NEW YORK, July 11, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Olaplex Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: OLPX) (“OLAPLEX” or “the Company”) today announced the appointment of two highly seasoned leaders to its executive team. Catherine Dunleavy will join OLAPLEX as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer, effective August 13, and Katie Gohman will join the Company as Chief Marketing Officer, effective July 15.
Ms. Dunleavy brings more than two decades of experience driving the strategy and performance of premier consumer brands. Most recently, she served as President, and, prior to that, as Chief Financial Officer at Away, following tenures at Nike, Comcast, NBCUniversal, and GE. In her new role, she will oversee the breadth of OLAPLEX’s business operations, aligning all functions to most effectively execute on the Company’s strategy and drive results.
Ms. Gohman is a highly experienced marketing and brand leader who brings significant experience nurturing and growing prestige retail and beauty brands. She began her career at L’Oréal and went on to hold marketing leadership positions at L’Oréal, Ralph Lauren, Coach, and most recently served as the CMO at Marc Jacobs. She will oversee the execution of OLAPLEX’s global marketing efforts, driving greater brand awareness, relevance, and affinity with both stylists and consumers.
“I am thrilled to welcome these two talented executives to OLAPLEX as we continue developing a strategy that is designed to harness OLAPLEX’s many strengths and enables our Company to achieve its true potential,” said Amanda Baldwin, Chief Executive Officer of OLAPLEX.
Ms. Baldwin continued, “Catherine is a proven leader with a strong track record of executing high-impact strategic, operational, and financial initiatives at scale at some of the world’s most recognizable brands. Katie’s marketing and creative acumen will be instrumental in our efforts to maximize the power of the OLAPLEX brand and empower and enable the success of our stylist community. I am honored to have the chance to work with each of them as we deliver on the priorities that are aimed at putting us on a trajectory to generate consistent sales and profit growth.”
“I am honored and privileged to join OLAPLEX, a company well-known for creating innovative and superior products through a differentiated science-based approach,” said Ms. Dunleavy. “OLAPLEX is at an important stage of its evolution, and I can’t wait to help build on the work to date to unlock the Company’s tremendous potential.”
“OLAPLEX has successfully differentiated itself as a leader in the prestige hair care category, and I am excited to be joining at such a significant moment for the business,” said Ms. Gohman. “I look forward to working with the talented OLAPLEX team to ensure our customers and network of stylists are best able to benefit from the extraordinary technical foundation of our products.”
About Catherine Dunleavy
Catherine Dunleavy is the former President of the travel lifestyle brand Away. She joined Away as Chief Financial Officer in 2020 after three years at Nike, most recently as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Global Operations, Technology and Vice President, Strategic Investments. Prior to joining Nike, she spent 16 years at Comcast and NBCUniversal, where she served in numerous roles, including Chief Financial Officer of the Cable Entertainment Group and Executive Vice President, Content Distribution. She began her career at General Electric. She serves on the board of TEGNA (NYSE: TGNA).
About Katie Gohman
Katie Gohman joins OLAPLEX from Marc Jacobs, a renowned American global fashion brand, where she served as Chief Marketing Officer. In this role, she reported directly to the global CEO and oversaw the strategic and creative vision for the brand. Prior to Marc Jacobs, Katie served as SVP of Global Marketing and Operations at Ralph Lauren. She previously served as the VP of Global Marketing at Coach and spent the first half of her career at L’Oréal, where she held senior marketing roles for various company brands, including Lancôme, Clarisonic, and Kiehl’s.
