JAN ZIJDERVELD
CEO, AVON
BREATHING NEW
LIFE INTO AVON
THROUGH SOCIAL
SELLING
H
ow and why did you come
to join Avon?
I wa s b o r n i n t h e
Netherlands, went to
University in New Zealand,
and started with Unilever in
Wellington. I had a 30-year career
with the company, the past seven
as its president for Europe.
However, this time last year,
the opportunity with Avon came
along: an iconic brand, with an iconic
business model, but a company that
wasn’t doing too well. The challenge
24 //
Future Talent
for me was to try something new
and see whether I could help bring
this great business back to life.
How have you approached being a
man at the helm of a company that
calls itself “the company
for women”?
It’s not about being male or female,
it’s about representing what the
company stands for. Avon has
products for women, sold by
women. I strongly believe in that. This
company stands for women’s values.
Iconic brand Avon has been selling its
products house to house and woman to
woman for 130 years. We spoke to new CEO
Jan Zijderveld, who is overseeing the
company’s digital makeover to create a
business fit for the 21st century.
We have given almost
a billion dollars over our
lifetime to awareness and
action plans around breast
cancer. I feel really proud about that.
I happen to be male, but I strongly
believe in what we do.
In 2018, you launched a new
strategy for the business,
introducing an ebrochure? Could
you explain your reasoning?
We’ve been selling woman to
woman via brochures for a long time.
With technology, we realised that,
we could create a business where
we maintain that direct connection:
not only a physical brochure, but
one that can be distributed via
WhatsApp or Facebook, that people
can look at whenever and wherever
they want to.
It’s now in 50 countries, and
10% of all of our brochure views are
via the electronic version; we only
launched six months ago. We’ve
reached a whole new generation
of people.
How did you communicate
these changes to your sales
representatives and employees?
We have invested in training and
development. We have six million
beauty entrepreneurs out there.
Some don’t want to change, but
a big percentage see this is as an
opportunity to grow their business.
We’ve identified those who are really
keen to grow and trained them.
Internally, we started by
confronting reality. We had a nice
business, but one that needed
modernising. We came up with
a strategy called ‘Open Up’ – we