Shiseido's Alessio Rossi on 'fostering the community with authentic, relatable content’

Today, "digital" is practically synonymous with fashion and beauty. But to boast an advanced knowledge of the digital world in the early aughts is what Alessio Rossi, evp of Shiseido and Clé de Peau Beauté and head of digital transformation for the Americas at Shiseido, considers "serendipitous." "I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time, so that today, people can consider me a veteran of the space," said Rossi on this week's Glossy Beauty Podcast. Brands were taught to be "one talking to many," he said of the first wave of digital 20-plus years ago. "We weren't necessarily taught to listen, to get feedback and to engage in many multiple, concurrent, sometimes synchronous conversations with our audience... That was a huge change for brands around the world, specifically in luxury." Rossi landed at Shiseido six years ago, after over 12 years in the luxury industry with companies like L'Oréal and Kering. In January 2021, he transitioned to his current position, where his main task is discovering "the ongoing redefinition of what luxury beauty online means from an experiential standpoint," he said. Now, Rossi harnesses social as a community-builder, ensuring Shiseido's spot as a key successor in the U.S. beauty landscape and responding to customer preferences changed by Covid-19. The pandemic pushed shopping toward livestreaming and direct selling, he said. "We tried to reinvent the proposition immediately because this is what was needed. And we are in the process of reinventing it because consumers [have even more] options now."