Donald R. Droppo Jr.
Vice President/Owner, Sales & Marketing
Curtis Packaging
www.curtispackaging.com
With responsibility for the management and development of Curtis Packaging’s marketing strategy, Droppo has focused on environmental sustainability and “greening” Curtis Packaging. Through his leadership and commitment, Curtis became one of the first printing and packaging companies in North America to be 100% carbon neutral, to power its entire operation using 100% renewable energy and to be Forest Stewardship Council certified. The majority of the clean, renewable energy mix is sourced from Green-e certified wind power. Conversion efforts offset approximately 7.1 million pounds of carbon dioxide annually. To reach this level, the company first recognized a significant industry change and then determined how it would adapt to achieve its complementary goals. Curtis Packaging believed that going beyond basic compliance with sustainable practices was in the best interest of both the environment and its business. Sustainability goals were not merely incorporated into its business model; sustainability became the business model.
Under a pledge to produce its luxury packaging in the most eco-conscious manner, Curtis Packaging has more than doubled its annual sales over the last four years to more than $40 million. “Every day at Curtis, we raise the bar to explore ways of performing a task in the most eco-friendly manner,” Droppo told GCI magazine in a 2007 interview.
Danielle Kelli Fleming
Founder
Danielle and Company
www.danielleandcompany.com
The well-noted impact of fragrance on moods and memories is intriguing to certified behavior therapist Danielle Kelli Fleming. The intrigue took Fleming down a path beyond “what if” to a big conclusion and, ultimately, to a destination of creation. “Scent is very individualized, but my studies have shown that most people agree on the particular scent having the specified reaction,” she told GCI magazine.
The Essential Experiences line of soaps and shower gels is grouped into five mood categories, and distribution grew from a local farmer’s market to more than 65 boutiques and spas across the U.S. and Canada. “You will hear me saying in the office all the time, ‘We are not selling soap, we are selling a concept.’ The concept is that our products will help you get into a specific mood by simply bathing. This is not aromatherapy. It delves deeper into the science of scent stimulus and how it results in a behavioral change.”
Tom Raffy
President/Technical Sales
GAR Labs Inc.
www.garlabs.com
Tom Raffy is an adventurer, a man who has piloted his small aircraft through storms over the Pacific, and he brings the enthusiasm required in this sense of adventure to his business. His enthusiasm for and ability to engage others about GAR Labs has led to a successful 25 years of business—measured by both a proliferation of successfully designed product lines and through its employees.
“We are proud to say that our average employee has worked here for more than 15 years, which shows up in our finished product quality and consistency,” says Raffy. “We have three tenured formulating chemists. Our primary research chemist, who has been at GAR Labs for more than 20 years, is very innovative and has the knack of being able to identify market trends and to associate new product technology with those trends.”
With a primary strength in new product and new market technology, GAR Labs focuses on continual development of a series of new hair and skin care products. And the drive for the new and innovative in product offerings has also translated to how the company conducts its business, investing heavily in business technologies.
“This technological edge gives us the ability to quickly give same-day pricing as well as INCI compliant ingredient statements within minutes. This major advantage helps speed communication as well as new product development from months to days,” Raffy says.
Raffy’s latest adventure is converting GAR Labs to solar power. The parabolic dishes and 400–500 solar electric panels required for the 86,000-square-foot facility will make the company reasonably energy independent.
Scott-Vincent Borba
Creator and Founder
BORBA
www.borba.net
Finding success in a new segment of an ever-expanding market is not an easy undertaking. Scott-Vincent Borba, called “an entrepreneur with evolutionary merit,” not only sought to carve out a place in the emerging nutraceuticals segment, he aims to change the way people think about skin care. In creating Skin Balance Water, Aqua-less Crystalline and Skin Balance Confections skin care waters, Borba melds science, beauty, fashion and lifestyle into one organic, synergistic approach. Armed with experience in developing and branding products for a number of well-known personal care companies, Borba launched his brand on QVC in May 2006, and posted approximately $5 million in sales little more than a year later through that channel alone. That success led to an investment collaboration and to a unique agreement with Anheuser-Busch in which the beverage giant gained U.S. distribution and marketing rights, which also included BORBA’s Aqua-Less Crystallines, a powder form of the drinkable skin care line. The brand continues to build partnerships within the cosmetics industry, providing, for example, nutraceutical cores for lipsticks.
