Photos: instagram.com/glossier
Glossier poaches Amazon exec to drive growth
Glossier, the billion-dollar Instagram-driven beauty brand, has appointed 19-year Amazon.com veteran Melissa Eamer as its COO. She will be responsible for overseeing the growth-driving parts of Glossier’s business while CEO and founder Emily Weiss focuses on core branding, product expansion, content and community building.
At Amazon, Ms. Eamer most recently served as VP for sales and marketing of Amazon devices. Previous posts include VP for consumer engagement, VP for sports, outdoors & toys, technical advisor for the company’s consumer business and director of the Kindle Content Store.
Speaking to CNBC, Ms. Weiss said Ms. Eamer will help Glossier build “not just a brand, but a company … We’re entering into this new stage of growth at Glossier.”
Earlier this year, Glossier secured $100 million in funding, bringing its valuation to $1.2 billion.
The company also beefed up its executive team this year. Hires include Vanessa Wittman, formerly at Dropbox, as CFO; Edith Chen, from beauty industry supplier LF Beauty, as VP of supply chain operations; Nick DeAngelo, from Jet.com, as VP of operations; Diane Vavrasek, also from Jet.com, as chief people officer; and Leah Chernikoff, from Elle.com, as head of content.
Glossier started as a beauty blog in 2010 and has morphed into one of the few brands to find success despite foregoing distribution at department stores — or even Sephora or Ulta. The company stands out for reaching shoppers through its more than 2.3 million Instagram followers.
More recently, the company has seen success with two physical stores, in New York and Los Angeles, that are drawing massive crowds.
Ms. Weiss has said Glossier mimics Apple’s approach to product development, and that the digital native brand understands today’s youth better than beauty’s legacy brands. She recently told the Financial Times, “Look at how tied a lot of these companies are to offline channels, and to ways of selling and ways of communicating with customers that are pre-social media.”
Ms. Eamer shared on her LinkedIn profile, “The opportunity to work at a customer obsessed beauty company filled with super smart people and a visionary founder seems strangely familiar.”
- Glossier poaches Amazon exec Melissa Eamer to join the beauty company as chief operating officer – CNBC
- Glossier names Amazon vet Melissa Eamer as new COO – Fashion Network
- Apple-inspired Glossier opens ‘adult Disneyland’ flagship store – RetailWire
- Glossier Is NYC’s Newest Unicorn With $1.2 Billion Valuation – Bloomberg
- Glossier’s Emily Weiss: ‘We’re creating the Estée Lauder of the future’ – Financial Times
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: How might an Amazon veteran take Glossier to its next level of growth? Do you see additional stores or adding wholesale distribution as necessary moves for the company?
Poll
BrainTrust
Dave Bruno
Director, Retail Market Insights, Aptos
Phil Rubin
Founder, Grey Space Matters
The addition of Melissa Eamer to the executive team is another in a line of great hires by Glossier. This makes me think that they recognize that the shelf life of an Instagram-brand is inherently limited and that sustaining a $1 billion valuation will quickly require substance beyond the style.
Glossier is smart to hire Melissa Eamer based simply on what she’s experienced at Amazon. The fact that she observed that Glossier is “customer obsessed” is evidenced by her hiring. From observation and a bit of experience getting to know the company, this is a clear evolution.
While there is nothing wrong with launching and achieving high growth through blogging (the origin of Glossier, Into the Gloss) and social media (Instagram), that is not sustainable in a brutally competitive field like beauty with a legacy of largely indirect distribution.
This is Glossier’s opportunity to legitimately show loyalty to its already loyal customer base and extend its differentiation.
As a side note to the discussion, the title of the article is what should catch everyone’s attention. It is the word POACH, It did not say hire, recruit, or even attract.
The message to all retailers is, if you are looking for top talent at all levels from front-line to senior executive, be aggressive and start poaching.