Nicolas Hieronimus, L’Oréal’s new rock’n’roll boss

including Nathalie Roos, boss of the professional division, who has just left the group. “The suitors are all gone, except him, decrypts a former high potential of L’Oréal.

The average level was very high, he was above it. “The dashing general manager of the cosmetics group, midnight blue suit, white shirt, look of the first of the class behind his big glasses, knowledge of the group’s figures in France and internationally, ticked all the boxes, at the end of a meteoric career.

Far from employer circles

You have to carefully observe the heir of Lindsay Owen-Jones and François Dalle to spot this lynx gaze on the prowl, this force bracelet on his wrist, Patek Philippe watch on the other, and this curious striped gray coat that ‘he puts on when he leaves. Jean-Paul Agon was a classic boss: Hieronimus is a dandy rocker, dry on Couperin, Bach or Liszt, little attracted by opera and so far sulking most of the employers’ circles. But dressed in a suit of good cut and inexhaustible on his idols: Prince, Michael Jackson, the R’n’B and funk line, the groups of his generation, Telephone, Taxi Girl, unforgettable interpreter of the tube

Look for the boy, then Daft Punk in the 1990s. Young, he went from the ska Madness period look to the neo-romantic look of Du-ran Duran to the disco through a punk period, long hair and earrings . “He has an encyclopedic knowledge of rock, soul, rap, he knows the lyrics of the songs by heart”, laughs his friend Fabrice Boé, the president of the brand Inès de La Fressange, who has remained very close since he started his career alongside him at L’Oréal. L’Oréal’s new strongman reads science fiction novels, can recite dialogues from Quentin Tarantino’s films (Pulp Fiction) – “the greatest film in the history of cinema” – and escapes into sports , astonishing his friends with his memory of the results of old football matches.

In Paris or on the roads of his country house in the Alpilles (Bouches-du-Rhône), the boss of L’Oréal is pushing hard. A real passion. He has cycled Paris-Deauville many times, the Ventoux twice and plans to do it again this year. He doesn’t shy away from less classic sports on vacation either: Fabrice Boé remembers a giggle, during a joint trip to South Africa, at the spectacle of a fantastic ride by Hieronimus in back… ostrich.

“Disconnector and hard worker”

He gave up squash and handball in his student years. Captain of the handball team of Essec, his business school, he was exhausted on the ground as on the dance floors. And works without seeming to. “Like all very talented people, he can have a relaxed appearance,” says producer Thierry Bizot (Eléphant et Cie), who accompanied him on the benches of Essec and at L’Oréal. He was pretty messy at school, but he was a hard worker. The future boss of the CAC preferred music and sport to his studies at the Lycée Buffon, in Paris, carried out two years in advance, but without being stupefied. He obtained his scientific baccalaureate in the oral catch-up.

This volcanic energy

“An impatience that I must learn to control,” he says today – Hieronimus has been pouring it out without counting at L’Oréal, for… thirty-four years! “I found fabulous teams there, it’s the company of my life,” he says. I met my wife there. He had other proposals later. “I looked, but never really got to the bottom, because I was extremely busy. Love at first sight was played out very quickly.

In 1987, at the age of 23, the young product manager in Garnier’s marketing department, in charge of Gemey makeup and H fragrances for men, entertained his long-toothed fellows on the third floor of the historic headquarters on rue Martre, in Clichy. “He was very funny, very facetious, remembers Geoffroy Roux de Bé-zieux, the current boss of Medef, who knew him at Essec and started with him at L’Oréal. We were all very motivated. But I felt very quickly with Hieronimus that he had married L’Oréal. Obviously he had found a family. “

Original like his father

Swollen, the young Essec imitates to perfection the dissatisfaction of the director just out of the office and replies to a leader who made fun of his jacket that he does not buy his ties at Kiabi! In the group’s high masses, he has an answer to everything, replies tit for tat to the terrible Owen-Jones’ objections and is rarely taken by surprise. Back at the office, he remakes the game by imitating his interlocutors. General hilarity. His imaginative profile sets him apart in the team. “They were all very powerful left brains,” explains designer Fabrice Peltier, who worked as a freelance with the team. But he also had a highly developed right brain. When I talked about design or creativity, I felt like I was talking about equals. He went from the rational to the irrational without intellectualizing everything. Two or three times, he blew me away: I said to myself, this idea, I should have had it. “

This originality, Hieronimus drew it less from a mother engineer who passed through the CNES and the executive committee of the European Space Agency than from his father in charge of the marketing of products derived from the ORTF, a great tennis player, co-author of certain scenarios of the Shadoks, who reads L’Os à marelle, the zany diary created by Pierre Dac, and likes to play with words. The young man will rely on this roughness to climb the steps of power.

