Estée Lauder hands its CTO a transformation mandate to spread 'AI everywhere'
Mid-turnaround, Estée Lauder expanded Brian Franz into chief technology and transformation officer, with an 'AI everywhere' mandate for 14,000 employees.
What was changed
Fortune reported on September 9, 2026 that Estée Lauder, ranked No. 315 on the Fortune 500, appointed Brian Franz to the newly expanded role of chief technology and transformation officer. Franz continues to oversee the global IT team, further integrates partnerships with Shopify and Accenture, promotes internal and external use of AI, and leads enterprise-wide initiatives supporting revenue growth and productivity.
Franz joined about 18 months earlier as the first-ever C-suite leader over all data, technology and analytics at the beauty giant, hired by CEO Stéphane de La Faverie — a 14-year veteran brought in to formulate and execute the 'Beauty Reimagined' turnaround — after CIO roles at State Street, Diageo and PepsiCo. His mandate gives broad access to AI productivity tools — Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT — to all 14,000 employees, alongside narrower use cases to speed formulation and improve manufacturing efficiency.
Already running: a consumer-facing AI scent advisor for Jo Malone London built with Google Cloud, generative AI with Adobe for digital marketing campaigns, a 'formula navigator' tool that has improved product development efficiency by 20%, and the 'Ella' line assistant, which cuts manufacturing changeover time between product runs. Shopify runs the direct-to-consumer omnichannel business, with its agentic discovery feature switching on next month starting with M.A.C. Accenture runs the outsourced technology applications plus many finance, accounting, procurement and HR functions.
Adoption is engineered culturally: a 'reverse mentor' model has younger early adopters teach senior leaders, and each of the more than 20 brands has identified AI champions, now sharing ideas on building AI agents. In August, fiscal fourth-quarter results — driven by strong luxury fragrance and skincare demand — came in above Wall Street's expectations, and the annual profit forecast carried positive upside.
Why it worked
De La Faverie's turnaround plan needed a single C-suite owner of data and technology — the first in the company's 80-plus-year history.
Franz argues running technology must keep getting more productive so investment can shift into consumer-facing, revenue-enhancing, margin-expanding work.
Millions of consumers now discover beauty through chatbots like Gemini and Claude, so the company is honing generative engine optimization — being findable in LLMs and buyable within a click or two.
Culture and change drive the outcomes, in Franz's words: 'The technology doesn't adopt itself.'
What can be applied
Appoint one accountable owner where technology meets transformation, then engineer adoption culturally — reverse mentors and per-brand AI champions — so the investment changes how people work.
Aftermath
Next step is Shopify's agentic feature going live for M.A.C, extending the bet that AI chatbots become a discovery-to-purchase channel; Franz is still early on GEO, and says the ongoing work is unifying decades of data and making daily technology operations productive enough to fund the shift.