Avon Products Inc. CEO Jan Zijderveld stepped down upon the completion of the sale of the company to Brazilian personal care and cosmetics company Natura & Co on Friday.
Natura agreed to buy Avon in May 2019 through a share swap that valued the over 130-year-old company’s equity at around $2 billion. Roberto Marques, Executive Chairman of the Natura board since 2017, was named group CEO.
In his nearly two years at Avon, Zijderveld was credited with transforming the company into a digital beauty company by modernizing its direct-selling model. He joined Avon after a 30-year career at Unilever. Angela Cretu will succeed Zijderveld as the new CEO of Avon with responsibility for the business outside of Latin America and for oversight of the Avon brand globally. She has been with Avon for over 20 years in various executive roles, most recently as group vice president and general manager for Central Europe responsible for 18 countries.
The combined entity, which also includes The Body Shop and Aesop, will be the world’s fourth largest pure-play beauty company with 3,200 stores worldwide, annual gross sales over $10 billion and more than 40,000 employees, according to Natura.