Fructis, son hit disruptif

Appointed marketing director of Laboratoires Garnier in France at the age of 30, he launched the Fructis hair care range, “with active fruit extracts”, overturned house codes with fluorescent green packaging, innovated in packaging and advertising and fights internally “because, in the meetings, it disturbed them: I was very challenged”, he says. It squeaks. In full launch, the German subsidiary is carrying out a test to demonstrate that the color code is wrong. Too late is a success.

The product generates 500 million euros in sales worldwide. “It is undoubtedly one of the most daring, creative and ambitious launches in the recent history of L’Oréal”, admires Jean-Paul Agon today. Hieronimus also has its share of failures.

In 1998, crowned with his success with Fructis, he left for the United Kingdom. Objective: to duplicate success across the Channel. But, very quickly, a controversy swells: Fructis sticks the hair on the heads of the subjects of His Majesty. A supplier did not follow the product formula. “Fructis no longer exists in the United Kingdom,” he notes. But he stepped over the obstacle. “He keeps a very amused, very playful spirit, with a lot of fantasy and distance,” explains Jean-Louis Poiroux, president and founder of Cinq Mondes spas, who also started with Hieronimus. With him, nothing is serious: these are opportunities to improve. We don’t hold it against him.

In the midst of the subprime crisis, in 2007-2008, barely back from Mexico, the brand new general manager of the professional products division appointed by Jean-Paul Agon takes the stage at the Zénith in Paris. In front of him, 4,000 hairdressers undergo a passionate harangue. New products, ambition deployed: L’Oréal supports them, the future is bright, he says. The operation relaunches activity and marks the spirits at the top of the group and among salespeople. But, internally, Hieronimus is earning a double-edged reputation. “The VRP describe him as a regional leader, who will boost his troops, a rugby coach who can be quite stiff,” relates an elected staff member. A winner, a little rough, not tender. “

“Brand lover”

Gradually, however, it improves.

“Young, he was a little dissipated and went in all directions, says Fabrice Boé. Now it is more concentrated, more efficient. He deepens his knowledge of the sector, broadens his culture. “He is a brand lover who liked to discuss new trends, philosophy, art, the zeitgeist,” says Perla Servan-Schrei-ber, the former boss of Psychologies Magazine and Clés. We could feel this constant bubbling, Cocotte-Minute style. But he took the time for it. I felt in his eyes that everything was immediately photographed in his brain. “

Appointed CEO of L’Oréal Luxe in 2011, Hieronimus works for each brand (Lancôme, Ralph Lauren, Yves Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani, etc.). In eight years, the luxury goods business has gone from 4.5 to 9.3 billion euros. The performance has an irresistible charm, once again, in the upper echelons of the group. In 2017, the one who is nicknamed Iznogoud, becomes the assistant, the shadow of Jean-Paul Agon. Four years earlier, her rival Sue Nabi, the boss of Lan-côme, left the group.

Today, Hieronimus has taken the last step, but the situation of heir is not always comfortable. It will have to win internally.

“We see it very rarely”, slips an elected staff member who hopes for a boss “in the continuity of Agon”. Not easy. From 2005 to 2019, the latter doubled turnover, quadrupled the share price, almost tripled net income and hired 36,000 employees. The bar is high. Hieronimus knows that future growth requires tech, data, artificial intelligence which will accelerate development, that he will not escape the “era of meaning and values” in “a world of tensions where, more and more, companies will be taken to task on a lot of subjects ”. All, “without forgetting to make a profit,” he admits.

In his new office, the boss of L’Oréal will contemplate the large Mexican hat as a symbol of his responsibilities, but will undoubtedly find more inspiration in his wrestler mask.

A 100% HOME-MADE CAREER January 3, 1964 Born in Paris. 1987 Product manager for the Garnier laboratories. 1993 Marketing director of Garnier. 1998 Manages Garnier-Maybeline in the United Kingdom. 2000. CEO of L’Oréal Paris International 2005 Director of L’Oréal Mexico. 2008 General Manager of Professional Products. 2011 Chief Executive Officer of L’Oréal Luxe. 2017 Deputy CEO of L’Oréal. May 1, 2021 Chief Executive Officer of L’Oréal.

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