This CEO doubled luxury watch sales to women. Now she’s using that experience to reinvigorate legacy beauty brands

Ginny Wright, CEO of Orveon Global, is using her time leading Audemars Piguet Americas to inform her growth strategy for BareMinerals and Laura Mercier.

[Photo: John Parra/Getty Images for Laura Mercier]

Ginny Wright, CEO of beauty conglomerate Orveon Global—owner of BareMinerals and Laura Mercier—is no stranger to the beauty business. She spent much of her career rising through the ranks of L’Oreal, eventually becoming president of legacy skincare brand Kiehl’s.

Then, in 2021, she pivoted to work in luxury as one of the few female CEOs in the luxury watch business when she took the helm of Audemars Piguet Americas. During her tenure, she prioritized marketing to women, raising the percentage of women purchasing watches for themselves from 14% to more than 30% in just over four years.

Now back in the beauty industry, Wright is using her knowledge of the luxury consumer to find new areas of growth for Orveon’s premium brands. In particular, the company is moving quickly in India with prestige brand Laura Mercier.

At a recent summit at Harvard University’s Loeb House—organized by The Shift, a media platform devoted to women shifting culture—Wright spoke to Fast Company senior staff writer Elizabeth Segran about discussed what she learned from the male-dominated luxury watch industry, how young people should think about their careers and what beauty consumers are looking for now.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

You spent a long time at L’Oreal—what was your trajectory to the beauty industry, and what led you to shift to luxury watches?

I thought I was going to go into politics or become a lawyer. I started down that path for about a year, and then I wanted to be a press secretary. I’ve always been the kind of person who hears something interesting and thinks, “I’ll try that road.”

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