Michael Indursky
Chief Marketing and Strategic Officer
Burt’s Bees
www.burtsbees.com
With more than 20 years as a strategic marketer with a strong consumer orientation, Mike Indursky began his current role leading all marketing activities at Burt’s Bees in July 2005. In designing and directing the strategic development of the brand, Indursky has championed a commitment to educate consumers as the words “natural” and “organic” appear on evermore labels, while driving the expansion of Burt’s Bees’ natural products portfolio to maximize the company’s growth.
The Greater Good is the company’s response to consumer and competitive dynamics in its category, and under this business model, with strong leadership from Indursky, Burt’s Bees has undertaken the responsibility toward helping consumers understand what natural is and isn’t in order for them to maximize their well-being. Furthermore, the model dictates that Burt’s discloses ingredients and associated risks.
Indursky’s commitment to these endeavors has not been limited to within the walls of Burt’s Bees. There are efforts to reach out directly to competition, to achieve a standard in defining naturals, and remain active in organizations such as the Natural Products Association, for which he chairs the personal care division.
Neil Morris
Perfumer and Founder
Neil Morris Fragrances
www.neilmorrisfragrances.com
Enthusiasm is engaging, and Neil Morris’ enthusiasm for fragrance and what inspires him to create fragrances allows him to engage potential buyers and consumers before the scent even wafts from the bottle. His is a powerful and innate style for success, and he has combined it with a fearless approach to creation. “I kept hearing that people were yearning for different fragrances, to stand out from the crowd, something different than what was offered by mass merchandised fragrances,” Morris told GCI magazine. “With decades of exploration, refinement and inspiration from top perfumers, I’ve developed a process and approach to fragrance design that allows me to create fragrances that truly express the individuality of my clients. I love when
a perfume pushes the envelope.”
Douglas Canfield
President and CEO
Canfield Scientific, Inc./Canfield Imaging Systems
www.canfieldsci.com
Under a corporate mission to provide advanced imaging capabilities to the medical and skin care industries, Douglas Canfield has built a company that specializes in photographic documentation to demonstrate the efficacy of various skin care efforts. Canfield has leveraged the company’s 20 years of expertise in medical photographic equipment, software and computer systems for patient imaging to create both new technologies—such as its RBX Technology to detect, visualize and analysis subsurface melanin and vascular conditions—and a skin analysis database of 1,000,000 images (to launch in February) that will allow the comparison of skin conditions of individuals to the general populace to form the basis of a statistical model that provides skin care professionals the expected range for important complexion features for skin type and age.
“Years of work have gone into the database’s creation. The sheer scale of the database will have a dramatic impact on the understanding of skin aging across all skin types,” said Canfield, who is also an adjunct clinical professor in the Department of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center and director of the World Cranialfacial Foundation in Dallas, Texas.
Pamela Bailey
President and CEO
Personal Care Products Council
www.personalcarecouncil.org
Pam Bailey’s career includes stints with three different presidential administrations, culminating as deputy director of the White House Office of Public Affairs, where she initiated the Office of Communications Planning.
During that phase of her career, Bailey developed what she called an appreciation for the governmental process and the importance of a strong FDA. She also gained an appreciation for the importance of advocacy and communication in building support for policy initiatives.
Since moving to the private sector, Bailey has undertaken the challenges of understanding consumers and seeking the appropriate balance of regulation so that innovation can continue, and she has brought the lessons of all this experience to the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association (CTFA) which she joined as president and CEO in 2005.
