MAM
Polygon elevates Aishwary Gupta to lead global business push
Leadership elevation signals a sharper push into stablecoins and global payments.
MUMBAI: Money, it seems, is moving faster and Polygon Labs wants to be the one setting the pace. The blockchain firm has elevated Aishwary Gupta to global head of business, a leadership move that comes as regulated stablecoin payments and cross-border money flows move from theory to real-world adoption.
Gupta’s promotion marks a pivotal moment for Polygon Labs as it sharpens its focus on building financial infrastructure that can work at institutional scale. Having played a central role in forging enterprise and institutional partnerships across markets, Gupta now takes charge of global business strategy, ecosystem expansion and enterprise relationships at a time when blockchain-based payments are gaining both regulatory clarity and commercial momentum.
“When I joined Polygon, I believed blockchain would fundamentally reshape how money moves,” Gupta said. “What I didn’t fully anticipate was how quickly that conviction would be tested and validated.” He added that years of partnerships and negotiations with global institutions have reinforced one clear signal: the world is ready for better money infrastructure.
The elevation aligns with Polygon Labs’ broader ambition to build what it calls the Open Money Stack, a vertically integrated platform designed to power regulated stablecoin payments and seamless global money movement. The strategy has been reinforced by recent acquisitions, including Coinme and Sequence, expanding Polygon’s reach across key layers of the payments stack.
Through Coinme, Polygon gains licensed fiat on- and off-ramps across 48 US states. Sequence strengthens enterprise-grade smart wallet infrastructure, enabling one-click cross-chain transactions. Together with Polygon’s core network, the stack supports stablecoin settlement with fast, predictable finality with over $2.2 trillion in on-chain value already transferred.
The Open Money Stack is designed to strip out long-standing friction in global payments, from correspondent banking dependencies and settlement delays to restrictive cutoff times. The promise is straightforward: payments that settle in seconds and integrate directly with existing financial systems, rather than working around them.
“The vision is simple, empower anyone, anywhere to move money instantly,” Gupta said. “No correspondent banks, no settlement delays.” He added that the next three years will shape how money moves for decades, and that Polygon Labs is positioning itself to lead that shift from the front.
As blockchain infrastructure inches closer to the financial mainstream, Gupta’s elevation signals Polygon Labs’ intent to move from experimentation to execution and from potential to scale.
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.
