Lori Haram
Lori Haram is the Senior Vice President, Business Affairs and Operations for the Cluster of Brands that are led by Executive Group President, John Demsey. In this role, Lori is responsible to drive strategic projects across the more than 20 brands in the Cluster, as well as support specific initiatives within certain brands, notably Too Faced where she is the primary point of contact between the brand and the larger ELC organization. Lori is also the Chief of Staff to John Demsey.
Previously, Lori led New Business Development for ELC. In that role, Lori completed 8 acquisitions, including Smashbox, Le Labo, BECCA and Too Faced, and 2 minority investments. In 2016, Lori was named as one of the most influential women in mid-market M&A by themiddlemarket.com.
Lori has more than 30 years’ experience in global finance and strategic planning. Following the completion of her business school education, she joined The Estee Lauder Companies as a Financial Analyst in the International division. Lori went on to hold various leadership positions within ELC including Vice President, Finance for Estée Lauder, USA and Canada; Vice President, Global Finance and Strategic Planning for M.A.C Cosmetics, and Senior Vice President, Global New Business Development. In these roles, she worked closely with the Brand Presidents and Senior Management to develop and execute strategic and financial priorities for the business.
Over the course of her career, Lori worked outside of ELC for approximately 5 years. From 1996-1998, she held the position of Vice President, Finance for EMI Group, Angel Records Division, and from 2007-2009 she was first a consultant to, and subsequently the General Manager of the then-independent beauty brand Carol’s Daughter.
Lori developed and delivers a Career Readiness program to 12th grade students under the auspices of the non-profit organization PENCIL and is also the Treasurer of the Lords Valley Country Club. She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration, Management, from SUNY-Binghamton and a Master of Business Administration, Finance and Accounting, from Columbia University. She and her husband Khaled live in Manhattan, and their son Ian lives close by.
Michelle Connelly
Michelle Connelly joined Credo in 2017 with nearly a decade of experience in the industry, successfully driving beauty brands at retail through strategically planning their marketing initiatives, visual merchandising and inventory planning. Prior to being recruited to lead the Credo merchant team, Michelle’s career in beauty began after successful stints at both Sephora and Macy’s.
Credo is the leading clean beauty retailer based in San Francisco, CA boasting the largest, safest and cleanest beauty assortment in the U.S. Credo has 8 locations across the nation with more on the horizon and carries the most beautiful, effective and clean beauty brands available today.
Frédéric Benqué
Mr. Frédéric Benqué serves as Managing Partner and General Partner at NextWorld Evergreen. He Co-Founded TextMe, Inc. in 2011 and serves as its Director. Mr. Benqué is a seasoned investor with solid financial and operational background. He has over 15 years of experience in various finance and investment roles. His expertise gained him the prestigious rising star in Finance by Financial News in 2006, and facilitated the creation of Credo, an all-clean beauty retailer.
Alicia Sontag
Ranked one of Beauty's 50 Most Powerful Women by WWD (2015), and two-time honor of Fortune Most Powerful Women conference (2015/2016), Alicia is a Co-Founder and Partner at Prelude Growth Partners. Prelude Growth Partners is a New York City based growth equity firm focused on providing capital and value-added operatingsupport to high potential, fast-growing consumer brands. Prelude seeks to make investments of $3million to $15 million in each company, across branded consumer categories including personalcare/beauty, food & beverage, baby, pet, health & wellness and other consumer categories.
Dr Heather Rogers
Heather D. Rogers is a board certified dermatologist and fellowship trained dermatologic surgeon, specialising in prevention and treatment of sun damaged skin including pre-skin cancers, skin cancers, moles and photo damage. However, in 2014, Dr Rogers founded Doctor Rogers Skin Solutions, which was the beginning of premium scientifically-proven, clean and allergen-free products.
Jennifer Yen
From Power Rangers to saving complexions with her skin care company purlisse beauty to momtrepreneur with her inspiration of the power of 8 Superfoods.
Jennifer Yen started her career as TV villainess on Power Rangers which wrecked her skin from the heavy makeup and bright lights inspiring her to create purlisse beauty: www.purlisse.com.
After becoming a mother and feeling completely depleted Yen quickly recovered through a Superfood lifestyle, used by generations of women in her family.
The power of Superfoods led Yen to start her second company, YENSA (meaning Color + Face in Chinese) the Superfood Cosmetic and the first Cosmetics meets Superfood Science brand, connecting Superfood Science, Complexion Cosmetics and Superfoods.
Each product is infused with 8 Superfoods (8 representing good luck, prosperity and infinite possibilities in Chinese culture).
Since launching on October 8, 2018 ,YENSA has received over 240,000 positive reviews with top features in CEW, PopSugar, WWD, Coveteur, Byrdie, Hollywood Reporter, Hollywood Life, Bustle, New Beauty and more. Cardi B and Jeffree Starr are among the influencer/celebrities to use the product + many more.
YENSA supports women organizations and recently partnered with Dress For Success #YourHourHerPower campaign featuring 8 SuperWomen: Michelle Phan, Jana Kramer, Aja White, Farnaz Charmatz, Sara Boyd, Deddeh Howard, Jesse Draper, Jennifer Yen who have shared their journeys in this campaign to help motivate and inspire women. Watch the full video here
Dr. Julie R. Bartholomew
Dr. Julie R. Bartholomew founded IMX Cosmetics, imxcosmetics.com, in Detroit in 2000. An accomplished social entrepreneur, award-winning inventor, panelist, keynote speaker and medical doctor; Dr. Bartholomew has been a named inventor on over 111 patent filings resulting in over 75 granted patents worldwide. She is one of an elite group of women representative of only 7.7% of female inventors in the United States. In 2001, Dr. Bartholomew pioneered and successfully executed the first beauty artificial intelligence (AI) formulation program for the customization of nail polish at point-of-sale. She developed an AI platform to navigate the micro-personalization of beauty, health and wellness products that can be made instantly in the retail space, online and/or at home.
Dr. Bartholomew and Bruce E. Teitelbaum co-founded RPG x IMX, rpximx.com, in 2017. Under this partnership, RPG x IMX leverages its intellectual property of more than 75 granted patents along with the founders’ long-established histories as innovators in the customization of cosmetics and consumer experiences. Their unique technology solutions dramatically re-focus shopping behavior to be tailored towards entirely personalized products and customized experiences. The transformative alliance of RPG x IMX offers real-time, in-store customization never before realized, turning passive consumers into active, highly engaged buyers.
