizations still jumping on the band wagon—even Hudson’s Bay is planning a 2021 launch—many have turned to marketplace SasS providers, like Mirakl, to create, launch and host transaction platforms between global buyers and sellers of products and services. Not surprisingly, Mirakl’s growth in transactions on the marketplaces they operate was up 110% to $3.1 billion in 2020! On this episode of the Reboot Chronicles, fresh off of closing their $300 million funding round, we go under the Mirikal hood with Co-founder and Co-CEO, Adrien Nussenbaum to see how they are helping to drive disruption and innovation for these B2B and B2C companies.

Marketplaces are extremely complex models, with multi-factor optionality, so managing key growth variables is a powerful tool to build successful platforms that can keep-up and compete with the big-dogs. After working with over 300 B2B and B2C companies in over 40 countries such as Best Buy Canada, Kroger, HP Enterprise, AIRBUS, and Toyota, Mirakl has figured out how to partner with high potential companies that have great assets—and seek to evolve their business models and target changing consumer buying habits. Adrien puts it this way, “ imagine yourself ten years from now, do you see yourself as a consolidator or being consolidated ... on a consolidator site such as the Kroger’s and Best Buy’s of the world."

On the heels of Australia’s top 2020 public offering—the largest female-led IPO in that market’s history—Adore Beauty’s CEO, Tennealle O'Shannessy, shares her unique journey of taking a company public in the midst of  a seriously strict Stage Four Lockdown. Already the leading profitable online retailer in their category—with $200 million of fresh IPO powder in the bank, Tennealle provides some insights into their aggressive expansion plans and a sneak-peak into the road ahead.

Founded in in  Melbourne in  2000 (think early internet dial-up days), with a lofty mission to provide empowering and disruptive new shopping experiences to consumers, Kate Morris and James Height built-up a reputation for fast, easy and friendly services. During Tennealle's CEO tenure, she has rebooted the company even further, pushed the boundaries of beauty, and challenged the company to expand to what is now the leading platform with over 230 brands representing 11,000 products.

Being the number one beauty online retailer comes with a lot of pressure to grow and innovate. On The Reboot Chronicles Podcast, we often explore the importance of not just talking to consumers but really listening. This is exactly what Adore has done well, often finding early trends and repetitive patterns in consumer learning, influencing, trying and buying behaviors.  One example, taking an early lead to offer emerging products—such as ingestible skincare supplements—as the beauty category shifts toward the health and wellness space.

Tennealle shares other approaches to grasping consumer interest. They have taken a sustainable yet careful approach, to adapt to consumer behavior and preferences, by analyzing data to create better engagement, education and shopping experiences. The goal is to give consumers what they want because Adore is all about "beauty democracy" and meeting consumer needs.  Identifying how to leverage technology, while creating more natural digital experiences, allows them to improve and personalize core customer experiences.

Tennealle reveals some challenges she has dealt with along the way, and advice for fellow entrepreneurs and indi-brands, to spend time identifying the problem you are solving in the marketplace. Once you figured out this whitespace (gap in the market), identify how you will draw in consumers and how they will resonate with your product. The best thing to do is be transparent on who your brand is for, what you provide, what you stand for, and create an open conversation of your message to consumers—including education.

As a co-founding board member at 1871 in Chicago and creator of the Dancing with Startups program, I am always on the lookout for potential global expansion partners, like Founders Factory. They are a very dynamic startup accelerator and venture studio, launched five years ago in London by Brent Hoberman and Henry Lane Fox, on the principles of aiding founders with hands-on resources.

On this episode of the Reboot Chronicles we dig into how entrepreneurs and startups should evaluate incubators, accelerators or venture studios with Founders Factory Managing Director, Isabella Chick. With a growing list of corporate partners, 100 people (wow) and 4 global locations, they have funding from numerous organizations, allowing them to invest in and rapidly scale and transform global sector challenges—opportunistically.

