HJ Reports: L’Oréal Professionnel Portfolio Summit

Cannes was the perfect backdrop for this year's Portfolio Summit, Jayne Lewis-Orr reports

The L’Oréal Professionnel Portfolio Summit in Cannes combined business and networking, bringing together likeminded individuals to share problems and find solutions.

Returning to the UK business, newly-appointed Managing Director, Aurélien Guibret opened Portfolio. “The UK is a leader in this industry, setting the benchmark with visionaries and innovators pushing the limits with entrepreneurs building successful businesses. This passion for hair drives an entire industry, and success is about coming together to listen, connect and spark ideas for the future, using this collective intelligence.”

Sussan Verghese reinforced the brand's three key principles: putting professional expertise at the heart of everything with hair technology that works from cortex to cuticle, and innovations that elevate both stylists and clients. "We are hair tech pioneers," she declared, highlighting transformative care products and disruptive heroes in the product line-up.

Cannes beachfront

Living in a world of change, Monica Teodoro went on a Portfolio history journey from colour experimentation in the 1990s to consumerism and ecommerce in the 2000s to mobile tech, personalisation and hair health being paramount in today’s society. “We saw an opportunity to bring the best in the business together to share common goals with a group that is forward thinking, entrepreneurial and enterprising, and collectively elevate the industry. Consumers are now digital natives and this industry has evolved and demonstrated resilience through turbulence.”

Guest speaker, Professor Damian Hughes, co-host of the High Performance podcast delivered powerful insights on organisational change. He identified why change often fails - through fear, force, or overwhelming facts - before outlining Dr. Joseph Campbell's five stages of change: Dream, Leap, Fight (the "messy middle"), Climb and Arrive.

He emphasised, "The quality of your questions determines the quality of your answers," suggesting engagement-focused inquiries rather than autopilot questioning. He went on to highlight how resistance to change often stems from threats to status, autonomy, relationships or fairness.

For leaders navigating the difficult "Fight" stage of change, Damian recommended anticipating obstacles: "Ask what could go wrong, what could kill it, and how you'll handle problems. By asking these questions, you increase resilience and never forget that people want to be seen, be heard and be loved."

Aurélien Guibret

Next up was tech entrepreneur Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE who painted a picture of tomorrow's salon experience, where AI, automation and data exploration could transform client interactions. "We need to explore how to get creative leaders in a space or place that is different to where we are now, as the imagination of today shows up in the world of tomorrow," she noted, describing potential innovations from dynamic pricing to wearable devices that overlay training information.

She challenged guests to consider "whose future are we in?" highlighting how technology often happens to businesses rather than being shaped by them, and illustrated this with examples of technological bias, from voice recognition systems that struggle with accents to car safety features designed primarily for men. Her practical advice for the businesses in the room included building learning tribes, making ‘high-quality mistakes,’ and embracing the principle of ‘Build, Measure, Iterate.’

"The UK is a leader in this industry, setting the benchmark with visionaries and innovators pushing the limits"

Throughout the Portfolio Summit, the core themes of authenticity and purpose continued with Daniel stressing the importance of understanding what motivates your team to get out of their bed in the morning as he added, “Teams are four times more productive when driven by a common purpose.”

Tech entrepreneur and MBE Dr. Anne-Marie then highlighted humility, “Knowing what you know and don't know is essential for innovation, as teams are curious. You need to learn from mistakes and share those learnings with the team remembering that this industry is defined by creativity, community, and connection, elements that are not easily replicated by technology.”

The speakers, combined with networking dinners and team activities, reaffirmed the theme of partnership that ran through the Portfolio Summit, and is certainly the key to its success.