Innovating at the Intersection of Beauty and Technology
Innovating at the Intersection of Beauty and Technology
Notes From Michael W. Smith
Company Feature, Dec three, 2018
When a business enterprise has innovation in its DNA, it’s a
excellent region for generation to thrive. This reality truly encouraged my
decision to sign up for The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) closing year as Chief
Information Officer. It changed into clear to me that this became a
customer-obsessed employer, in which technological improvements could be on
very fertile floor. The organisation’s route to achievement — from the very
first products that Mrs. Estée Lauder created, to how she took her merchandise
to marketplace; from the corporation’s spectacular R&D tune record, to its
early access into on-line retail — excited me approximately the ability for its
future.
CIO Michael W. Smith in ELC's new Tech Hub in Long Island
City, NY
The intersection of beauty and generation changed into no
longer that obvious to me a few years again. By comparison, when I first joined
Nike in 1990, I was a runner and a soccer participant and I had a natural
affinity for the company and its reason. I became now not as personally
acquainted with status splendor once I joined ELC. However, inside the first
few weeks of my new role, I sat in many emblem innovation conferences wherein I
realized the artwork of what we do and just how beautiful a craft it's miles. I
understood how our products deliver pleasure and self assurance to human beings
— they're personal, intimate and real.
Our imaginative and prescient is to lead the status beauty
industry in tech innovation. There's a large play for beauty in artificial
intelligence, augmented fact, virtual reality and other emerging technology.
For instance, we've the capability to better understand clients’ skin and what
they need, and to apply synthetic intelligence to higher fit foundations,
lipsticks and skin care regimens. We are focused on creating the best
customized reports for customers, giving them seamless, aspirational reviews
whether on mobile, in save or on-line.
At ELC, we're differentiating ourselves thru advanced quality products
and turning in our signature High-Touch services in a excessive-tech
world.
Contributing to the technological transformation at ELC is
our new Long Island City Tech Hub, that is primarily based within the heart of
New York’s emerging tech epicenter. Our new Tech Hub changed into designed to
drive collaboration during the IT employer and across the entire organization.
ELC's Tech Hub in Long Island City gives many collaborative
work regions
Innovation comes from human beings operating together and
mashing thoughts. We now have severa physical group spaces which allow for
formal and casual interactions that could spark thoughts and creativity. We’ve
additionally substantially invested in collaboration technologies that allow
seamless virtual teaming so we will work simply as without problems with our
colleagues in New York as with the ones round the world. Built-in amenities
which include a loose health club, a backed cafeteria and a rooftop deck assist
to raise the employee experience. This area is clearly about a brand new way of
working thru co-advent.
As a CIO who has led organizational transformation in
earlier roles, I recognize that exchange isn’t smooth. But I am pleased that at
ELC we've got greater champions and early adopters of exchange than standard.
The level of talent in our business enterprise positions us strongly for the
destiny and I am committed to making sure we have a numerous generation group
representative of our girl customers and worker base. To this end, we’re
spending extra time recruiting in focused applications and sponsoring
enterprise activities, including the Grace Hopper Celebration, the world's
biggest collecting of women technologists.
Michael Smith and group on the latest Beauty Hackathon
We additionally recently held our first Beauty Hackathon,
which attracted greater than a hundred and twenty individuals from 35
universities and 28 organizations. This occasion turned into a cultural
touchstone for us and symbolized how vital innovation and creativity are with
regards to serving customers. The Hackathon enabled curious minds from outdoor
the splendor enterprise to look what we do, see our values at paintings — and
experience how lots fun we have doing it. Just as vital, it exposed our personnel
to new methods of questioning and running.
ELC’s mission is to invent the destiny of beauty, so it’s
critical that our employees additionally have inner mobility. I started my
22-year career at Nike in IT, however I moved through many other functions
early on. When I sooner or later returned to IT in a management function my
duties continued to develop, which I attribute to the huge enjoy I had gained
all through my first chapter with Nike.
I am a firm believer in developing employees who possess a extensive
breadth of enterprise expertise and depth within the technology space. I am
trying to create thoughtful and deliberate movement inside our employer to
facilitate this fingers-on gaining knowledge of. My intention is for IT to be a
incredible internal talent source for the company, as generation, digital and
analytic talents end up vital in anybody's job, irrespective of in which you
sit down.
Lastly, consistent with ELC’s commitment to worldwide
citizenship, I am pleased with the dedication our team displays in serving the
communities wherein we live and work. It’s early December, which means we're
approximately to embark on our IT Global Day of Service — an annual event that
supports a couple of nonprofits on the whole related to education. It's humbling
to take on this subculture which means so much to our employees throughout six
continents. It is my wish and my purpose through the years to expand these
significant sports to deepen our connections with our groups.
What energizes me about coming to work each day are the
limitless possibilities. There is not anything this is now not feasible here. I
assume this speaks to our culture, our leadership and our people. It speaks to
the historical past that we stand on. It’s an thrilling time to be operating on
the intersection of beauty and era in a employer that is passionate about
pushing the bounds and inventing the sudden.
Michael W. Smith is Chief Information Officer of The Estée
Lauder Companies (ELC). He is a seasoned chief who brings a combination of
Information Technology (IT), industrial and useful know-how with extra than 25
years of enjoy throughout retail, era and pharma industries. In his function,
Michael is responsible for similarly advancing the agency’s innovation in
technology to successfully guide and permit the organisation’s boom approach
and the evolving wishes of its manufacturers and commercial enterprise. He
additionally drives global technology answers in key strategic areas for the
corporation, substantially retail, digital, social and analytics. Prior to
becoming a member of ELC, Michael held management roles at Nike, Inc., where he
spent over 22 years in multiple emblem and era roles, and Mylan NV, wherein he
led Digital and Innovation and Global Business Services, similarly to serving
as the agency’s Chief Information Officer. Michael is presently a member of
multiple advisory boards, which includes Accoy Pharmaceuticals, a healthcare
organization; CausePoint a generation organisation; and Incture, a software
program company.
You May Also Like
ELC Hosts First-Ever Hackathon at LIC Technology Hub
Inclusion, Diversity & Equity
ELC Named to Indeed’s “Top-Rated Workplaces: The 50 Best”
List
We use cookies to make sure our website works well, and to
gather records to provide you with the high-quality revel in. By continuing to
use this website online, you're agreeing to this. Find out more approximately
how we use cookies and the way to manipulate your settings.