How it Works

Standing out from the rest, Founders Factory provides a different perspective, separating their accelerator and venture studio, enabling a more direct operating approach. Moving beyond the typical "cohort" model, over 200 startups have been in their six-month accelerator factory—68 in 2020 alone. Most of these ventures have received bespoke tailored services and advice focused on growth—with a keen understanding about the (land mine) spaces between retail and brands. Another secret sauce they provide founders is coveted all-access passes to world-renowned companies like J&J, M&S and L'Oréal who has a strong CVC group.

The venture studio program allows entrepreneurs to start with funding and some de-risking. Isabella shares the two ways the venture operation works: either Founders Factory develops an insight or target area with a corporate partner and brings talent into the mix, or founders bring their concepts to the group and pitch for inclusion in the program.

Corporate Partners

Isabella points out, the importance of relationships with their corporate partners across multiple sectors, including education, media, beauty, travel, finance, AI & big data, retail, and home. This is not the typical demo-day/corporate entertainment format, but a more serious corporate commitment program. Within these sectors, the industry relationships they have, plus the corporate partners clout, have been crucial market accelerators for the entrepreneurs and startup teams. These corporate partners often de-risk too, as they can engage with the startups ahead of investment. Once a vote through the investment committee has been determined, based on the relationship momentum, concept feasibility and other insights, they can commit. With L'Oréal alone they have run over 200 pilots with entrepreneurs and startups!

Next-Gen Media, Entertainment and Leadership

On this episode of the Reboot Chronicles, fresh out of my COVID-19 recovery, I discussed one of my favorite sectors, the entertainment industry, with Jacqueline Parkes, CMO, and SVP of Digital Studios Entertainment Youth Group and ViacomCBS.

Responsible for overseeing marketing, creative and digital content, and social media for MTV, Comedy Central, the Paramount Network, Smithsonian Channel, popT.V.V, and CMT, Jacqueline has rebooted some of TV’s most famous brands. She and her team have made many creative moves, including rebooting original content to build new brands and digital audiences.

Not Your Dad's MTV

In 2020, Jacqueline's team took a hard and fast look at their assets and identified what they could do, in their role as a global media company, to best help consumers (people). With a 93% reach in 18-34-year-old audiences and an impressive 750 million followers across platforms worldwide, they quickly went to work. With the goal to create information that would provide lasting impressions within the minds of existing and new consumers, they developed the first digital campaign. The idea was to hit home in young people's hearts, educating and informing them on the virus—and to help slow the curve. The provocative campaign was a great success, and in partnership with the Ad Council, her team developed over 1000 pieces of cross-platform content.

Digital Content Partnerships

Content, especially digital content, has shifted dramatically in 2020. Now more than ever, content creation matters, and brands need to be ready to step up to the plate and place society considerations into the forefront of their brands M.O. Moving forward CEO's and CMO's must follow the everchanging habits of consumers, and be mindful of these radical shifts, in order to stay ahead, draw consumers in and resonate with their audiences. One of the partnerships Jacqueline shares is with Twitter, is a prime example of consumer consideration. In preparation for a prior VMA show, Jacqueline and her team worked with the social media giant to produce a unique product to drive business to the brand and give fans insight into the show. It turned out to be a quarantine hit and a direction we will likely see more of in the future—partnerships creating unique perspectives and products to benefit both partners and the audiences.

Advice To Gen Z

Generation Z is one of the most socially-minded generations—and more demanding of brands and on businesses. Those graduating from college, looking to pursue media or content related careers should look to a organizations and brands that they best resonate with. For those looking to start their own company, remember to put the clients or consumers first, think of what they need and ask yourself ... is there really a need for what you want to develop? Step up to the plate and do not conform, but rather create relevant, original products, services and content.

Can we Crowdsource Government?

NASA’s Deputy Director for the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI), Steve Rader, joined me for an episode of the Reboot Chronicles, to discuss how our government went from “not-invented-here” to crowdsourcing and the art of Dancing with Startups.

Founded in 2011 by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, NASA's CoECI goal was to drive crowdsourcing programs to further research and development efforts, assist other federal agencies in solving mission-critical projects, and bringing a new level of co-creation and open-innovation culture to NASA.