Since then, she has worked to build a communications infrastructure that allows the organization to work with company counterparts outside the U.S. and with association counterparts in every key market.
“You combine that global impact with our innovation on product and packaging, on understanding the consumer, and I don’t think there is an industry that is more focused on consumer marketing or one that I can imagine feeling better about,” said Bailey.
Bailey has led the association through a process of evaluating how it can continue to best serve as a resource to consumers and a forthright champion of the industry. That process culminated with the CTFA’s November 2007 name change to the Personal Care Products Council and launch of an a new, in-depth consumer information Web site (www.cosmeticsinfo.org) pertaining to cosmetic safety.
“Our new name, motto and consumer Web site are the latest expression of our shared core values of safety, quality, and innovation,” said Bailey.
Robert Lee Morris
Designer
Robert Lee Morris, Inc.
www.robertleemorris.com
Synergies are powerful in both business and in beauty. When the synergy is a well-executed design collaboration, the results are both stunning and effective.
As “artistic companions,” Robert Lee Morris and Donna Karan have collaborated since her first fashion show in 1985, and Morris’ jewelry has been included in many Donna Karan collections. Morris sculptures have also been featured in Donna Karan retail stores.
After 20 years of collaboration, it’s not surprising that their work together continues to expand and find new avenues. It is striking, however, that the collaboration on the Donna Karan Gold fragrance, launched in late 2006, melded Karan’s concept and Morris’ style so completely to garner kudos from fragrance insiders and the industry in general, while also affecting consumers.
The scent is designed to capture the warmth of gold through Casablanca lily, amber, golden balsam, gold pollen, East Indian patchouli and other notes.
Morris—whose jewelry is designed to illuminate the body and takes its inspiration from nature, myth and fantasy—applied his signature technique in the hammered gold metal sleeve to represent the spirit of the scent and reflect both inner softness and outer strength.
Working to fuse the spiritual and the sensual, Morris’ designs have been described as both “cerebral” and “intuitive,” and his signature shapes “capture the strength and grace of liquid geometry,” and this facet of the design for Gold aptly reflects the liquid within.
Furthermore, in conversations with fragrance insiders and designers, a texture motif sounds repeatedly as an effective element in both expressing a product ideal and connecting with consumers—a consumer must first be enticed to pick up a product to make a purchase and that texture is key to such enticement. The intention with Gold was that the bottle simply begged to be touched.
John P. Sottery
Enginuity PLM
Founder and CEO
www.enginuityplm.com
Armed with a BS in chemistry from Bates College and a doctorate in analytical chemistry from Duke University, John Sottery joined P&G in 1985, where he rose to head the Skin Care Exploratory Formulation group. Sottery led the development of new sunscreen technology and played a key role in developing breakthrough formula-based consumer products. In 1992, Sottery founded Enginuity PLM, formerly IMS Inc., a software company that empowers global product development organizations to bring superior formulations to market more rapidly and at lower cost.
“Twenty years ago, you had more time to innovate. There is more and more ‘busy work,’ and people don’t have as much time to innovate,” Sottery told GCI magazine when Enginuity PLM was launched in 2006. “The demand for innovation is much higher, and in today’s market, if you’re the third person in the market, your chance to take a share is much lower. You’re looked at a
‘me too’ product.”
Enginuity is a formula-centric, R&D data management platform with a search engine, combined with a collaborative formulation, packaging and product launch system. The system is designed to streamline R&D work processes and accelerate product innovation by aggregating all corporate product development information in one place and providing R&D staff access to current and historical formulation and packaging work. Created to be intuitive, Enginuity captures product development information as formulators work to eliminate the need to document data in a separate system and allow the leveraging of intellectual property to avoid past mistakes and take advantage of past successes.
