Good morning. The Estée Lauder Firms (ELC), whose manufacturers embrace MAC, Clinique, Aveda, and Le Labo, is gaining momentum in its multi-year turnaround.
The corporate beat each income and earnings expectations in its newest quarter. “2025 was a year of stabilization, building credibility, and promises kept,” EVP and CFO Akhil Shrivastava advised me.
Courtesy of The Estée Lauder Firms
Shrivastava, who joined ELC 10 years in the past, was promoted to finance chief in November 2024, succeeding Tracey Travis who retired, and shortly earlier than President and CEO Stéphane de La Faverie assumed his function. Their first joint earnings name in February was vital, as they introduced the “Beauty Reimagined” technique, Shrivastava mentioned.
The plan was created to revive credibility, deal with declining gross sales, a softening of demand in Asia, enhance market agility, and reply to rising competitors. It contains restructuring, job cuts, and a higher emphasis on innovation and digital gross sales.
For the quarter ending Sept. 30, ELC (No. 279 on the Fortune 500) noticed early restoration in China and journey retail, posting 4% year-over-year gross sales progress in Q1 fiscal 2026. Persistently touchdown on the higher finish of steering has helped rebuild stakeholder confidence, Shrivastava mentioned.
Looking forward to the brand new fiscal yr, Shrivastava described it because the “year of returning to growth”—not simply in top-line income, but in addition profitability. For Q1, he famous margin enlargement, an nearly doubled EPS, and three% natural gross sales progress. This wasn’t only a matter of tighter value controls; it mirrored a strategic resolution to take a position long-term in shopper wants, bucking the pattern of short-term cost-cutting, Shrivastava defined.
For the quarter, working margin rose 300 foundation factors to 7.3%, pushed by a 3% discount in non-consumer-facing prices, regardless of normalized incentive bills. This enabled a 4% enhance in consumer-facing investments.
Maintaining the patron on the forefront
A sharper shopper focus is central to the technique. ELC is investing in media, product innovation, and launches comparable to La Mer evening merchandise and Clinique serums, Shrivastava defined. The corporate recognized new methods of working—empowering markets and regional groups to maneuver sooner and make choices nearer to customers.
“We changed our structure so leaders in New York focus on brand strategy, while affiliates execute locally with unconstrained authority,” he defined, which has unlocked each velocity and accountability. Drawing a sports activities analogy, Shrivastava famous: You lead the place wanted, but in addition assist the group collectively.
Shrivastava summarized ELC’s management philosophy in 4 pillars: behave like house owners, put the patron first, create worth, and uphold governance with braveness. Finance, he mentioned, should drive demand—not simply handle prices.
“Leadership is about attitude and broad perspective—feeling like your name is on the building,” he mentioned, encouraging group members to know the patron deeply, no matter their operate. “Value creation is long-term—growth, margin, and cash flow go hand-in-hand, and governance means doing the right thing, with support from the top,” he added.
Classes discovered
Earlier than becoming a member of ELC, Shrivastava spent 18 years at Procter & Gamble, biking by means of roles in auditing operations, provide chain, advertising and marketing, and factories throughout Asia and the U.S. He provided the instance of strategizing Tide’s sale to Indian customers as a formative expertise: “We had to reimagine the product and communications for one rupee per wash—requiring ruthless prioritization and start-up mentality.” He added, “That end-to-end understanding, from engineering to marketing, translated seamlessly to luxury beauty and problem-solving at Estée Lauder.”
When requested about his profession path at ELC, Shrivastava shared that curiosity and a willingness to strive new issues have outlined his journey. “I started with the Estée Lauder brand, worked on other brands, moved into treasury, tackled supply chain challenges, and took on operational excellence,” he mentioned.
These experiences offered “breadth but also depth”—important for main massive organizations in the present day. He encourages his groups to observe an analogous path, volunteering for brand spanking new assignments and frequently constructing new abilities.
Leaderboard
Fortune 500 Energy Strikes
Zac Coughlin was appointed CFO of Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (No. 448), efficient Jan. 1, 2026. Coughlin will succeed Tom Barry, who’s stepping down as CFO. Coughlin at the moment serves as CFO of PVH Corp. He joined the corporate from DFS Group Restricted, a subsidiary of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton Group, the place he served as group CFO and chief working officer. Earlier than becoming a member of DFS, Coughlin was CFO at Converse, Inc., a division of Nike, Inc. He began his profession with Ford Motor Firm, the place he held a number of international monetary management roles.
Each Friday morning, the weekly Fortune 500 Energy Strikes column tracks Fortune 500 firm C-suite shifts—see the newest version.
Extra notable strikes:
Nancy Erba was appointed CFO of Energy Integrations (Nasdaq: POWI), a semiconductor firm, efficient Jan. 5, 2026. Erba most just lately served as CFO at Infinera Company, a provider of optical networking options, from 2019 by means of the corporate’s acquisition by Nokia earlier this yr. Earlier than that, she was CFO at Immersion Company. Earlier, Erba held a succession of more and more senior management positions at Seagate Know-how.
Ravi Thanawala, CFO and EVP, Worldwide at Papa John’s Worldwide, Inc. (Nasdaq: PZZA), has been promoted to CFO and President, North America, efficient instantly. The corporate’s worldwide enterprise will now be led by Chris Lyn-Sue. Thanawala joined Papa John’s as CFO in 2023 and was promoted to CFO and EVP, Worldwide in 2024. He additionally served as the corporate’s interim CEO from March to August 2024.
Massive Deal
Broadridge has launched its seventh annual CX and Communications Client Insights research, which polled over 4,000 American and Canadian customers. It reveals a brand new, all-time-high for buyer dissatisfaction: 71% of customers, two occasions greater than these in 2019, agree that the majority firms want to enhance their buyer expertise.
Total, 59% of respondents have misplaced belief in an organization that delivers a poor expertise or unclear communication, in keeping with the report. Broadridge recommends that the features firms ought to prioritize to construct belief embrace: honoring their most popular communication channels; offering a easy means for them to interact throughout channels; and simplifying the way in which they do enterprise with firms.
Going deeper
“Nvidia’s earnings could answer the AI bubble question and upend global markets in moment of truth for Magnificent 7” is a brand new article by Fortune‘s Jim Edwards.
Edwards writes: “Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says he doesn’t believe we’re in an artificial intelligence bubble. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos says we probably are in one. OpenAI’s Sam Altman, the human face of the AI boom, has also invoked a bubble, adding, “I do think some investors are likely to lose a lot of money.” This, in a nutshell, is the narrative of the entire global stock market right now and the conundrum that no tech CEO or asset manager can avoid addressing: Is AI a bubble or not?” You possibly can learn the whole article right here.
Overheard
“As we enter the final stretch of the year, it’s the right time for a reset, the natural juncture to refocus on the business challenges ahead and how we intend to tackle them.”
—Jenny Johnson, CEO of Franklin Templeton, writes in a Fortune opinion piece titled, “Four guiding principles to navigate a new uncertain environment.”