This decade’s overused buzzword, co-creation, was introduced into NASA's culture a decade ago by Dr. Jeff R. Davis, NASA's prior Director, Human Health and Performance. During a time when NASA was experiencing heavy budget cuts with increasing R&D needs, Jeff found he could expand his resources in various industries, through open-innovation challenges. He took this discovery, and often without permission, ran pilot projects with entrepreneurs and startups to prop-up research projects—and the rest is history.

NASA was able to elevate the center to the agency level, tasked to teaching other government agencies to understand how to re-frame problems and reboot their closed mindsets. Similar to what I teach students, executives and board members at Kellogg School of Management, through my Dancing with Startups Program, NASA has guided the US Space Program and over 30 other agencies, on how to discover better solutions by driving more open-innovation, co-creation and crowdsourcing. Listen in here for some good stories here or tune in wherever you get your podcasts.

Why did Accenture Stock rise 24% in 2020? Leadership, talent, digital and focus— and with record earnings for its software products and services, management has just increased their fiscal 2021 outlook from 2%-5% to 4%-6% revenue growth.

Sitting as Number 279 on the Fortune 500 list and about $43 billion in annual revenue, Accenture is one of the world's largest consulting companies, with over 500k employees companies, helping over 6k clients in over 120 countries reboot their businesses and brands. Today, the company has over 4.8k patents and about 2.5k pending, with a very robust partner network of nearly 200 organizations worldwide, while growing their digital footprint through high-profile acquisitions like the agency Droga5.

Rotating to the New - Digital

Since Julie Sweet became CEO of Accenture a lot has changed under her remarkable leadership, from transforming their market approach and culture to reinvigorating their service platforms and brand. Today, 70% of their business has rotated to the "New": digital, cloud and security, all supported by Accenture's biggest brand relaunch in a decade, spearheaded by Accenture’s dynamic CMO Amy Fuller, who joined us for an episode of the Reboot Chronicles to talk about what’s new and what’s next.

Speed, Scale and Agility

During the 2020 pandemic, consumers have moved dramatically toward online channels, and companies and industries have responded in turn. Today, more than ever, organizations have to accelerate the pace of transformation to supplement and further strengthen their relationships with clients. Most of the companies who have overseen a digital transformation were fraught with challenges: they wish they had - and could have- moved faster. We see companies that emerge stronger from the crisis are those that innovate through it, using the current crisis as an opportunity to transform their company digitally. In short—2020 lit a fire under corporates and acceleration has been good for Accenture and a few of their peers.

The rapid shift to working from home is a good example. A vast number of companies were forced to move to digital channels and communication platforms, like  Microsoft Teams, to work remotely. Accenture, for instance, has converted more than a million NHS people in a matter of days - onto Teams. Similarly, retailers are going through the “digital makeover” to adjust according to customer changes and preferences. Grocery delivery is now the norm for many people who wouldn’t bother in the past. In light of this, Walmart, for the first time, activated and scaled curbside pickup at a mass scale.

Optimal Experiences

With Accenture’s deep industry knowledge, they have discovered recently that the problem lies in understanding how humans interact with technology. And for many clients, the biggest concern was how to interact with advanced technologies and make the most of it. In a world of uncertainty, businesses have to deliver promises of consequence that drive everyone's purposeful change through experiences. Accenture Interactive, the consultancy giant's agency arm, connects deep human and business insights with the possibilities of technology to define and deliver new experiences that can make lives more comfortable and more rewarding.

Should you get the COVID-19 Vaccine?

I’ve been off the air for a while—personally recovering from COIVD-19—and with Pfizer shipping vaccines to a provider near you today, kicking off the largest vaccination rollout in U.S. history, I talked with Dr. Nicole Saphier about the question on the year: should you get the shots?

Author of the new book Make America Healthy Again, Fox News guest anchor and board-certified radiologist at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Nicole has unique perspectives about who should get the vaccine, why she will not, why her husband (also a doctor) will, and what about their children.

