The Loring Group Recruits Top Finance Executive for Kendo Brands
July 21, 2021 – San Francisco-headquartered executive search firm The Loring Group recently placed Lauren Festante as global vice president of finance for Kendo Brands. The search was led by partner Rich Kampmann. Kendo Holdings is a San Francisco-based beauty brand developer and wholesaler owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury group. Kendo has become the hub of creativity and next-generation beauty product development for global Sephora channels and selective retailers outside Sephora.
Before joining Kendo, Ms. Festante was with L’Oreal for over 14 years in various roles, including interim vice president and AVP of commercial finance. She was also VP of finance for NYX Professional Makeup and most recently served as head of corporate finance and accounting with dosist, a health and wellness company. She has also worked abroad in France as an internal auditor responsible for auditing across the 130-plus countries L’Oreal had a presence in.
Based in San Francisco, Ms. Festante will report directly to Kendo’s CFO Walter Fischer in San Francisco and oversee a growing 20-plus employees’ team based in San Francisco; Burbank, CA; and Paris. “Lauren will provide financial leadership to support Kendo’s dynamic growth and fiscal discipline and rigor that will continue to drive the company’s profitability and success,” said Mr. Kampmann.
“Diversity, equity, and inclusion was a critical consideration for this search,” says Mr. Caliger. “Our in-house research and operations team screened more than 1,400 candidates across the US for this assignment in less than 30 days and delivered a candidate slate with 50 percent of the candidates being persons of color.”
In April, The Loring Group recruited Midori Overzyl as vice president and controller Kendo Brands. Ms. Overzyl is a forward-looking strategic financial executive with extensive leadership experience. Before joining Kendo, she was vice president of finance and corporate controller for Yamaha Corp. Ms. Overzyl also gained experience in various positions with NGK Spark Plugs, JCB International Credit Card Co. and PwC.
The Loring Group also recently recruited Frederic Lartiguevieille as senior vice president of finance at Kendo Brands. “We learned many valuable lessons during this search that was impacted by COVID-19 that will benefit Kendo Brands and others we work with going forward during the pandemic,” Mr. Kampmann said. Prior to joining Kendo, Mr. Lartiguevieille was with Revlon for nine years, most recently as vice president of finance for the Elizabeth Arden brand managing a team of 200 people worldwide.
The Loring Group focuses on sectors such as technology, consumer products, life sciences, financial services, construction and non-profit. The firm recently completed searches in functional disciplines that include finance, engineering, sales, marketing, human resources, and information technology.
“Some of the reasons why clients choose us for these critical assignments are that our partners were leaders in business before becoming recruiters, and have operating expertise in their industries,” said Steve Caliger, managing partner. “We have our own in-house, dedicated research team like larger firms, but our senior partners do the work on search assignments vs. handing them off to others. These advantages allow us to source better candidates and close out searches faster than our competitors.”
Finding Top Talent
Mr. Caliger and Mr. Kampmann opened The Loring Group in 2019.. “The reason we started The Loring Group was to deliver higher quality work,” Mr. Caliger said. “Our partners were leaders for technology, banking, healthcare and professional services companies before becoming recruiters. We have deep domain expertise in these industries as well as business acumen most executive search consultants lack.”
Mr. Caliger has had a distinguished career as a sales leader and executive search consultant in the technology industry. He is a technology professional who has held leadership positions with several industry icons. With more than 20 years of executive search and consulting experience, Mr. Caliger develops senior leadership teams for sales, finance, product, engineering, and information technology. In addition, he has done work for consumer products, financial services, and non-profit organizations.
Mr. Kampmann has more than 16 years of executive search and leadership consulting expertise. In addition, he has 14 years of leadership experience in the banking and wealth management industries. Mr. Kampmann has performed hundreds of searches for companies around the world at executive and senior management levels. He has supported commercial banks, wealth, and asset managers, for both publicly and privately held concerns. He has also done work for industrial and consumer products companies. Prior to The Loring Group, Mr. Kampmann worked for global executive firms such as Stanton Chase, was an equity partner with Boyden and started his executive search career as a principal with Korn Ferry.
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
