After working her way up the corporate ladder at both Procter & Gamble and The Estée Lauder Cos., beauty executive Lisa Sequino has had a bird’s eye view of the beauty landscape. And as the co-founder and CEO of JLo Beauty & Lifestyle Companies, Lisa will be able to address her many observations in an evolving industry.

“I’ve been watching the shift in the industry across many different areas, specifically around consumer opportunities and channel dynamics,” said the CEO of JLo Beauty & Lifestyle Cos. “Frankly, I got to a point where I wanted to build a company from the ground up where we could really change the game of beauty and consumerism, especially for customers in their 30s, 40s and 50s. I believe there’s a significant opportunity to reflect how these consumers truly feel about themselves by changing the narrative from anti-aging to pro-living.”

Armed with Decades of Experience, Hitting the Ground Running

“I’ve honed my skills across many different categories, including health care, personal care, beauty and luxury,” Lisa said. “I have extensive experience across consumer disruptive innovation and direct-to-consumer models. I’ve launched new brands, scaled companies and also reinvigorated businesses and portfolio companies. So, I feel that these diverse experiences will allow me really to hit the ground running as we look to ramp up across these pillars, which are key tenants of focus for us as a brand and a company,” added the CEO of JLo Beauty & Lifestyle Cos.

That JLo Glow
That JLo Glow

Working with Jennifer Lopez was a no-brainer for Lisa. “Jennifer is one of the most followed people on social media, with over 350 million followers and her followers are really engaged,” Lisa said. “She’s proven with all her endeavors that you can be unstoppable. She likes to stay limitless, year over year, and she’s always looking for ways to improve from better to best. This really resonates with women in the beauty and lifestyle space. It’s about glowing at any age from the inside out.”

At the top of Lisa’s to-do list in her new role is to quickly expand the team since the company is growing at a rapid pace. Another priority is building innovation. “Our vision is to ensure that we have proprietary cutting-edge technology,” Lisa said. “We’ve created this pillar of seriously sexy science. That approach is focused on the Gen X customer, because we both feel that she’s been ignored.”

Targeting an Ignored Consumer with Sexy Science

Lisa noted that Gen X is achieving great things and doing so with a lot on their plate, so JLo Beauty & Lifestyle Companies wants to speak to them in a modern way that’s creative and innovative. They’ll do so by pushing the standards of formulations and ingredients and launching the best available products with proprietary formulas and disruptive results, partnering with the world’s best chemist and formulators to do so. “Jennifer, as an example, has continued to raise the bar on what 30-, 40-, 50-year-old women can do,” she said. “I know how savvy this consumer is. When I think about seriously sexy science, it’s not waiting 30 days for a skin product to work. This customer wants to see results today and that’s what we’re going to deliver.”

Their core customer is between the ages of 30 and 55, with the goal being to determine their needs and learn from them. “We have such a data-rich company,” Lisa said. “We’ve seen an incredible response from our direct-to-consumer platform. The majority of our customers are opting into our subscription model, which is very encouraging and also very profitable.” They will continue to focus on fostering that platform as they push for significant growth across core hero products like That JLo Glow.

Poised for Future Growth

Another aim is to cultivate the company culture. “We’re an entrepreneurial team,” Lisa said. “Fostering a fun, dynamic, supportive and rewarding environment may sound simple, but I think that it’s also rare to see that in the industry today.”

Ultimately, in five years Lisa would like to see JLo Beauty & Lifestyle Companies being a large, digital-first global company that’s very profitable, and data rich across beauty and lifestyle. “When I look at Jennifer’s fan base, it’s global, so we want to allow access to these consumers around the world and allow them to experience the brand in a meaningful way,” Lisa said. “They’re asking for us, so we need to be there. Secondly, I would say we see continued growth within the Gen X customer and our Latina customer. The response from these segments has been so strong already that we know that there’s significant growth opportunity there as well.”