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It’s been a quiet few months at the Estée Lauder Companies, where still-newish C.E.O. Stéphane de La Faverie is preparing for the first quarterly results under his watch. Wall Street is expecting that earnings could be down as much as 11 percent, although the stock has been up a bit the past week, perhaps in anticipation that ELC could surprise to the upside. We’ll see. Regardless, not much has changed for Lauder since January: Consumer sentiment in Asia remains somewhat negative, and seems destined to get worse as tariff pains take hold; sales of makeup are down; fragrance is up. Meanwhile, former C.E.O. Fabrizio Freda is continuing to hang around, apparently enjoying his two-year consulting gig—a sinecure, or perhaps a consolation prize, of sorts, after he was pushed aside last year.

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Indeed, Freda is still regularly attending management and strategy meetings at the GM Building, I’m told. He also recently joined de La Faverie’s first offsite in London, an event that the former C.E.O. was not originally scheduled to attend, and which quickly devolved into “a long-winded toast to Fabrizio’s retirement” where “not much got accomplished,” according to a person present. Much to the relief of the senior leadership team, I’m told Freda is finally moving back to Europe in the coming months. The rolling “Beauty Reimagined” layoffs that kicked off last year are still in full swing, while executive and senior leadership teams remain pretty stable. Brian Franz was just named chief technology, data, and analytics officer––de La Faverie’s first external hire on the executive leadership team––and Amber Garrison, a rising star and global brand president of Origins, recently quit. Earlier today, it was announced that Carl Haney, the E.V.P. of global innovation and research and development, is also departing. And I also heard that another executive has informed higher-ups of their plans to leave the company. Meanwhile, de La Faverie has yet to appoint anyone to lead the company’s all-important makeup “cluster.” (Estée Lauder declined to comment on any of this.) As you can imagine, who will or won’t get the makeup gig has been a hot topic both inside and outside of Lauder. De La Faverie has more or less grouped brands by clusters, or categories, as part of the restructuring—except for the brands that continue to operate independently under existing leadership: Tom Ford and Balmain are still under Guillaume Jesel; the Estée Lauder and Aerin brands are under Justin Boxford; and Deciem, parentco of The Ordinary, is under Jesper Rasmussen. Along with the creation of the makeup unit, another significant reorg was the formation of a skincare cluster—comprising La Mer, Clinique, Origins, Dr.Jart+, Darphin, and Lab Series—headed up by Sandra Main, a seasoned Lauder exec credited with turning La Mer into a multibillion-dollar business. As for the yet-to-be-determined makeup head, this person will oversee MAC Cosmetics, Bobbi Brown, Too Faced, Smashbox, and Glamglow. (But really, it’s only the first three that matter, given the persistent rumors that Lauder will divest Smashbox and Glamglow or shut them down altogether.) My understanding is that Jane Hudis, Lauder’s chief brand officer, will manage the unit until de La Faverie finds his person.

No one has officially gotten the job, at least not to my knowledge, but I’m told the ideal candidate will likely be an external hire who is ex-Lauder and who works really well with Hudis—prerequisites that narrow the hiring pool substantially. I’ve discussed potential candidates at length with many current and former Lauder executives, high-level industry types, etcetera, over the past few months, and have compiled some of the top contenders—including people who are actually being considered, some who were rumored candidates (including former L’Oréal executive Nathalie Gerschtein), and one person who just should get the job. Let’s start with C.E.O. of Supergoop Lisa Sequino, whose name has come up several times over the past few months. Despite being less experienced than others, I’m told she’s very well liked by Hudis, is gifted at performance marketing, and has strong retail relationships. Two people close to Lauder said Sequino might also be considered for a revived C.M.O. position, a role the beauty giant hasn’t had in years that probably would be a better fit for her.

Either way, Sequino is fluent in Lauder. Before joining Supergoop, she spent nearly a decade in various roles at Tom Ford Beauty, Estée Lauder, Aerin, and Becca (R.I.P.) before decamping to the ill-fated JLo Beauty. A high-level source said Sequino “seems to be very much committed to her current role,” but it’s no secret that things have been bumpy at Supergoop, largely due to factors out of Sequino’s control (increased competition, hard shoes to fill, the P.E. deal with Blackstone that many say overvalued the company, etcetera). Then there’s Raffaella Cornaggia, the C.E.O. of Kering Beauté, who spent 14 years at Lauder. When Cornaggia joined Kering two years ago, the luxury conglomerate had ambitions of building a beauty division from the ground up, with a goal of developing beauty lines for Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, and eventually Gucci, once its longtime licensing deal with Coty expires. That may not happen, but not because of Cornaggia. “Raffaella came to Kering for a big job, and the job isn’t there. They don’t have the means, and there’s no way––with the sales of their top brand going down the drain–­–that they’re going to do more in beauty,” said a person with close ties to Lauder’s executive leadership team. “The reality is that Kering Beauté is going nowhere. It would be a smart move for her to go to Lauder.” I’m told Cornaggia has the right experience: She’s a talented, no B.S. marketer who spent time at Estée Lauder, the brand, and has worked closely with de La Faverie in the past, both as his head of international and travel retail. (I’m not sure whether her relationship with Hudis is as strong.) I assume that Cornaggia has been given a decent amount of freedom at Kering, since she knows far more about beauty than any of her superiors, but the conglomerate’s issues are so acute now that beauty surely isn’t a focus. “Kering’s not in expansion mode about anything. They’re in stability mode,” an insider said. “Raffaella probably has a limited mandate and limited capital to do her job.” What Lauder really should do, however, is bring back Philippe Pinatel, a former Lauder executive (despite being very un-Lauderlike) who spent the majority of his six years at MAC Cosmetics as the brand’s global president. Pinatel and Drew Elliott, MAC’s former global creative director and one of the most celebrated creatives at ELC, joined MAC around the same time, marking the first significant change in leadership since Lauder acquired the makeup brand in the late ’90s. Early last year, Pinatel resigned to go be the C.E.O. of Katherine Power’s makeup line, Merit, which in just four years has become about a $130 million business. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely Pinatel would ever return to the GM Building––that is, unless Lauder were to buy Merit, which they should do, but probably won’t. “They don’t have the money to buy Merit,” a person with intimate knowledge of Lauder’s business told me. Plus, even though I’m told Merit is not officially in a sales process yet, I have a suspicion that some liquidity event is going to happen very soon. So, alas, ELC will probably have to go with one of the other two.

Last week, Ulta Beauty held its first “consumer-focused convention,” which was basically the opposite of the secretive Sephora Summit, where there were about 200 brand booths, 1,500 attendees, and a mega-influencer host. [BoF] It was only a matter of time before Alix Earle partnered with Pantene. [WWD] Experts say hyperbaric therapy could treat… just about anything. [The Cut]

Until tomorrow, Lauren P.S.: We are using affiliate links because we are a business. We may make a couple bucks off them.

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