L’Occitane group names new CEO

Cosmetics group L’Occitane, whose brand portfolio includes L’Occitane en Provence, Melvita and Sol de Janeiro, has reconfigured its senior management team. As of April 1 2024, the functions of group CEO and managing director will be combined into a single position, that of CEO, and will be assumed by Laurent Marteau.
 

Marteau joined the L’Occitane group in September 2022 as managing director, and will take over from current CEO André Hoffmann, to whom he was reporting. Hoffmann, who has been with the L’Occitane group since 1995, will relinquish the CEO post but remain a member of the board of directors.
 
This senior management reshuffle is taking place while the group is pursuing a highly aggressive external growth strategy. In recent years, L’Occitane, which is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, has acquired Grown Alchemist, an Australian brand of holistic cosmetics, US brand Sol de Janeiro, currently a key contributor to the group’s dynamic growth, and most recently Dr. Vranjes Firenze, an Italian specialist in high-end room fragrances.

Before joining L’Occitane, Marteau worked at Swiss beauty group La Prairie, where he notably held the position of vice-president EMEA. Prior to that, he worked for 15 years at French luxury group LVMH, notably overseeing, from 2010 to 2014, the global travel retail business of perfume brands Givenchy, Kenzo, Fendi and Pucci. A career that makes Marteau ideally suited to spearhead L’Occitane’s internationalisation efforts.

In H1 of fiscal 2023-24, closed on September 30, the group recorded a revenue of €1.07 billion, equivalent to an 18.5% growth (and a 24.9% one at constant exchange rates).