Cristina Samuels
Jennifer Isaac
Co-founders
MODE Cosmetics
www.modecosmetics.com
Daughters of a 40-year industry veteran, Cristina Samuels and Jennifer Isaac epitomize the strengths of the beauty industry—continuity and tradition propelled by innovation and evolution.
With a drive toward entrepreneurship fueled by experience in the family business, MODE was born as the two experimented with a line of cosmetics that incorporated health, fashion and nature. “Natural products give the impression of all or nothing—all crunch and no glamour, or all glamour and no benefits,” said Samuels. “I knew that there was this void in the market, and if I was interested in this idea, other women would be also.”
Samuels worked in sales and marketing and Isaac focused on product development at Zela International, and through their combination of skills, a 250 SKU line influenced by ingredients and new formulations was born. The duo aimed for quality products delivered at great price points. With fashion playing heavily into the design of the line itself, color plays an important part in the overall line production.
Fundamentally, the line is built around natural ingredients to promote a healthy lifestyle, but Isaac and Samuels also recognized the limits in using all natural ingredients. “When we first began research and development, we wanted to create a color cosmetics line that was all natural, but we learned very quickly that the performance of the products were subpar—the product variety, selection and color palette would be greatly limited and the efficacy and quality of the products would be greatly compromised,” said Samuels. “We knew that we could not stand behind substandard products just to claim all natural.”
Bryan Durocher
President
Durocher Enterprises Inc.
www.durocherenterprises.com
Bryan Durocher believes that health, wellness and beauty are an organic process, and has applied this insight and his industry expertise to coach, consult and educate global audiences. Durocher specializes in working with manufacturers, professionals and consumers to develop an in-depth understanding of individual communication styles.
“The relationship between a client and a beauty wellness professional is one of the most personal and intimate relationships on the planet,” said Durocher. “I started my career as an image consultant, and time after time, I witnessed the magic of physical transformation. When a person gets expert advice on their appearance, puts together a life game plan, and looks in the mirror and feels confident and attractive for the first time in their life, it becomes a catalyst for enormous change.”
As an author, Durocher has also looked at global trends (from spa trends to consumer/marketer-coined product buzz words and their impact on raw materials), the synergies created and how to apply both in business. He expresses this understanding to manufacturers and beauty professionals in order for them to create tangible results.An international spa and beauty expert, Durocher serves as an expert for Health Journal TV and Life and Leisure TV, and has been featured on NBC.
Hojung Lee
Katalin Berenyi
Co-founders
Erborian
www.erborian.com
Erborian is a skin care brand that demonstrates the unique possibilities when complementary skill sets and a global outlook merge. Hojung Lee and Katalin Berenyi are L’Oréal veterans—Lee emerged from the labs, while Berenyi worked as international marketing director for several brands. Together, they have combined Korean medicinal herbal science and modern cosmetic science to create formulas they call “adaptogenes,” designed to balance the biological processes of the skin’s aging and increase in efficiency and action with continued use. In addition to this blend of the ancient and modern, the validity of the Korean phytotherapy-based ingredients are put through current test methods all along the research and the manufacturing process.
Anne Sempowski Ward
President and COO
Fashion Fair Cosmetics
www.fashionfair.com
Not only did Anne Sempowski Ward’s ascension through the marketing ranks at high-powered global corporations to a top level management position at Fashion Fair Cosmetics not follow the beaten path, it was marked by a number of firsts that illustrate that the road less traveled often makes all the difference.
Ward joined P&G in 1996 as a process engineer, and in 1998 made what the company called an unprecedented move to the marketing department. She spent more than a decade at the company, where she led several brands and categories, created the “Total You” beauty platform across P&G’s largest beauty brands, and launched significant African-American marketing programs—a role she continued in as assistant vice president of African-American marketing for the Coca-Cola Company. She was also the youngest and first African-American trustee on the P&G Fund, the entity responsible for all of P&G’s philanthropic giving.
