Grooming & Beauty Venture Leader

With two billion euros in revenue and a ten percent annual growth rate, Beauty & Grooming is booming. Philips is set out to ‘own’ the bathroom and is hunting for disruptive innovations to make this happen. Innovation needs to go faster than it does now, and this requires Philips to fail more. And failing requires a much more entrepreneurial mindset than what is in the corporate DNA. Therefore, this much-aspired position is now open to external candidates.

About Philips

Philips has a proud heritage of ground-breaking innovation stretching back almost 130 years. The global leader in health technology unceasingly strives to make life better for people worldwide. Every day, its 80,000 employees are looking for ways to create a healthier, more connected, and more sustainable society through meaningful products and innovative solutions. As a responsible company, Philips upholds high environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards. They are committed to helping their customers build inclusive and resilient healthcare systems while reducing their dependency on natural resources.

With revenues exceeding two billion euros a year, Grooming & Beauty is one of Philips’ largest and most profitable business lines. Whether it is a shaver, toothbrush, or hairdryer, their products are used in almost any bathroom. The four categories the business line operates in are shaving, grooming, female hair depilation, and hair care. With successful innovations such as the Philips OneBlade (a revolutionary tool for shaving, trimming, and edging), they have always stood out in terms of quality and innovation. So far, so good.

Vacancy: Grooming & Beauty Venture Leader

However, recently, many promising scale-ups are popping up in the Grooming & Beauty space and introducing new products and business models. This trend compels Philips to double down on innovation and strengthen its position as the market leader. The Grooming & Beauty Venture Leader will develop the breakthrough inventions that ensure the continuation of Philips’ success and might even define the future of the entire industry.

The Venture Leader will manage a team of eight Venture Managers, each managing a portfolio of ventures and projects. What they have in common is that they all challenge the status quo and drive growth through disruptive products, business models, go-to-market approaches, and campaigns. The Venture Leader will report to Dominique Oh, Business Leader of Grooming & Beauty. Together with his CFO and CTO, Dominique will make the investment decisions. All in all, it’s an agile set-up with short communication lines geared towards fast experimentation and entrepreneurial thinking. ‘Fail fast’ is the core motto here.

“We want a combination of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Someone who will build the digital bathroom of tomorrow. Someone bold and disruptive, who dares to be creative and recognizes failure as an invitation to try again.” – Dominique Oh, Business Leader of Grooming & Beauty

Being a true entrepreneur, the Venture Leader will get carte blanche to knock over existing paradigms. The ventures themselves will be subject to this person’s leadership, and the innovation process itself will also be turned upside down. Less attention will be paid to retro-innovation fueled by consumer insights; the focus will be on the proof of concept provided by MVP’s.

Themes to explore include connectivity (e.g., products that measure vital signs, use smart sensors, or interact through virtual assistants) and enhanced user experience (e.g., try-and-buy deals, subscription models or new categories that improve shaving comfort, skin health, and hair loss). In the end, the key aspect of the role is ideation. That means it will be up to the Venture Leader to create breakthrough inventions in any creative directions they feel are worth pursuing.

The approach of the Venture Leader is characterized by trial and error: rapid testing and learning from failures. To test the merit of their ideas and build minimum viable products, the Venture Leader will work together with various teams – including Digital, R&D, Engineering, and Sales – and external partners (e.g., start-ups or OEMs). They will need to effectively connect with and inspire people throughout the organization, including senior management, and have the charisma to lead without hierarchy.

The disruptive power this role holds is unique. The Venture Leader will be able to take one of the largest business lines of Philips in a new direction and repositions bathrooms worldwide into a place of positive confirmation at the start of the day. A place where the scales cheer people on for reducing their fat percentage, the mirrors compliment them on the tone of their skin and the toothbrushes have already ordered new brushes when they’re about to run out. The role combines a wide range of disciplines – including innovation, product management, marketing, partnership management, pricing, and revenue management – and will offer exposure to the board.

Interested?

Philips is working with Top of Minds to fill this vacancy.
To express your interest, please contact Jessica Lim at jessica.lim@topofminds.com