Entrepreneurial spirit and proactiveness, two key hard skills for working at l'Oréal
On 2nd and 3rd November, the Professional Careers Department organized L’Oréal on Campus, an event designed to give students a first-hand insight into how the Finance and Operations Department operates in a multinational like L’Oréal, as well as discovering the hard skills required for a job in these departments. The first day of the event focused on an overview of how the Finance Department functions, while the second day, on 3rd November, revolved around a closer look at the Operations.
Rocio Muñoz Viejo, the Financial Director of the L’Oréal Lux Division, and Víctor Martin Alonso, the Business Unit Finance Leader of the Perfume Division, took charge of presenting the first session on the Finance Department.
Rocio began the session with a short presentation of L'Oréal, highlighting that the company ranks 36th in the world in all the sectors, having multiplied its sales by 1.6 in the last few years. Moreover, she gave an overview of L’Oréal’s four main divisions: Mass Market, L’Oréal Lux, Professional Products and Active Cosmetics. She went on to define the company’s key financial goal: to grow sustainably and profitably.
She also outlined the company’s growth model and 8 areas of strategic development for 2030.
Lastly, she discussed the key skills that future candidates need to be able to work in L’Oréal’s Finance Department, emphasizing that “the skills that make the difference go way beyond hard skills, including entrepreneurship, sustainability, proactiveness in your work, a startup mindset with a sound knowledge of what lies behind a great multinational”.
It was then the turn of Víctor Martin Alonso, the Business Unit Finance Leader of the Perfume Division, who spoke about two real projects from a financial perspective, focusing in greater detail on the duties of a financial professional within a company like L’Oréal: identifying and highlighting risks and opportunities, generating added value, interpreting data effectively and aligning the right data with each project.
On the second day of the L’Oréal on Campus event, Cristina Garzón and Pablo García Fernández from the company’s Operations Department gave the participants a rundown of the challenges faced by a mass-market multinational in terms of logistics and consumer care. He then discussed the company’s evolution with respect to digitization and the platform they use.
Pablo García Fernández, the Key Account Supply Chain Manager, gave a summary of how the company’s whole Operations Area functions, explaining to the students that, at L’Oréal, the customer is always at the heart of everything they do.
He went on to discuss the obstacles that have affected transportation and customers in recent years, including Covid, the supply crisis, the Ukraine War, Storm Filomena, etc., and the company’s response in order to ensure the wheels kept turning smoothly.
The event ended with a presentation by Sergio Gómez Jara, a Talent Recruiter, who explained the recruitment process that L’Oréal normally follows, as well as the type of profile it usually looks for: innovative people and networkers with a real interest in joining the company, etc.