The art of skin care innovation

COSSMA: You first worked in R&D for home care at Unilever. What made you join the cosmetics industry and what are the main differences in terms of R&D?

May Shana’a, Senior Vice President, Beiersdorf: Changing categories was simply an opportunity to learn new things. I must admit that at the beginning I thought there is no difference between the different categories – chemistry is chemistry. However, I soon learnt that even though the chemical principles might be the same, applications are extremely different. Dealing with living human skin versus cotton, wood or metal surfaces is simply incomparable. Apart from the obvious safety considerations, you have to be on top of the game in the field of science as well as understanding the human psyche. An innovator in skin care has to be both a scientist and an artist. He or she has to create functional products that are appealing enough to put on our skin or hair. The product has to deliver on the promise and must feel good, look good and smell good. 

The package has to be both delightful and functional and the claims have to be aspirational, grounded in scientific proof but easily understood for every consumer by every consumer.

Personal care products have a high emotional element because we put them on us and the anticipation concerning the result is always high. 

If you have sunburn or a bad hair day, that is not a good day. If your dishes are not so clean, you can clean them again. While science is science, the difference is in the mindset.

What were the main challenges working as Vice President Global Skin Care for Johnson & Johnson and what were your major achievements there?

The main challenge joining a new company is always to understand what works and what does not work and to keep what is good and evolve the rest without causing a huge upheaval. There were a few challenges such as operating globally, addressing the needs of a portfolio of brands that compete in the same categories, and managing and changing a team that had not had an external leader for over a decade. The best achievements were creating a true global team and strong platform organisation in applied research, as well as attracting good, talented people, setting a skin care R&D strategy and securing the funds to deliver on the strategy. We delivered some unique technologies that are still paying off handsomely after so many years. That resulted in the great growth of the two largest brands, Neutrogena and Aveeno, to over one billion and half a billion dollars respectively.