“With her zealous understanding of the ever-changing marketplace, she is well-positioned to meet the challenge to help revolutionize Fashion Fair Cosmetics,” said Linda Johnson Rice, president and CEO, Johnson Publishing Company, of which Fashion Fair Cosmetics is a wholly-owned subsidiary.
Lisa Hoffman
Founder
LH Skincare LLC
www.lisahoffmanskincare.com
Simplicity in beauty and in products does not have to forsake quality, luxury or appeal. Lisa Hoffman created a brand under the notion that consumers are looking for the “simplest means to create and express beauty.” Hoffman’s lines of bath/shower products, fragrances and skin care have been designed to yield exceptional results while making the beauty process as simple as possible.
Lifestyles, consumers’ daily habits/preferences and personal experience were also leveraged in the brand creation—as evidences in the “portable apothecary” concept of the packaging, allowing for products that render various regimens to be simple and convenient on the road. “It came to me in a dream,” Hoffman told the New York Times in 2007 of the packaging concept for one product line. “How neurotic is that?
I dream about packing and packaging.”
Emrah Kovacoglu
President, CEO and Founder
TotalBeauty.com
www.totalbeauty.com
Emrah Kovacoglu called the work during his 10 years at P&G “groundbreaking,” but he noticed a downside to the company’s streak of innovation after innovation—consumers were overwhelmed and frustrated. “I remember one consumer saying, ‘It’s too much—it’s just too much. I just bought this thing and now you’re telling me to buy something else instead,’” said Kovacoglu. With so many beauty products launched each year, Kovacoglu reasoned that consumers needed a comprehensive and objective beauty resource.
“This category is so emotional to consumers, I had to help them find answers even if it meant doing some pretty unorthodox things in the beauty industry.”
The site is designed to be easily accessible, offering personalized beauty solutions to meet consumers’ individual needs and aspirations—featuring a product library, how-to videos, detailed user ratings and reviews, and an extensive community element.
Carlos Benaim
Perfumer
International Flavors & Fragrances
www.iff.com
A classic is built on an underlying frame of artistry that stands the tests of each generation. Carlos Benaim has aced those tests. An engineering student who “accidentally discovered” a fascination with fragrance and perfumery, Benaim celebrates his 40th year as an IFF perfumer in 2008.
Benaim’s chemistry internship began with a three-week detour in the company’s perfumers training lab, sparking an instintaneous interest in scent. He began his career at IFF upon graduation. His first “big” success was Ralph Lauren’s Polo. Calvin Klein Euphoria and other classics have since been added to his resume, and he has been witness to changing fragrance trend landscapes and adapted to each. For Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds, he left the lab and spent time with Taylor at her home, talking about her favorite flowers and conducting blind smell sessions.
His work earned an American Society of Perfumers’ Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004, and his creations have won a number of FiFi awards. Persistence, he says, is the most important quality in the industry. “You have to have a strong ego to absorb all the rejections on a daily basis,” he told Perfumer & Flavorist magazine in a 2004 interview. “Many times we are pushed into meeting a brief deadline, and that is definitely not a source of creativity for a perfumer. So, the important thing is not to get caught up in the briefs and the test, but to really explore your own creativity, your own artistic side and to come up with interesting ideas and pursue them with diligence.”
Hana Zalzal
President and Founder
CARGO Cosmetics Corp.
www.cargocosmetics.com
The ecological impact of cosmetic packaging inspired seasoned entrepreneur Hana Zalzal to integrate renewable resources into every aspect of CARGO Cosmetics’ PlantLove lipsticks. Zalzal, a former civil engineer who forwent careers in marketing and finance to start her own multimillion dollar business, has achieved success through word-of-mouth celebrity endorsements (rather than advertising) and pushing the green product trend to its next logical step—a completely new and encompassing application of green packaging in a previously underserved segment. The biodegradable outer cartons were created from flower paper and infused flower seeds, allowing the packaging to be moistened, planted and grown. The lipstick tube itself—housing the botanical-based product—is made from PLA.
