Bloom, P&G's Cosmetics Chief, Quits Company to Join Rite Aid
April 26, 2011
Bethann J. Bloom, tapped by Procter & Gamble Co. in 2009 to help the consumer-products giant bolster its cosmetics business, is leaving the company to join Rite Aid Corp.. Although P&G has about a 29% share of the U.S. mass-market cosmetics business, it has a mixed track record with its Cover Girl and Max Factor brands. The company faces intense pressure from rivals such as Revlon Inc. and France's L'Oreal SA, the world's largest cosmetics maker, which recently acquired Maybelline in a bid to boost its presence in the U.S. P&G is seeking to sell its mass fragrances businesses to focus on the Max Factor and Cover Girl lines, as well as fine fragrances. P&G named Marcelino S. Piper to succeed Ms. Bloom as vice president and general manager of the business. Mr. Piper had been managing P&G's skin care business in the United States, whose products include Oil of Olay moisturizing cream. Ms. Bloom joined P&G in 1981, fresh out of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school. She helped build P&G's Always feminine protection brand, and before joining the cosmetics group she was the general manager of shortening, cooking oil and olestra. Rite Aid is looking to give its stores a fresher look, with a new prototype for new outlets and makeovers for some current ones. The free-standing model store is about 10,000 square feet, compared with the roughly 7,500 square feet of the average Rite Aid, and it offers of certain items, including beauty aids. In an interview with the Vast Press earlier this year, Ms. Bloom said of Rite Aid's new focus: ``Cosmetics has been something they carried because they had to. Now they are looking at it as something they have to invest in.''
