Personalised beauty brand Function of Beauty has found a new CEO in Laura Mercier’s former Global President, Alexandra Papazian.
Previously a L’Oréal executive, with almost 15 years’ experience at the French cosmetics behemoth, working across its Yves Saint Laurent and Giorgio Armani brands, Papazian takes over from the brand’s co-founder Zahir Dossa, who assumes the role of Executive Chairman.
The beauty expert leaves the Shiseido-owned brand following its sale to AI Beauty Holdings, a new company formed by private equity firm Advent, last month.
Along with Laura Mercier, Shiseido also sold its bareMinerals and Buxom brands to the newly formed company as part of Shiseido’s long-term strategy to only support the brands, categories and market regions that best support its competitive position and global growth.
Hien Kaplan, another of Function of Beauty’s founders, will remain as R&D Liaison, while no new role has been given to Joshua Maciejewski, the third founding member, who stepped down as COO in April this year.
As CEO, Papazian is charged with expanding the US brand’s global reach and product innovation.
What began as a customised hair care brand six years ago, Function of Beauty has shifted into the skin care arena, offering customers more than three billion possible formulations, tapping into the increasingly popular trend of customised beauty.
Papazian's appointment comes just one month after the bespoke beauty brand acquired Atolla, a personalised skin care company with a patented at-home skin care test and data-driven product recommendation system.
With the takeover, Function of Beauty said it will be able to further improve its portfolio and deliver measurable results to customers.
“With the acquisition of Atolla, Function of Beauty now has the ability to offer the world's most advanced skin care system — one that is truly personalised to every single customer through the combination of our groundbreaking manufacturing technologies and Atolla's patented skin care system,” said Dossa at the time.
