Vol. 3 - Rachel Korenstein, Orveon
Lessons you should take to your Kore-nstein. Today i sit down with Rachel, a truly exceptional marketer and leader responsible for bareMinerals, Laura Mercier & BUXOM Cosmetics
Meet Rachel:
I am of the belief that marketing is part magic and part maths and today’s guest is someone who manages to make both of those elements sing together.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with the amazing Rachel, a true marketing guru who has a ton of experience building campaigns that don’t just grab attention but actually make people care, crave, and advocate.
From cutting her teeth in ad land to holding several director roles across social media, influencer & content at Estée Lauder, Rachel caught the eye of the good folk over at Orveon Global and is now Executive Director of Global Consumer Engagement across Orveon’s three brands: bareMinerals, Laura Mercier and BUXOM Cosmetics.
But, as you will learn in this chat, Rachel believes success in marketing isn’t just about clever ideas; it’s about building strong teams, a human centric approach, constant learning, and fostering a culture where creativity and performance go hand in hand.
Buckle in. Rachel rocks!
The Interview:
What drew you to the beauty industry?
Yeah, it's so funny and I get this question a lot. I actually studied performing arts in college. so I had big aspirations of coming back to New York and being a professional dancer, which I did for a little bit. But New York is expensive and I wanted more stability, so after a few jobs I landed on the agency side of advertising.
I was like, this is really cool. It's creative. It's fun. It’s challenging.
Then my boss from Havas went over to Estée Lauder and he eventually brought me over to work there. So that's how I came into it. It was really by relationships, by chance and by good work ethic.
But as a consumer, I've always loved beauty, mostly skincare - I was such a skincare junkie, probably starting in my 20s. So when I did switch over I remember people saying ‘my god that makes so much sense, that's where you were always going to go’.
I genuinely love the products. I love playing with them and trying them out and learning more about every part of the development process from how it was made to what I do at the end of the line. So I think for me I guess this is really integral to who I am.
What do you wish you knew before entering the beauty industry?
I mean, truly I was such a fish out of water, and I thought I'd be like, ‘I've worked for brands. I know what it's gonna be like’.
I think one of the biggest things that I've learned is, for how big the beauty world is, it's such a small industry. I don't know the number of people who work in it, but you always know someone who knows someone who knows someone. And that continues to blow my mind. You're always going to have a friend or a peer, someone to network with or connect with, who has insider knowledge.
But it is a good reminder that this industry is all about relationships. Just look at how i entered it. Everyone's just kind of rotating around so meet as many people as possible.
Best piece of advice you have received?
I'm really fortunate when I was at Estée Lauder, that they had very formalized, robust mentorship programs to pair you with mentors for guidance and career development. Which I really appreciated.
I don't know if I can pinpoint one thing that one person has said, but I think for me through those meetings it became apparent that it's really important that you take time to chart your career and the course that you want to take versus just being in it and doing what is expected of you.
That's what it always was for me, I'd get a job and then you do well and then you get a promotion and then you get another job and blah blah blah.
But I think you really have to be the one to chart the course and whatever happens in your career is 100% up to you. I think it's important to think it's not just about up, it's about out. What are the things that you want to do? What's going to make you unique and stand out and feel satisfied and satiated?
You don't have to stop at any one thing. Just because you're doing social media today doesn't mean that you can't do product marketing tomorrow, or become a CMO.
What’s one skill, or area, you are actively working on to improve? And why is it important to you?
I think for me it's kind of twofold. I have full funnel marketing experience. From GTM to digital, brand and campaign work, I have done a lot of work to ensure I have had exposure to it all.
I think the next piece for me is to improve my understanding of the back end. What does product development marketing look like? What does product positioning look like?
I want to work on my knowledge of how to market a product from start to finish and bring things to market in cool and new ways.
Moment you are most proud of in your career to date?
In the digital and social space these days, success is sometimes defined as making a product go viral. I am fortunate to have had that happen twice in my career:
Clinique’s Black Honey
But i think that type of stuff can’t really be totally controlled. They're definitely great but you can't predict them and it's how you ride that wave.
But when I think about something that I'm really proud of because of how we engineered it, i think it is the work we’ve been doing recently with bareMinerals and what we’ll continue to do with you guys at Duel around community building.
We have put in so much work to shift the narrative and the excitement that people have around the brand. And we've seen a great change. I've been here for 2 years and we're starting to see it go from “I love bareMinerals” in private to “You guys have to try this” in public.
Or even people who were previously critical and are now fans of the brand. This is the best thing ever - turning them from the critics into the advocates. so I think that stuff I'm most proud of because we're actually making a long-term impact here and changing the story of this brand.
It's very intentional and purposeful and every single little thing that we've done along the way has brought us here and will continue into the next era of that. And I don't think we take enough time to take a step back and say ‘look at how far we've come with this brand.’
Marketing campaign you wish you had come up with?
I loved what CeraVe did with Michael Cera last year.
I just thought that was so clever. They were making fun of themselves and not taking themselves too seriously which kind of left you thinking ‘is this real’. But it was everywhere across social, influencers, OOH, storefronts and more. And everyone was talking about it.
