L’Oréal is deepening its long-term funding in Saudi Arabia, positioning the Kingdom on the heart of its regional development technique as demand for magnificence, sustainability and women-led workforce initiatives accelerates underneath Imaginative and prescient 2030.
Talking in an interview throughout the L’Oréal For the Future Summit in Jeddah, Managing Director Laurent Duffier mentioned Saudi Arabia had develop into one of many group’s fastest-growing markets globally, pushed by a younger digital inhabitants, rising shopper sophistication and increasing alternatives within the magnificence economic system.
1. Why is L’Oréal to internet hosting this 12 months’s L’Oréal For the Future Summit in Jeddah? What does the town signify for the enterprise in the present day?
Saudi Arabia is a strategic marketplace for L’Oréal Groupe. Once we speak about our ambitions on this area and globally, Saudi Arabia is on the core of that dialog. It’s a market that’s rising quickly, with a younger, digitally engaged inhabitants and an more and more refined shopper base. In 2025, L’Oréal Center East, led by Saudi Arabia, was the highest 5 contributor to the expansion of the group worldwide.
We’ve got been current within the Kingdom for over 15 years, constructing deep roots throughout our manufacturers, our partnerships, and our folks. Our work is instantly aligned with Saudi Imaginative and prescient 2030; from investing in native expertise, empowering girls to advancing our sustainability and elevating the sweetness trade, our priorities mirror the Kingdom’s personal nationwide goals.
This 12 months, we inaugurated our state-of-the-art places of work in Jeddah, particularly designed to assist our rising workforce, which we plan to double in dimension this 12 months.
Internet hosting the Summit in Jeddah for the second time in a row is a strategic and deliberate selection. The L’Oréal For the Future Summit is our annual platform to showcase our progress throughout 4 strategic pillars: stewarding the local weather transition, safeguarding nature, driving circularity and supporting communities. This version is especially significant as a result of we’re internet hosting it in our newly inaugurated Jeddah workplace marking a key mid-term milestone for our program since its launch in 2020.
2. How did the thought for the Hairdressing Academy first come about, and why has L’Oréal continued increasing the initiative throughout Saudi Arabia?
The Hairdressing Academy is on the very coronary heart of L’Oréal’s foundations. We had been based in 1909 by a chemist who invented the primary hair dye, and in the present day, we’re the leaders in skilled hair merchandise. As a result of the mastery of this career has all the time been central to our story, we take accountability in the direction of the trade. This is the reason we put money into the professionals who convey magnificence to life each day the hairdressers, the stylists, the craftspeople behind the chair.
In Saudi Arabia, the Academy’s mission extends far past technical coaching. It’s a strategic engine for socio-economic impression. By certifying Saudi girls as skilled hairstylists, we’re actively contributing to feminine workforce participation and the financial diversification that Imaginative and prescient 2030 is driving.
The dimensions of the Academy speaks for itself. We now function 5 academies throughout the Kingdom, in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam. The academies are accredited by the Technical and Vocational Coaching Company (TVTC), subsidised by the Human Sources Improvement Fund (HADAF), and held in partnership with Princess Nourah, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal and Effat Universities. Up to now, we’ve licensed over 150 Saudi girls with a 71% employment price. In 2025 alone, we upskilled over 800 hairdressers with 10,000 hours of coaching. By 2029, we intention to certify over 1,000 girls.
3. The Academy is clearly a flagship initiative, however what different programmes is L’Oréal operating to assist girls within the Kingdom?
The hairdressing academy is central to our work in Saudi Arabia, however it’s a part of a wider strategic dedication to girls’s empowerment that runs throughout all the things we do within the Kingdom.
L’Oréal Saudi Arabia runs the Magnificence for a Higher Life programme in partnership with Training for Employment. The programme supplies vocational coaching, digital upskilling, training and employment alternatives for girls searching for careers within the magnificence sector. The L’Oréal Basis has devoted over SR600,000 to this program, and we anticipate 100 girls to graduate and enter the sweetness workforce in 2026.
