Growing up in Europe as the eldest of three children, Dyson executive Jessica Schinazi got her first taste of leadership at a young age. “I was the Negotiator-in-Chief in my family,” she says with a mischievous laugh. “When it came to things like curfews and other rules, my two siblings definitely benefited from the groundwork I laid before they came along.”
In addition to serving as the ring leader of her siblings, Jessica found herself unwittingly cast in another character-building role when she was a young child: the perpetual new kid. “I grew up in Paris and as a kid, we moved to London and after that, New York when I was a teenager,” says the native Parisian. “When you are moving around like that, you need to know what you want and to go for it.”
This fearless attitude has served Jessica well throughout her impressive career, which has included stints at LVMH, Amazon, Richemont, and now Dyson where she oversees all of Dyson’s work in North and South America as the brand’s President, Americas.
After graduating from Columbia University with a degree in Economics in 2011, Jessica didn’t waste any time before jumping into the high-stakes world of luxury fashion and beauty. After six years at the Swiss-based luxury goods company Richemont, helping the luxury French juggernaut develop its first websites and social media platforms, Jessica moved to Amazon. “I wanted to learn the Amazon playbook, observe how its key leadership principles worked from the inside,” she says of the decision to join the e-commerce behemoth. Tasked with convincing luxury beauty brands to sell on Amazon, Jessica immediately set to work courting brands who had previously shown little to no interest in joining the platform.
“Ultimately, we were one of the fastest growing, most profitable teams at Amazon,” says Jessica, who unlocked dozens of ‘go-get’ brands including brands at Coty, Shiseido, L’Oréal, and Clarins.
Jessica moved to Dyson in 2021. “When I joined the company, the Americas region had a female president,” says Jessica, who was drawn to the company’s strong culture and great work life benefits. In addition to being named one of the World’s Best Employers by Forbes in 2022, the brand was also named one of the World’s Top Female Friendly Companies. “I stepped into a new role at 7 months pregnant,” says Jessica. “Having great parental leave benefits and other supports really made me feel like the company had my back.”
In addition to Dyson’s award-winning corporate culture, the brand has long had a reputation for technological excellence. Most people are familiar Dyson’s category-disrupting innovations, which include a reinvention of the hairdryer — using intelligent heat control and a high-velocity 13-blade motor to dry hair faster (and more quietly) than traditional blow-dryers while improving hair health and increasing shine. And then there’s the viral sensation known as the Airwrap (interest in this phenomenally successful 2018 product is still strong, with knockoffs vying aggressively to steal some of its aerodynamic thunder).
When Jessica arrived at Dyson, more than three years after the Airwrap’s debut, the device had a waiting list with more than 100,000 consumers. “Dyson’s core mission has always been to solve problems others ignore,” says Jessica. “So, we asked, ‘How do we continue to serve a more diverse America?’ There are a lot of Type 3 (curly) and Type 4 (coily) hair types in the U.S., and so, with the support of our researchers and engineers, we launched attachments that make the Airwrap better meet the needs of all hair types.”
The versatility of Dyson’s offerings helped Jessica successfully expand the brand’s presence across the Americas. “Dyson entered Latin America in 2018 with our launch in Mexico which has since grown to become a pivotal market in our Americas region,” Jessica explains. Earlier this spring, they launched in Colombia, forming a strategic partnership with Mercado Libre, the #1 marketplace in South America.
Both at home and abroad, Jessica and her team invest a lot of energy defending Dyson’s market share from copycats — many of which claim to work in a similar manner to the Airwrap, but at a lower price. “Of course, our product has a premium positioning,” Jessica concedes. “So, we need to help users understand the long-term value: all the technology and research and development that goes into it and how that translates into a premium product that is worth the investment.”
To that end, the brand has created a series of freestanding concept stores called Dyson Demo Stores where would-be Airwrappers can go and get a free, one-on-one styling session with one of Dyson’s education ambassadors. “These stores allow consumers to really experience our technology and understand the Dyson difference,”Jessica says.
In addition to demystifying innovative Dyson engineering feats such as the “Coanda Effect” – an aerodynamic phenomenon employed by the Airwrap in which a spinning vortex of air attracts the hair, encouraging it to gently wrap itself around the barrel, effectively curling itself without incurring heat damage — the brand’s education ambassadors show users how to use Dyson’s tools to optimize their style and texture.
On May 11, Dyson launched Airstrait, a new technology that allows for wet to dry styling with no heat damage. “It uses air – not heat – to dry and style hair in a naturally straight style,” Jessica explains, noting that it works equally well on all hair types from sleek to curly and coily. “It significantly reduces drying time and straightening without using hot plates,” says Jessica, noting that it’s quickly become a best-selling product for the brand. “The reactions on social media have been amazing! The #dysonairstrait hashtag has over 100M views on TikTok.”
In October 2022, Dyson opened the first Dyson Beauty Lab in Saks Fifth Avenue Bal Harbour. The shop-in-shop concept marked the brand’s first beauty lab partnership with longtime retail partner Saks Fifth Avenue. “We wanted to create an experience for our consumers that would blend retail, education, styling and more,” says Jessica. In addition to showcasing Dyson’s full range of hair care technology, the space offers complementary demos and styling sessions with Dyson stylists.
Judging from the numbers — Dyson just invested another half a billion dollars to accelerate beauty research technology development across its beauty portfolio — Jessica’s strategy seems to be working. Of course, the concept stores are only one piece of her marketing strategy for Dyson. Since arriving at the brand, Jessica has also successfully leveraged social media to help maintain Dyson’s edge in the competitive hair tool category. “We have fantastic global hairstyling partners who collaborate with us educate users owners on how to use the products for their specific hair types,” she says. “And we also see a lot of organic, user-generated content that sometimes goes viral very fast.”
Case in point: In April, 2022, TikTok user Linda Budzyn (@tuckerbudzyn) decided it would be fun to curl her golden retriever Tucker’s fur with a Dyson Airwrap. “Oh no. Don’t you dare, Linda,” read the text on her screen, as Linda got to work sectioning and curling her pooch’s lion-esque mane. The clip, which immediately went viral, has been viewed more than 67 million times. “And suddenly, there are all these gorgeous dogs with luscious curls all over the internet,” Jessica says, with a laugh. Today, over a year later, the search term “Golden retriever Dyson Airwrap” yields 604.2 million views on the platform’s discovery page. “TikTok is an interesting space where a brand like ours can play with a more tongue-in-cheek approach while still staying true to our innovation and engineering roots,” says Jessica.
