Nicola Kilner is stepping back as CEO of Deciem, the company she co-founded in 2013 to house brands including The Ordinary, Niod, Hyalimde, The Chemistry and Hif, and sold to Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) in 2021.
From December, Kilner will hand over the day-to-day running of the business to Jesper Rasmussen, who joined Deciem in July 2022 as global senior vice president and general manager. He will be promoted to global brand president, while Kilner will retain some duties in her role as co-founder — mostly helping to shape the company structure and vision. “This will allow me to have more time to reset my own energy, spend more time with my young family, alongside exploring some new creative projects,” said Kilner in an internal note seen by Vogue Business.
“Since Nicola co-founded Deciem alongside [the] late Brandon Truaxe in 2013, [the company] has disrupted the beauty industry through transparency, quality and authenticity. We are deeply grateful to Nicola for her remarkable leadership as CEO, and her truly special partnership over the past seven years,” said ELC executive group president and soon-to-be CEO Stéphane de La Faverie in a separate note (ELC first invested in the company in 2017).
Rasmussen was previously senior vice president of international and Europe for nine years and brand manager for five at ELC, leading skincare brands Clinique and Origins in countries like Germany and regions such as the Middle East and Africa. Before that, he was commercial director at L’Oréal for seven years.
Deciem disrupted the skincare industry, bringing ingredient transparency and clinical skincare to the mass market. Its biggest brand, The Ordinary, carved out a niche by offering value-driven skincare products with high-percentage, highly effective formulas. Skincare brand Niod soon followed, positioned at a more premium price point.
Kilner took over the reins as sole CEO in 2018 after Truaxe left the business (he died in 2019). She expanded the brand’s global footprint to include 38 stores and fuelled its e-commerce growth. When ELC took a 76 per cent controlling stake, it valued the group at $2.2 billion.
ELC is facing challenges: in the conglomerate’s fiscal Q1 results, skincare net sales lagged 8 per cent driven by a soft decline in China and sluggish sales in premium skincare, and analysts say ELC, under de la Faverie’s leadership from January next year, needs to shake up its portfolio and play to individual brands’ strengths to reinvigorate consumer excitement. Deciem’s sales were undisclosed.
“Jesper’s appointment recognises his exceptional leadership alongside Nicola since he joined Deciem,” said de la Faverie. “As global brand president, Jesper will focus on fuelling growth by driving authority in ingredients-led treatments, fostering Deciem’s unique culture of agility, innovation and belonging, and helping shape the future of beauty with a renewed focus on their incubator model.”
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