PARIS — Kering Beauté has named veteran beauty executive Nathalie Berger-Duquene chief executive officer of Creed, effective May 6.
This follows the departure of Sarah Rotheram at the end of October, as reported. In the interim, Kering Beauté’s CEO Raffaella Cornaggia has been managing the high-end niche fragrance brand.
Charged with spearheading the next phase of development for the high-potential business, Berger-Duquene will be a member of Kering Beauté’s executive committee and will be based in London, reporting to Cornaggia.
Like her new boss, she joins Kering from The Estée Lauder Cos., where Berger-Duquene was global general brand manager of Balmain Beauty since 2022.
A graduate of French business school ESSEC, she started her career at Guerlain prior to joining L’Oréal in 2005, where she held various positions at brands including Biotherm, Helena Rubinstein and Lancôme, before being named general manager for fragrances at L’Oréal Luxe France.
In 2019, she joined Lauder as general manager EMEA for Tom Ford Beauty and Kilian Paris, subsequently being appointed senior vice president global marketing at Tom Ford Beauty.
Kering Beauté revealed it was acquiring Creed in late June 2023 in a deal that reportedly cost about $3.8 billion. That marked the French luxury group’s first major acquisition after starting to build an in-house beauty division in early February 2023.
Creed is also the first niche fragrance brand to be owned by Kering, giving it entrée into a red-hot product segment. Since the acquisition, the brand has expanded its feminine fragrance portfolio, with the launches of Carmina and Queen of Silk.
Creed logged sales of more than 300 million euros in 2024, with a strong performance in the United States, said Jean-Marc Duplaix, Kering’s deputy CEO in charge of operations and finance.
“It’s a brand with much greater potential than that,” he told a press conference in February. “There’s a lot of demand for unique fragrances, and that’s really Creed’s proposition.”
The house dates back to 1760, when it was begun by James Henry Creed during the reign of King George III of England.
Over the years the Creed family produced more than 200 perfumes, including the cult bestselling men’s fragrance Aventus Cologne, Viking, Himalaya and Green Irish Tweed.
Based in Paris, with a factory in nearby Fontainebleau, Creed manufactures many of its own essences using a traditional infusion technique that enables the brand to maintain the quality and authenticity of its fragrances.
Other fragrance brands in Kering Beauté’s portfolio include Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Pomellato and Qeelin.
Kering Beauté is using Creed as a gateway into the high-end perfume segment in terms of distribution, production and logistics, Duplaix said. After the introduction of a range of niche fragrances for Bottega Veneta last year, it’s working on a launch for Balenciaga this year.
“In the next few years, perfume is the absolute priority for Kering Beauté,” said Kering chairman and CEO François-Henri Pinault.
