The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) is ramping up its emphasis on Transformation, in a move to accelerate high-growth regions and categories. To head this mission, the global beauty behemoth has announced that Daniel Mahler has been promoted to executive vice president, Global Transformation and Category Leadership. He will continue to report jointly to Fabrizio Freda, president and CEO, and Tracey T. Travis, executive vice president and chief financial officer.
 
“Our unique Transformation capability is an industry-first approach to enabling the continuous evolution of our business into the future,” said Fabrizio Freda. “Daniel is a dynamic leader with a unique ability to align stakeholders and translate ideas into action. Under Daniel’s leadership, Transformation is accelerating ELC’s business in priority high-growth areas and strengthening our ability to strategically pivot and win with consumers.”
 
According to ELC, to date, Mahler has led a broad spectrum of strategic enterprise-wide change priorities at the company. He co-designed and operationalized ELC’s integrated Transformation model to accelerate key pillars of change and embed those capabilities within the organization as new, permanent ways of doing business. His contributions include helping to orchestrate the following company initiatives: further establish the Asia-Pacific region as a second home market for the long-term; evolve ELC’s approach to brand innovation and category portfolio management; step-change brand creative capabilities; support digital transformation to deliver best-in-class, High-Touch digital experiences to consumers; and accelerate ELC’s corporate approach to Social Impact and Sustainability.
 
“Under the leadership of Daniel, Transformation has proven to be a key enabler to help effectively navigate the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Tracey T. Travis. “By tapping into our Transformation capabilities, the company has been able to pivot more quickly toward growth areas such as China, Online and serving the increasingly conscious consumer while also adapting our business for post-COVID realities.” 
 
Mahler will also continue to oversee ELC’s Category Leadership capability with the goal of maximizing ELC’s portfolio of brands to win in skin care, makeup, fragrance and hair care. Working closely with ELC’s group presidents to date, he has facilitated a new process, in support of ELC’s brand-led model, to provide an actionable lens on winning market share as an integrated team in the largest and fastest-growing categories and sub-categories of global prestige beauty. 
 
Mahler joined ELC as co-chair, Global Transformation Committee in 2020 from top global management consulting firm Kearney. His initial work for ELC included establishing the company’s Transformation model and building the Global Transformation Team.