L’Oréal‘s Argentine operations will be run from the northern hemisphere with a two-hour time difference for the time being as the new local head waits in Mexico for Argentina to reopen its borders.
French cosmetics giant L’Oréal has another new head for Argentina after only ten months. The new CEO is Frenchman Jean-Noël Divet, who will run operations remotely from Mexico since borders remain closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
He replaces the Uruguayan Aníbal Scavino after less than a year. Scavino took up the reins in August 2019 in an interim arrangement before his final retirement from the company.
Divet has been general manager of L’Oréal Mexico for three-and-half years. He’ll take on the challenge of seeing the cosmetic company’s Argentine operations through the country’s ongoing Covid-19 lockdown as sales fall across all business units due to the closure of perfume outlets, duty-free shops and hairdressers, and a decline in consumption in general.
The local branch of the company has found itself without offices. It’s had to leave the headquarters where it was based from 2003 pending a move to new offices that remain unfinished because of the Covid-19 lockdown is now seeking temporary office space.
The company also has logistical changes to face before it can revert back from remote working once Argentina’s lockdown ends. Pharmabiz has learned that the company was in the middle of a move to new offices when the pandemic hit. Lockdown restrictions have meant that renovation work on the new offices in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Núñez had to be put on hold, while the company has already had to vacate its existing offices, leaving it seek temporary office space.
Divet comes with excellent experience and record but will find himself with a young structure owing to heavy cuts carried out on 2015 – a story that was broken by Pharmabiz. See article in Spanish.
The majority of local staff are currently working remotely via the company’s own software platform. They’ll be working with a two-hour time difference from Divet in Mexico. The company’s 100 reps at sales points in Argentina remain unable to work because of restrictions on business owing to Covid-19.
Divet has great expertise in Consumer Products, having headed up this unit in Argentina in the mid-1990s. The local structure is now divided between Ezequiel Peralta, who runs the Luxury segment; María Di Cesare head of Active Cosmetics; Frenchman Damien Favre head of Consumer Products, and Germán Gignone, head of Professional Products.
