Waldencast’s Creative Council members, from top left: Mazdack Rassi, Mona Kattan, Geoff Cook, Jyothi Rao, Brooke Wall, North Piers and Roger Schmid (Courtesy)
This week Waldencast, the beauty and wellness company, announced that it was forming a creative council, which will serve as an advisory board for future incubations and acquisitions.
The council, whose mission is to identify trends and cultural shifts that will impact the incubator’s roster of companies including Milk Makeup and Obagi, is made up of seven members with experiences ranging from beauty and retail, to design and branding. The council counts Mazdack Rassi, global brand director at Waldencast, beauty industry veteran Roger Schmid, Mona Kattan, founder of Kayali fragrances and Huda Beauty, Jyothi Rao, senior advisor at Boston Consulting Group, Brooke Wall, founder and chairperson of The Wall Group, Piers North, Of The North’s creative director, and Geoff Cook, partner and head of growth at Base Design, as members.
”The vision was to put together a variety of people that are disruptors in the industry,” said Hind Sebti, Waldencast founder and chief growth officer and CEW Board member. “They have shown to … be macro-trend led in terms of how they built their business.”
The council will meet three times a year and will advise on high-level brand-led initiatives instead of product categories and price points. The group will be led by Rassi, who also founded Milk Studios and Milk Makeup. Rassi will interpret and relay the council’s suggestions to key stakeholders, including brand founders, teams and investors.
While beauty incubators particularly have a reputation of playing with trends and creating brands of the moment with little focused strategy, Rassi said brand founders with strong communities and purpose-driven labels will be pivotal to the future of Waldencast.
”Micro-trend driven ideas are driving everyone towards the same place … and there’s no differentiation,” said Rassi. “We wanted to create a group that had a different timeline, five to 10 years, that ideates around creativity and where things are going in terms of culture.”
Rassi added that although the beauty market is saturated with trend-driven brands, labels that embrace cultural moments, including sports, music, identity, fashion and entertainment, will continue to innovate and occupy a unique place in the market. Brands that don’t evolve with the culture are likely to stagnate, said Rassi.