I loved every single part of the campaign. There were so many little touches that just made you laugh and kept you engaged and entertained. It’s a dream to come up with a big splashy moment like that.
A book you think all aspiring fashion leaders should read?
I'm an avid reader. «gestures to a chocker block book case behind her desk»
I'm going to plug ourselves here. I'm gonna say: Leslie Blodgett - Pretty Good Advice.
Leslie is the founder of bareMinerals. I’ve read many books from CEOs in the beauty space. and I think what I like about hers is it's not your traditional leadership book. It’s not like ‘follow these principles and you're going to become a CEO’.
It's fun, it's funny, it's humorous, it's relatable, and I think that is so true to her and so true to the brand. I think it's what we try to embody in the brand. It also has a very people first mindset which i try to embody that as a leader myself. It’s a great read.
1x resource you use to stay ahead in this rapidly evolving industry?
I was thinking about where I got my news the other day. And honestly, it's TikTok.
My ‘ For You’ page is excellent. The algorithm is working. I am afraid to check how much time i spend on TikTok and I definitely had withdrawals when we didn't have it for a day in the States.
But as you say, it is a fast evolving industry but if something's trending on TikTok, you see it everywhere else three weeks later. But when you see it everywhere else, you are already behind. The speed at which information or trends are discussed on that platform is so rapid that I don't need to go somewhere else to read the recap of what's happening on the platform.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
We joked about it in Orveon. We were like, if TikTok goes away, where will trends come from then?
So if Tiktok is banned, where will you turn?
Gosh, I don't even know. I am seeing more amazing things on LinkedIn and have been fortunate to build up a great network.
It’s a great space, when connected to the right people, to have conversations with industry peers in real time. I think some of the publications have taken some time to write a lot of the content.
In addition to all of the digital channels, I think it's important to be in the weeds and learn directly from the people.
Your one to watch?
I actually always reference them but Duolingo. They're my favorite follow on all things social media because the way they do everything is so fun.
It’s obvious their social and digital teams are given free range to do the things that they want to do and that's kind of how I inspire my team to work as well. I've used Duolingo as a case study and referred to our own data to leadership that some of our best performing content wouldn't have been made if they had to run everything by every single person up the telephone pole.
So I think Duolingo does awesome things. RIP Duo though!
I love Away as well. I think similarly they're really tapped into culture. They did a lot around the Olympics and a ton of great partnerships, like with White Lotus. I just find it fascinating how you can take something like luggage and integrate it so seamlessly into culture.
They’re a great example of not marketing the product but marketing the brand.
Brand / product you can't live without?
My bathroom is so embarrassingly stocked to the brim of things that I've amassed from all my jobs. Also having friends in the space you can do a lot of product swaps as well so I have a lot!
Narrowing it down is so hard but i love fragrances and probably spend far too much on fragrances.
Couple favourites at the moment are Carbone from Balmain. That’s probably my top one at the moment that i just added to the collection. They’re like my prize possessions.
But it depends on my mood. I really like Le Labo Thé Noir. Frederic Malle Portrait Of A Lady. I feel these are all the classic ones that every New York City person who's working in beauty or fashion knows about but they're so good. It's addictive.
Industry hot take?
As we have seen recently, we don't know the future of any of these digital platforms. I think diversification is key not only for brands but for creators. When TikTok went down, we saw influencers be like ‘I've built everything on this platform and now what? How do I rebuild that community’. So with community being so important for brands and creators, I think diversification is a big one and figuring out how to get cross platform community development.
And then with that, we need to progress from social first to people first. We need to find ways to make them feel more connected to the brand and the community we have developed while fulfilling their innate desires and needs.
Secondly, i think we need to look outside of our industry. We spend so much time looking at our competition in our market but our competition transcends our industry.
When I worked agency side, one of the strategists used to remind us that as marketers and as brands, we are competing for attention. We are competing with every single app on a consumer's phone. Netflix. Whatsapp. And everything else. We are human. We have interests. So if you are trying to capture attention with these niche communities, figure out how to infiltrate it through their other interests. So look to other trends and find ways to collab. Gardening. BookTok etc. So you need to think big picture and not just ‘did you see what Dior lipstick did here’. Don’t operate in a vacuum.
Advice to your younger self
I would say to worry less about this prescribed corporate ladder and the perceptions that come with that.
Not to be morbid but something i tell my team is…
‘when you die, it's not going to say director of _____ on your gravestone or obituary.’
For most, it is going to say the other awesome stuff you did outside of work.
So don’t worry so much about these things. I appreciate it can be hard especially in a place like this, New York City which is so career focused. But i think it is key to ensuring you’re a well-rounded and happy person.
Follow Rachel
Rachel is a truly fascinating and insanely knowledgable marketer who benefits from having both an agency and brand side lens. She’s a great follow, always up for sharing advice and an all round great egg.
There is also a chance to work directly with her right now with some incredible roles open at Orveon.
Connect with Rachel on Linkedin and be sure to follow bareMinerals, Laura Mercier and BUXOM’s social channels if you don’t already They are doing incredible things and they are putting their foot on the gas!
Til next time x