The CEO Forum Group Magazine Business 2023 (1) - Flipbook - Page 17
CEO, L’Oréal Groupe
Describe a key initiative that drives this
philosophy.
The CEO Forum Group
has selected Nicolas
Hieronimus, CEO,
L’Oréal Groupe, for the
Transformative CEO Award as The Top 10
Businesses in America, 2023 in the category
of Gender Equity. This has been bestowed for
L’Oréal Groupe’s consistent and universal
leadership in creating a culture, supported by
policy and process and commitment, to set the top
standard as a true gender equity enterprise.
Robert Reiss: Talk about your leadership
philosophy of gender equity.
Nicolas Hieronimus: L’Oréal is deeply committed
with women empowerment, and this is reflected at
all levels of the company. Today, women represent
68% of our total workforce and 57% of our leadership
positions. 50% of our board members, 32% of our
Executive Committee, and 64% of scientists working
in our research centers around the world are women.
Diversity is a philosophy of leadership that extends
beyond gender. From a leadership perspective, I
believe that just like any team sport, business is first
and foremost a collective endeavour. During the
course of my career, I’ve seen at first-hand the power
of diverse teams, leveraging people from different
backgrounds, and having different viewpoints and
skills. This sense of the collective is crucial to my own
approach to leadership.
For me, as a CEO, it’s important to listen to a broad
variety of viewpoints before making a final decision.
Indeed, one of my first acts as CEO was to diversify
my Executive Committee, bringing in people with a
broader range of nationalities and backgrounds. That
way everyone can play to their strengths, and we can
overcome any problem by leveraging our collective
intelligence.
We have been working hard for many years to create
the right conditions to ensure that women can be
successful in their careers.
Historically, we haven’t had an issue with attracting
or recruiting female talent. So, for us the challenge
was how to ensure that women were able to make the
right choices and seize opportunities to advance their
career.
There are some very simple things that seem obvious
but that can make a huge difference—for example,
putting in place a robust maternity and adoption
leave policy. This guarantees that parents receive
their full remuneration during maternity or adoption
leave, and a guarantee to return to their previous
position (or have the right opportunities if they want
to move to a new role).
“From a leadership perspective,
I believe that just like any team sport,
business is first and foremost a
collective endeavour.”
In 2019, a policy for co-parents was implemented
in France and the United States, with a minimum
of six weeks paid leave. Other countries followed,
and this policy is integrated into the 2021 edition
of the L’Oréal Share & Care program to provide a
minimum of six weeks parental leave for fathers and
co-parents worldwide.
I’m also extremely proud to share that L’Oréal was
recently recognized among the Top 100 companies
of Refinitiv’s Diversity & Inclusion Index 2023
(formerly Thomson Reuters), for the eighth
consecutive year. In addition, we have also been
recognized in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index
for the sixth consecutive year. L’Oréal is also among
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