L’Oreal USA Women in Digital recently honored five women leading groundbreaking digital companies that focus on how technology is revolutionizing the beauty industry during the NEXT Generation awards ceremony in New York City. The L’Oreal USA Next Generation winners were selected by a panel of L’Oreal USA executives, Venture Capital Partners and the L’Oreal USA Women in Digital Board of Advisors.

“At L’Oreal, women are at the heart of our business and play a fundamental role in the company’s success in the US and worldwide,” commented Frederic Roze, President & CEO, L’Oreal USA. “The Women in Digital program is a natural extension for L’Oreal USA, as we want to continue our lineage of celebrating and empowering women who will be essential to the growth of our company.”

Following are the winners of the 2012 L’Oreal USA Women in Digital “NEXT Generation Awards” are:
• Doreen Bloch, Founder CEO, Poshly.com – Poshly is a beauty-meets-digital company that provides customized samples based on an algorithm that will help the beauty industry market to consumers with targeted samples and giveaways.

• Bettina Hein, Founder and CEO, Pixibility – Pixability is a video marketing company that helps organizations get the right video in front of the right audience, by driving more business and increasing awareness with online video, whether on YouTube, Facebook, or any other hosting platform with its cloud-based online video marketing software.

• Sarah McIlroy, Founder and CEO, FashionPlaytes.com – At the forefront of commerce innovation, the FashionPlaytes’ website, FPgirl.com, lets tween girls create, share and wear original looks, transforming creative ideas into wearable fashions. With millions of possible design combinations, designers on FPgirl.com can create their own brand and showcase their designs through the development of an online collection, studio, look-book, models and participation in social games.

• Kathryn Minshew, Founder, The Daily Muse – is a leading online community for professional women. With the recent launch of their career and job discovery tool at CompanyMuse.com, the site also helps connect hundreds of thousands of aspiring professionals with companies.

• Vivian Rosenthal, Founder and CEO, GoldRun – GoldRun is an augmented reality mobile platform that transforms traditional digital media placements into immersive and immediately shareable brand-consumer engagements: GPS-defined Virtual Photobooths. Users share their branded AR photos and accompanying messages on various social networks to earn rewards including discounts and coupons, instant win prizes, access to exclusive media and the ability to order products. The free GoldRun virtual camera app is available on iOS and Android.

Five finalists also were named L’Oreal Women in Digital Honorees including: Sophia Kim, Founder & CEO, Tellagami, Melody McCloskey, CEO, StyleSeat, Sarah Paiji, Co-Founder & CEO, Snappette, Janelle Shaffer, Founder, My Best Friend’s Hair, and Cheryl Yeo, Co-Founder, City Pockets.