About OLAPLEX
OLAPLEX is an innovative, science-enabled, technology-driven beauty company with a mission to improve the hair health of its consumers. In 2014, OLAPLEX disrupted and revolutionized the prestige hair care category by creating innovative bond-building technology, which works by protecting, strengthening, and relinking broken bonds in the hair during and after hair services. The brand’s proprietary, patent-protected ingredient works on a molecular level to protect and repair damaged hair. OLAPLEX’s award-winning products are sold through an expanding omnichannel model serving the professional, specialty retail, and direct-to-consumer channels.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements
This press release includes certain forward-looking statements and information relating to the Company that are based on the beliefs of management as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, the Company. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about: the Company’s chief financial officer transition and expected benefits of Ms. Dunleavy’s and Ms. Gohman’s new leadership roles at the Company; the Company’s strategy and business model; and other statements contained in this press release that are not historical or current facts. When used in this press release, words such as “may,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “intend,” “potential,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “plan,” “target,” “predict,” “project,” “forecast,” “seek,” and similar expressions as they relate to the Company are intended to identify forward-looking statements.
The forward-looking statements in this press release reflect the Company’s current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that management believes may affect the Company’s business, financial condition, and results of operations. These statements are predictions based upon assumptions that may not prove to be accurate, and they are not guarantees of future performance. Neither the Company nor any other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of the forward-looking statements, including any such statements taken from third party industry and market reports.
Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, inherent uncertainties, and other factors that are difficult to predict which may cause the Company’s actual results, performance, time frames, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, time frames, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation: the risk that the Company cannot identify and recruit a permanent chief financial officer in a timely manner; competition in the beauty industry; the Company’s ability to effectively maintain and promote a positive brand image, expand its brand awareness and maintain consumer confidence in the quality, safety, and efficacy of its products; the Company’s ability to anticipate and respond to market trends and changes in consumer preferences and execute on its growth strategies and expansion opportunities, including with respect to new product introductions; the Company’s ability to accurately forecast customer and consumer demand for its products; the Company’s dependence on the success of its long-term strategic plan; the Company’s ability to limit the illegal distribution and sale by third parties of counterfeit versions of its products or the unauthorized diversion by third parties of its products; the Company’s dependence on a limited number of customers for a large portion of its net sales; the Company’s ability to develop, manufacture, and effectively and profitably market and sell future products; the Company’s ability to attract new customers and consumers and encourage consumer spending across its product portfolio; the Company’s ability to successfully implement new or additional marketing efforts; the Company’s relationships with and the performance of its suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers and the Company’s ability to manage its supply chain; impacts on the Company’s business from political, regulatory, economic, trade, and other risks associated with operating internationally; the Company’s ability to manage its executive leadership change and to attract and retain senior management and other qualified personnel; the Company’s reliance on its and its third-party service providers’ information technology; the Company’s ability to maintain the security of confidential information; the Company’s ability to establish and maintain intellectual property protection for its products, as well as the Company’s ability to operate its business without infringing, misappropriating, or otherwise violating the intellectual property rights of others; the outcome of litigation and regulatory proceedings; the impact of changes in federal, state, and international laws, regulations, and administrative policy; the Company’s existing and any future indebtedness, including the Company’s ability to comply with affirmative and negative covenants under its credit agreement; the Company’s ability to service its existing indebtedness and obtain additional capital to finance operations and its growth opportunities; volatility of the Company’s stock price; the Company’s “controlled company” status and the influence of investment funds affiliated with Advent International, L.P. over the Company; the impact of an economic downturn and inflationary pressures on the Company’s business; fluctuations in the Company’s quarterly results of operations; changes in the Company’s tax rates and the Company’s exposure to tax liability; and the other factors identified under the heading “Risk Factors” in Company’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) and in the other documents that the Company files with the SEC from time to time.
Many of these factors are macroeconomic in nature and are, therefore, beyond the Company’s control. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, the Company’s actual results, performance or achievements may vary materially from those described in this press release as anticipated, believed, estimated, expected, intended, planned or projected. The forward-looking statements in this press release represent management’s views as of the date hereof. Unless required by law, the Company neither intends nor assumes any obligation to update these forward-looking statements for any reason after the date hereof to conform these statements to actual results or to changes in the Company’s expectations or otherwise.
Contacts
For Investors:
Patrick Flaherty
Vice President, Investor Relations
patrick.flaherty@olaplex.com
For Media:
Lisa Bobroff
Vice President, Global Communications & Consumer Engagement
lisa.bobroff@olaplex.com
