Brands
Shrey Walia elevated at boAt Lifestyle to Business Head – New Business Verticals
MUMBAI: boAt is sharpening its growth playbook. The consumer electronics brand has elevated Shrey Walia as business head – new business verticals, expanding his remit even as he continues to lead wearables and accessories, one of the company’s largest and most competitive segments.
In the newly broadened role, Walia will drive expansion across emerging product categories, build scale in new markets and unlock fresh revenue streams across boAt’s fast-growing portfolio. The move signals a clear intent: double down on category creation while tightening leadership at the core.
Walia has been with boAt for over two years and currently heads wearables and accessories, a role he will continue alongside his new responsibilities. His elevation comes at a time when boAt is pushing beyond audio and wearables to deepen its presence across adjacent consumer electronics verticals.
Before joining boAt, Walia spent over six years at Amazon, where he held multiple leadership roles across wireless audio, accessories and mobile categories. As category head, he steered strategy for wireless accessories and audio, and earlier led P&L for Amazon’s mobile business for brands including Oppo, Vivo and Huawei.
Prior to Amazon, he was business head at ShopClues, where he built and scaled the refurbished and pre-owned business across B2B and B2C channels, making the platform a category leader at the time. His earlier stints include handling handset and tablet businesses at Samsung Electronics, managing over Rs 120 crore in annual revenue across key Haryana markets, and starting his career as a senior analyst at The Smart Cube.
An alumnus of Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi, Walia also served as joint secretary for corporate relations and placements, where he helped deliver 100 per cent placements and expanded recruiter participation across sectors.
With a deep bench of marketplace, category and P&L experience, Walia now sits at the centre of boAt’s next growth chapter—tasked with finding the next big bets, and making them scale, fast.
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.
