Hong Kong
Innovating at the Intersection of Beauty and Technology
Notes From Michael W. Smith
Company Feature, Dec 3, 2018
When a company has innovation in its DNA, it’s a great place for technology to thrive. This reality definitely influenced my decision to join The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) last year as Chief Information Officer. It was clear to me that this was a consumer-obsessed organization, where technological advancements would be on very fertile ground. The company’s path to success — from the very first products that Mrs. Estée Lauder created, to how she took her products to market; from the company’s impressive R&D track record, to its early entry into online retail — excited me about the potential for its future.
CIO Michael W. Smith in ELC's new Tech Hub in Long Island City, NY
The intersection of beauty and technology was not that obvious to me a few years back. By contrast, when I first joined Nike in 1990, I was a runner and a soccer player and I had a natural affinity for the company and its purpose. I was not as personally familiar with prestige beauty when I joined ELC. However, within the first few weeks of my new role, I sat in many brand innovation meetings where I realized the art of what we do and just how beautiful a craft it is. I understood how our products bring joy and confidence to people — they are personal, intimate and authentic.
Our vision is to lead the prestige beauty industry in tech innovation. There's a massive play for beauty in artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality and other emerging technologies. For example, we have the ability to better understand consumers’ skin and what they need, and to use artificial intelligence to better match foundations, lipsticks and skin care regimens. We are focused on creating the best personalized experiences for consumers, giving them seamless, aspirational experiences whether on mobile, in store or online. At ELC, we are differentiating ourselves through superior quality products and delivering our signature High-Touch services in a high-tech world.
Contributing to the technological transformation at ELC is our new Long Island City Tech Hub, which is based in the heart of New York’s emerging tech epicenter. Our new Tech Hub was designed to drive collaboration throughout the IT organization and across the entire company.
ELC's Tech Hub in Long Island City offers many collaborative work areas
Innovation comes from people working together and mashing ideas. We now have numerous physical team spaces which allow for formal and informal interactions that can spark ideas and creativity. We’ve also significantly invested in collaboration technologies that enable seamless virtual teaming so we can work just as easily with our colleagues in New York as with those around the world. Built-in amenities such as a free gym, a subsidized cafeteria and a rooftop deck help to elevate the employee experience. This space is really about a new way of working through co-creation.
As a CIO who has led organizational transformation in prior roles, I know that change isn’t easy. But I am pleased that at ELC we have more champions and early adopters of change than typical. The level of talent in our organization positions us strongly for the future and I am committed to ensuring we have a diverse technology team representative of our female consumers and employee base. To this end, we’re spending more time recruiting in targeted programs and sponsoring industry events, including the Grace Hopper Celebration, the world's largest gathering of women technologists.
Michael Smith and team at the recent Beauty Hackathon
We also recently held our first Beauty Hackathon, which attracted more than 120 participants from 35 universities and 28 corporations. This event was a cultural touchstone for us and symbolized how important innovation and creativity are when it comes to serving consumers. The Hackathon enabled curious minds from outside the beauty industry to see what we do, see our values at work — and experience how much fun we have doing it. Just as important, it exposed our employees to new ways of thinking and working.
ELC’s mission is to invent the future of beauty, so it’s essential that our employees also have internal mobility. I began my 22-year career at Nike in IT, but I moved through many other functions early on. When I eventually returned to IT in a management role my responsibilities continued to grow, which I attribute to the broad experience I had gained during my first chapter with Nike.
I am a firm believer in developing employees who possess a wide breadth of business knowledge and depth in the technology space. I am looking to create thoughtful and deliberate movement within our organization to facilitate this hands-on learning. My goal is for IT to be a great internal talent source for the company, as technology, digital and analytic skills become critical in everyone's job, no matter where you sit.
Lastly, in keeping with ELC’s commitment to global citizenship, I am proud of the dedication our team displays in serving the communities where we live and work. It’s early December, which means we are about to embark on our IT Global Day of Service — an annual event that supports multiple nonprofits primarily related to education. It's humbling to take on this tradition that means so much to our employees across six continents. It is my hope and my intention over time to expand these meaningful activities to deepen our connections with our communities.
What energizes me about coming to work every day are the endless possibilities. There is nothing that's not possible here. I think this speaks to our culture, our leadership and our people. It speaks to the heritage that we stand on. It’s an exciting time to be working at the intersection of beauty and technology in a company that is passionate about pushing the boundaries and inventing the unexpected.
Michael W. Smith is Chief Information Officer of The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC). He is a seasoned leader who brings a mix of Information Technology (IT), commercial and functional expertise with more than 25 years of experience across retail, technology and pharma industries. In his role, Michael is responsible for further advancing the company’s innovation in technology to effectively support and enable the company’s growth strategy and the evolving needs of its brands and business. He also drives global technology solutions in key strategic areas for the company, notably retail, digital, social and analytics. Prior to joining ELC, Michael held leadership roles at Nike, Inc., where he spent over 22 years in multiple brand and technology roles, and Mylan NV, where he led Digital and Innovation and Global Business Services, in addition to serving as the company’s Chief Information Officer. Michael is currently a member of multiple advisory boards, including Accoy Pharmaceuticals, a healthcare company; CausePoint a technology company; and Incture, a software company.
