MAM
Wieden + Kennedy India onboards senior strategists – Tania Dey and Snigdha Bose
Mumbai: Over the past year, since Santosh Padhi took over as CCO and Ayesha Ghosh joined as President W+K India, the agency has opened up a Mumbai office and has made hires at the top level. Anirban Roy came on board as strategy head, Kapil Batra as NCD and Shreekant Srinivasan as Head of Delhi. The agency has been selective in signing up clients like Jio 5G, Clove Dental, Casio G Shock; campaigns for all of whom are in the making.
Famously, the agency puts work above all else and to that end, their selectivity extends beyond the clients they sign-up, to their recruitment criteria.
After a careful assessment of skills, values and cultural fit, Snigdha Bose and Tania Dey have been welcomed aboard the Delhi and Mumbai offices respectively.
Dey has always been interested in the intersection of technology and human behaviour. They bring with them skills in customer experience roadmaps and building omnichannel brands.
Bose has been a qualitative researcher, in which role she honed her understanding of the subconscious motivations that guide people’s decisions and behaviour. As a strategist, she has used these skills to craft brand solutions that people would feel a real need for and resonate with.
Wieden + Kennedy India head of strategy Anirban Roy commented, “For the past year, we have been working towards onboarding the right kind of people and an eclectic mix of brands that we want to work with – so I am happy to have found Tania Dey & Snigdha Bose. They bring very different skills to the table which will add different colours to the strategic function. I am confident that they will influence both the creative output and the business outcome for our clients.”
Wieden + Kennedy India president Ayesha Ghosh said, “W+K’s creative prowess is what it is because it is guided by depth. Talented people like Tania and Snigdha are the ones who dig deep while not being afraid to take intuitive leaps. With them on board, we feel further inspired and strengthened.”
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.
