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Shiseido: China CEO Kentaro Fujiwara promoted to group president and COO
Japanese cosmetics giant Shiseido is about to reshuffle its senior hierarchy. On January 1 2023, Kentaro Fujiwara will assume the role of president and chief operating officer for the group. Fujiwara is currently the CEO of Shiseido China, and in his new role he will be working alongside Shiseido’s group president and CEO, Masahiko Uotani. The latter has been at the helm of the group since 2014, and will assume the role of chairman of the board of directors, while retaining the CEO post.
Fujiwara joined the Shiseido group in 1991. An experienced international executive, he worked in Germany and then in Paris as head of commercial operations, later taking charge of the group’s European distribution hub. In 2011, he was appointed head of Shiseido in South Korea, and in 2018 he assumed his current role in China.
Soon after his arrival, the Shiseido group’s performance was buffeted by the pandemic’s impact on its revenue in Japan and China, the group’s two main markets. To become less reliant on these regions, Shiseido has strengthened its position in Europe. First by launching in France Ulé, a natural skincare brand whose key ingredients are grown on a vertically integrated farm north-west of Paris, then by acquiring last September Gallinée, a brand founded by French entrepreneur Marie Drago in 2016, which exploits active probiotics to soothe, balance and strengthen the skin. The group is also looking to the USA for new acquisitions.
In the first nine months of fiscal 2022, the Shiseido group's sales grew by 4.7% to JPY762.7 billion (€5.2 billion). However, net of the positive exchange rate effects linked with the yen’s depreciation, revenue actually fell by 4.1%. The Shiseido group is still forecasting an annual revenue in 2022 of JPY1.070 trillion (€7.3 billion), equivalent to a 5.9% increase over 2021.
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