MAM
Ethos appoints Vijay Ratnam as India’s managing director
Mumbai: Ethos, the number one online life insurance provider in the U.S. today announces the appointment of Vijay Ratnam as the new India managing director. In this role, Vijay will lead the company’s organizational culture, strategic resource management and planning for growth and expansion in India.
Vijay has over three decades of experience in the tech and IT industry across leading companies in India and overseas. He has been deeply involved in mentoring talent and talent management, as well as collaborating across departments, all with an eye on keeping organizational processes efficient and effective.
Vijay spent more than a decade operating and managing in the tech sector across companies in the U.S. Prior to joining Ethos, Vijay held leadership positions at Cohesity, Dgraph Labs, ThoughtSpot, Citrix, NetScaler and Oracle among others.
Ethos CEO Peter Colis said, “Last year Ethos established its India footprint and launched a full-stack office in Bengaluru. We have onboarded a team of high-quality tech talent that is contributing to our overall product innovation, new product launches, and customer experience. The response has been remarkable, and we are excited to see the progress made so far.”
“Our plan is to continue to grow our world-class Engineering and Product teams in India by leveraging the incredible pool of technical talent available locally, and Vijay will be instrumental in helping us achieve this. Ethos India is a strong component of our global workforce, representing nearly all parts of our business. Together, we are poised to achieve remarkable milestones and contribute to Ethos’ continued success on the global stage.”
Ethos India managing director Vijay Ratnam said, “I am thrilled to join the team and embark on this exciting journey at Ethos India. What began as a modest team in 2022 has now evolved into a significant force. India hosts one of the world’s largest reservoirs of tech and analytics talent. Our strategic vision involves establishing a significant business delivery team in India and assembling a cadre of specialists. We aim to achieve our mission of making life insurance accessible and affordable for all, positively impacting the lives of millions.”
Ethos follows a technology-first approach that integrates complex decision flows with a radically simple consumer experience, to get high-quality insurance closer to its customers. In just a short time, the company has become the insurtech leader that continues to transform the life insurance space across the U.S. Headquartered in Austin, it has employees in key technology and startup hubs including Bengaluru, San Francisco, Seattle, Singapore and more.
With nearly 95 per cent instant approvals, Ethos has been growing at a significant rate and increasing its year-over-year momentum, and now aims to further expand its technology and product offerings by capitalising on the vast tech, IT, and data analytics talent pool available in India.
As an insurtech company, Ethos has secured significant funding from leading investors in the U.S. and continues to gain customer trust with its unique modern tech approach. Ethos was founded with the goal to simplify estate-related decisions and provide life insurance online in the U.S. Ethos has raised over $400 million from an all-star cast of investors, including – Softbank Vision Fund 2; Sequoia Capital; Accel; GV (formerly Google Ventures); General Catalyst; Jay-Z’s Roc Nation; and the investment vehicles of stars Will Smith and Robert Downey Jr. In 2022, Ethos acquired Tomorrow Ideas and was able to fully integrate its critical financial instruments such as legal wills and trusts, free for its insurance customers, into the Ethos platform.
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