Before you (U.S. listeners) head to your local CVS, Walmart or Walgreens, you should know Pfizer and Modernaare two shot deliver systems and require the second injection two or three weeks after the first. According to Pfizer research, the immunity skyrockets after that second injection to about 95% effective. Nicole states that there will likely be a limited supply of coronavirus vaccines at first, so "determining who has already had COVID-19 is crucial.”

According to the recent studies, antibodies for people who have been exposed to the virus, like me, would likely be present for about four to five months, at least. And with limited vaccine supply, we want to make sure that we are vaccinating the vulnerable, those who have no level of immunity to this virus and who are most at risk for being hospitalized or dying, starting with caregivers, health care workers and other people deemed as "essential" employees.

Luckily, children are less vulnerable to coronavirus's effects, but they can still be infected. According to Nicole, kids can also transmit the virus, but children have not been included in the clinical trials that are being put forth right now. Therefore, Nicole recommends children not to take the vaccine now–but rather get the flu shot to help keep people and children out of hospital.

Older adults and patients with underlying health conditions should get first dibs on a new vaccine because, for them, getting sick is more likely to be serious or fatal. She also adds that frontline health care workers, nursing home residents and high contact essential workers will get the first doses, like Long Island Jewish Medical Center nurse Sandra Lindsay, who said “I feel hopeful today. Relieved,” after she was the first one to receive a shot in America.

"I would encourage as many people as possible to get the vaccine, especially if you are over the age of 55. If you are over 55 and have comorbidities and obesity, you should absolutely get the vaccine," says Nicole.

How The World’s Largest Company Can Be The Most Innovative

From its beginnings as a discount store with a simple way of helping people save money and live better lives, Walmart, with 2.2 million employees serving 265 million customers weekly and annual revenues over a half-trillion dollars, has become not only the world’s largest retailer, but the quintessential example of the traditional retail approach.

Now, they are looking to turn that approach on its ear and reboot the future.

Tom Ward, Walmart's very thoughtful Senior Vice President of Consumer Product, and a key figure behind Walmart’s “digital makeover,” joined me for a “look-under-the-hood” episode of The Reboot Chronicles. Tom took me through how Walmart today is running on all cylinders and how they are driving some serious growth initiatives and timely partnerships that are pivotal to their future.

Juggling a Bizarre Christmas Season

I think 2020 will be the strangest Christmas season we have ever seen, morphing Black Friday into hybrid events—which started in October with Prime Day and will last all season long! Before the pandemic, people would line up and crowd into stores, but now companies must make sure that the way customers engage and shop with them is smart and safe—but still easy.

With contactless delivery becoming a prerequisite across industries, people have become reliant on online grocery delivery and pickup options to safely obtain necessities. In light of this and in preparation for the holiday season, Walmart, for the first time, will be activating curbside pickup at a mass scale.

But Tom says the retailer knows the in-store experience is still a significantly important experience. Certainly, as the omnichannel approach has changed forever, retailers must bridge online and physical worlds to include hybrid touch-point solutions. Instead of one big Black Friday event, they have three so far and will be extending hours, which should help flow control for you late night shoppers like me.

Target ‘s CEO Brian Cornell has echoed this, following Walmart’s lead to close for Thanksgiving Day, stating that they are taking a “completely new approach to Black Friday, minimizing the event-day shopping behavior that is typical for this time of year.” You can now check wait times online,  make reservations  at Target.com/line, use  contactless checkout and make last minute pickup time changes.

Tom in our conversation frequently referred to the focus on solving customers' problems, regardless of the channel that they select. To that end, Walmart's app is going to play a leading role in the physical shopping experience—whether it's about navigation, scanning, drive by pickup or payment—helping to remove pieces of friction that traditionally slowed the retailer down.

There is much more going on here, with many co-created innovations coming to a store near you soon...one common denominator seems to be a need for speed! "I think it is going to a huge lift in speed and convenience as a focus. I'm always excited and keen to see what the next innovation is going to be around the corner, and whom we can partner with to accelerate that," says Tom.