Nathalie Roos has been appointed as President of the Professional Products Division at L’Oréal.
Roos, 50, (pictured) will start her role in the second quarter of 2016 and will succeed An Verhulst-Santos, who will be deployed elsewhere in the company taking on “new important responsibilities”, L’Oréal noted.
Roos joined L’Oréal in 2012 as Country Manager of L’Oréal Germany. In this role, she contributed to the growth of the Consumer Products Division in the country, in what was acknowledged as a particularly competitive environment.
Roos graduated from l’Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Reims, one of France’s leading higher education establishments specialising in management. After this, she took her first step into the world of work joining Kraft Foods Group. Just last year, Kraft Foods completed a merger with Heinz to create Kraft Heinz Company. In 1989, Roos joined the Mars Group where she held a number of management positions.
Roos has big shoes to fill, after Verhulst-Santos’ five-year stint as President. During her time, Verhulst-Santos is credited for the division’s successful integration of newly acquired brands Carita and Decléor, which were bought from Shiseido in 2014.
Verhulst-Santos is also said to have led the development of the Salon Emotions project, launched in 2015. The project aims to reinvent the salon and hairdressing industry in France and Europe, by supporting stylists, upgrading salons and facilitating access to finance.
She was also praised for her leading role in the deployment of SalonCentric in the US, L’Oréal USA’s distribution subsidiary. This move is said to further reinforce the relationship of L’Oréal with salon professionals.
Verhulst-Santos read Commercial Engineering at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management at the University of Brussels. She went on to achieve a Master’s Degree in Fashion Management from the Institut Français de la Mode in Paris. She joined L’Oréal in Belgium in 1992.