Moreover, our Kérastase Energy Talks initiative, in partnership with Al Nahda, is a mentorship programme designed to equip Saudi girls with the instruments, and braveness to thrive of their careers. By serving to them maximize their full potential {and professional} self-expression, we’re fostering a brand new technology of feminine leaders. In 2025, the programme has mentored 200 girls throughout the Kingdom.
These programmes mirror one thing we really feel very strongly about at L’Oréal Saudi Arabia: that empowering girls is an ongoing, multi-layered dedication, and one that we are going to proceed to scale in alignment with the Kingdom’s imaginative and prescient.
4. We are able to see that refillable magnificence is a giant theme at this 12 months’s Summit. Is that this one thing Saudi shoppers are literally embracing, and the way is L’Oréal making it accessible?
Saudi shoppers are acutely aware and in accordance with latest research, they actively search out eco-friendly and accountable merchandise and types that mirror their private values.
And refillable magnificence is likely one of the strongest methods we are able to empower Saudi shoppers to make significant and sustainable decisions with out compromising on the expertise and high quality they anticipate from our manufacturers. This is the reason we’ve launched the Refill Motion marketing campaign to speed up this shift in behaviour and to empower shoppers to include refills into their common magnificence routines. The response has been encouraging, and we’re persevering with to increase availability throughout the Kingdom to make this shift as straightforward as potential.
What makes our refillable supply so compelling is its breadth. Refillables are actually accessible throughout all magnificence classes, make-up, skincare, haircare and perfume, spanning our luxurious manufacturers like Kiehl’s, Prada Paradoxe and YSL Libre, our dermatological magnificence manufacturers La Roche-Posay and CeraVe, and our skilled vary together with Kérastase Huile Chic and L’Oréal Professionnel shampoos; guaranteeing that there’s really one thing for each shopper. All of our magnificence advisors are additionally skilled to teach shoppers on the environmental advantages of refillable codecs, so the dialog is going on at each level of sale throughout the Kingdom.
5. If you take a look at L’Oréal’s presence in Saudi Arabia, how do you measure the impression the Group is definitely having right here?
Influence is one thing we measure independently and transparently. In 2025, Asterès, an impartial Paris-based financial analysis consultancy, has performed the primary socio-economic impression research to measure L’Oréal’s impression within the Kingdom
The research confirmed that L’Oréal’s worth chain in Saudi Arabia helps 8,765 jobs and generates SR3.2 billion in whole gross sales. This goes far past our personal places of work and groups, encompassing our suppliers, our distributors, our retail companions, our salon community, and each enterprise that touches our merchandise on their journey to the patron.
Past the financial figures, our social programmes have reached greater than 35,000 folks throughout Saudi Arabia, with a deal with girls’s empowerment, training and upskilling.
For us, the true measure of success within the Kingdom is the legacy we construct. It’s concerning the lives we contact, the skilled careers we assist construct, and the communities we put money into. We’re right here not simply to be a participant within the Kingdom’s market, however to be a basic companion in its transformation.
6. Saudi Arabia has extremely bold objectives for the following decade. How does L’Oréal see its personal future right here becoming into that greater image?
We don’t see ourselves as only a enterprise available in the market, however as a regionally anchored companion dedicated to the Kingdom’s transformation. Our future is according to the ambitions of the Imaginative and prescient 2030. Our technique is to convey the most effective of world magnificence, innovation, and sustainability to assist Saudi Arabia’s nationwide priorities. This future focuses on three key areas:
Empowering Expertise: We’re accelerating the professionalization of the sweetness sector by creating high-value profession paths for Saudi girls and youth. Our aim is to make sure that native expertise isn’t just a part of our workforce however main our development within the area.
Sustainability: We stay totally dedicated to the Saudi Inexperienced Initiative via our ‘L’Oréal for the Future’ programme, the place we’re pioneering extra sustainable and round methods of doing enterprise.
Innovation: As a Magnificence Tech chief, we’re bringing essentially the most superior AI and data-driven options to the Kingdom, supporting Saudi Arabia’s ambition to develop into a world hub for know-how.
We aren’t simply investing in a market; we’re investing in a nation’s acceleration. Our mission is to create the sweetness that strikes the Kingdom.
