“My whole career has been about how technology is changing industries, and that’s exciting for me,” said Michelle Peluso at the 2025 WWD Beauty CEO Summit in conversation with CVS Health’s Musab Balbale — who was Peluso’s colleague at the retailer until last fall, when she took the helm as Revlon’s chief a little more than a year after the company emerged from bankruptcy.
Before her time at Revlon and CVS, Peluso held senior leadership roles at IBM, Citi and Travelocity — and she’s bringing learnings from each era to her current undertaking: restoring growth to Revlon.
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“It’s a rare person who’s both great at what they do and a fantastic leader of people and a great culture-bearer,” Peluso said. “I fundamentally believe we need leaders at the top of Revlon who are ‘and’ leaders; who are exceptionally good at what they do — the best at innovating, the best at storytelling, the best at building relationships with retailers and with technology — and they’re exceptionally good at driving the culture forward.
“Maybe not everyone feels that way, but if you don’t, you don’t belong at Revlon.”
With this uncompromising approach, Peluso is looking to optimize operations at every level of the company — from its respective portfolio brands to international markets to retail and beyond. Already, the company is back to seeing dollar sales growth — even in China, one of the industry’s most challenged markets — but the real signifier of success, Peluso said, “is going to be unit growth, customer growth — that kind of retention.”
To get there, Revlon is doubling down on speed.
“We’ve now formalized a speed lane as well as a traditional lane for building product — that’s super important, because some trends move fast and we can’t use the same processes for everything we do,” she said, adding that AI is one key lever enabling this new pace. “We’re using AI to think about fast packaging iterations — things that would normally take six to nine months, can happen in a few hours.”
Localization, too, is important to resonate with consumers in different markets, especially in an increasingly divided global landscape.
“We’re dealing with a dynamic tariff environment, with macroeconomic uncertainty and backlash against American companies — those things are real. Any of us who don’t appreciate, frankly, how many levers China has, don’t have the story right,” she said, adding the company is “showing up as very local in the countries we serve.”
For instance in China, the company is capitalizing on the success of its Elizabeth Arden skin care capsules and emphasizing stock keeping units with brightening benefits, while in Sydney it adds SPF to certain color cosmetics products. In the U.S., the company just inked a fragrance deal with Bronx, N.Y.-born rising rapper, Ice Spice.
“Our brand exists to be unforgettable, to live boldly — those common elements must manifest themselves everywhere,” said Peluso, adding that showing up a little bit differently around the globe is key to maintaining a consistent impact.