Company: Cohere Beauty
Company Description: Cohere Beauty is a full-service partner that brings prestige beauty, personal care, and specialty brands to life through formula incubation and modern manufacturing processes. With over 150 years of combined experience across the haircare, skincare, and fragrance categories, Cohere Beauty is dedicated to helping turn our customers’ brand visions into reality.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Female Executive of the Year – Consumer Services –11 to 2,500 Employees
 Nomination Title: Christine Staples - CEO
- Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 20 words used.
- EcoLab/BP Innovation Example (Video)
- Cohere Transformation Playbook Slide
- Cohere Safety Improvements 2022 to 24 8-24
- Cohere Net Promoter Score 6-24
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the achievements since July 1, 2022 of the nominated woman, OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions for this category, provide them in the spaces below:
- Briefly describe the nominated individual: history and past performance (up to 200 words):
Total 200 words used.
Christine Staples is not your average CEO. Drawing on her cross-functional background in engineering, sales/marketing, across publicly traded, family-owned and private equity companies, Christine’s comprehensive understanding and empathic leadership style drives collaboration, empowers innovation, and consistently builds talent and businesses for long-term growth.
Christine began her career with Ecolab, a Fortune 500 global company, moving cross-functionally and across divisions to hone her leadership credo, ultimately becoming Global General Manager, Nalco Champion, leading collaboration with British Petroleum (BP) on their Quad 204 redevelopment project, with additional responsibility for four independent profit centers. BP’s need for a sustainable solution inspired Christine and team of 100+ scientists and engineers to develop, patent and test an innovative chemistry, landing a prestigious Innovation Award at BP. Christine’s ability to identify customers’ unmet needs, assemble teams with the right expertise, and solve problems is a hallmark of and testament to her leadership.
Also, during her tenure at Nalco Champion, Christine developed an innovative business model for the second largest acquisition: bundling equipment and chemicals under a lease versus sale model. This unique model better met customers’ needs to effectively use operating capital and increased EBITDA 2X, the highest in Nalco Champion, creating a sustained revenue stream.
- Outline the nominee's achievements since July 1 2022 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):
Total 249 words used.
Cohere Beauty, a beauty care custom formula development and manufacturer led by CEO Christine Staples, was born from the strategic merger of four businesses. Christine’s unique capabilities and leadership have successfully unified these disparate entities into one cohesive organization, building infrastructure, processes, and culture to enable long-term, sustainable growth.
In June 2022, Christine Staples was brought on and challenged to create one company providing a full array of formula development and manufacturing services to beauty care brands. The previously family-owned companies had distinct teams, processes, and systems, and lacked a unified culture and critical business controls, including operational safety, cybersecurity, management systems, and effective functional leadership. Additionally, Christine learned the company was struggling financially.
Christine immediately established a code of conduct, ethics hotline, and operational safety improvements without sacrificing efficiency. She onboarded a new leadership team, built management processes, crafted a vision, core values, and rebranded the four companies, creating one unified brand. Christine’s foundational infrastructure for growth included establishing SMART goals, KPIs, management incentive program clarifying roles and empowering the team, increasing Net Promoter Score nearly 2X and decreasing Safety incidents by 76%.
Christine also developed the company’s first corporate strategic plan in collaboration with her executive leadership team, ultimately rolling out enterprise-wide to engage the full Cohere Beauty team. The strategic plan, currently in execution, clarified Cohere Beauty’s path to grow top and bottom line, simultaneously prioritizing a unified "ONE Cohere" culture.
With this solid foundation, Cohere Beauty anticipates +13% topline growth, +27% profit growth in 2024.
- Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the nominee's past performance (up to 250 words):
Total 246 words used.
Christine’s extensive global operating experience and ability to enter new categories enables her successful application of learnings, principles and values, setting her apart and delivering repeated success. Christine’s “secret sauce” includes assembling high-performing teams, identifying unmet customer needs, solving complex problems while empowering trust, and growing stakeholder value.
Christine’s unique leadership style prioritizes people and teams above all else and her commitment to building strong teams has been foundational to her success. Authenticity defines her, fostering deep-seated trust and respect within her team. Known for direct communication, Christine balances a straightforward style with genuine care for each team member, enabling strong relationships built on trust. Deeply invested in the well-being of her people, sometimes to a fault, Christine is passionate about developing leaders who, in turn, nurture others. Witnessing the growth of new leaders on their journey brings her joy and fulfillment. Her goal of zero safety incidents, replicating her record at Ecolab, reflects this critical priority, stating, “Every single person deserves to go home in the same condition they came to work.”
Under Christine’s leadership, Cohere Beauty identified its unique competitive point of difference defined as “The Cohere Formula,” including establishing enterprise-wide systems and processes, enabling optimal customer experience. Cohere Beauty’s significant strides in service, speed, and safety, have enabled the company to outperform competitors, providing the concierge-level service of a family-owned company with broad capabilities and scale of larger companies. With Christine at the helm, Cohere Beauty is well-positioned for sustainable growth.
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