Burns, Robin

(1953-)
Intimate Brands, Inc.

Overview

A major figure in the beauty business for more than 25 years, Robin Burns is president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Intimate Beauty Corporation, a subsidiary of Intimate Brands, Inc., and Victoria's Secret Beauty Company. She leads the development and building of a portfolio of distinctive beauty brands, including the Victoria's Secret Beauty Company. Often demonstrating a "golden touch," Burns has a track record of success in the industry that is almost incomparable.

Personal Life

Robin Burns was born in 1953, the only child of divorced parents, in the small mining town of Cripple Creek, Colorado. She was raised by her mother, Bettina Jones, a very independent woman who taught her daughter to stand on her own two feet. Because she adopted her mother's values (and grew up in the wide–open spaces of the American West), Burns has often been called a "frontier girl." Turning out to be as self–reliant as her mother, she first went to work when she was only 13 years old and would later earn a scholarship to Syracuse University in New York.

After graduating from Syracuse in 1974, Burns considered a teaching career, but she found the red tape of the educational system too restrictive. Instead, she went to New York City to find work. In 1974 she accepted a position in Bloomingdale's executive training program. The regimen at the world–famous department store proved grueling. Burns worked 10 hours a day, seven days a week. But she persevered and would later become one of the city's most powerful businesswomen.

Upon completing the program, Burns worked for Bloomingdale's in home furnishings and later in cosmetics. She followed that by making several career moves that eventually would take her to the top of the cosmetic industry. In 1982 she joined Calvin Klein. In 1990 she was appointed president and CEO of Estee Lauder. In July 1998 she joined The Limited, Inc.

Observers say that major contributing factors to her success are her limitless energy and a passion for the business.

Career Details

From Bloomingdale's executive training program, Burns gained her entrance in the department store world. She started out in home furnishings, first involved with window coverings and then pillows and lamps. Bloomingdale's then wanted her to become more involved with imports. So, when she was only in her early twenties, she found herself making eight–week trips to Europe, India, and Japan. Burns felt as if she were on top of the world. However, she would soon gain a promotion that would keep her stateside and profoundly alter the direction of her career. Bloomingdale's management had always liked the way Burns was able to interact easily with people who were older and more sophisticated than she was, so they promoted her into cosmetics. She first worked in the retailing end, buying men's fragrances. Eventually, she became the head of the beauty department, where she would learn the fundamentals of the cosmetics industry.

Burns left Bloomingdale's in 1983 to take a position in the Calvin Klein marketing department. However, as she did at Bloomingdale's, Burns would soon move on to bigger and better things within the organization. By the time she turned 30, she had become president of Calvin Klein cosmetics. At the time, the company's cosmetics line was struggling. With Burns on board, the line performed a remarkable turnaround. In her seven years in the position, she steered the company through a period of tremendous growth. When she assumed the position, the brand was taking in $6 million a year in sales. By the end of Burn's tenure, it was taking in $600 million. During her seven years, she oversaw the launches of the Calvin Klein Obsession and Eternity fragrances. While at Calvin Klein, Burns learned even more about the cosmetics business, and she applied that knowledge to effective marketing strategies, particularly for the Obsession and Eternity perfumes. For those two products, she produced an innovative ad campaign designed to be openly sexy.

Later, Burns would say that working at Calvin Klein was like earning her Ph.D. It was an appropriate analogy, as each job move in her career turned out to be an educational experience. At Bloomingdale's, Burns learned the fundamentals of the cosmetics industry from Mike Blumenfield, who was then the store's beauty chief. At Calvin Klein, she learned a great deal about business operations, and Calvin Klein himself taught her about marketing. Burns has always been quick to credit people she considered her mentors. These included Blumenfield, Marvin Traub, and Lester Gribetz at Bloomingdale's; Klein and Robert Taylor at Calvin Klein; Leonard and Estee Lauder at Estee Lauder, and Leslie Wexner at Intimate Brands.

In 1989 the Calvin Klein company was sold to Unilever Group. At the same time, Burns was fielding offers by Leonard Lauder, who was the president of the Estee Lauder cosmetics firm, which had been established by his mother 44 years earlier. Lauder was persistent in recruiting efforts, and Burns found herself more and more interested in his offers. Finally, in 1990, she agreed to join Lauder, and she became CEO and president of Estee Lauder USA and Canada. She saw the opportunity as something too good to refuse. For one thing, she realized she would be running a company that many considered to be the greatest and largest in the prestige–cosmetics industry. For another, she would be earning an annual salary of $1.5 million, which, at that time, would make her one of the highest–paid woman executives in the United States. It would also provide her with the kind of professional challenge she relished. Her mission, as she perceived it, was to get the business in shape so that the company could go public. As a result, she would change the internal management and the creative personnel.

At Estee Lauder, Burns learned how to run a huge, complex business. She managed the domestic business of the Lauder brand, which was then ranked number one with $700 million in wholesale volume. She also learned how to manage makeup and treatment at different levels including product development, merchandising, education, and retail. Later, Leonard Lauder would say that he never disagreed with Burns about anything she wanted to do. Products that Burns helped launch included Fruition and Estee Lauder Pleasures, which became the company's first global women's fragrance best seller.

By 1998 the Limited, Inc., the company headed by Wexner, was very interested in acquiring Burn's talents. Wexner wanted Burns to become part of their Intimate Brands, Inc. The company began to actively recruit her, enticing her with the opportunity to build her own brands and develop new retail concepts. Burns joined the company in July of that year. Once there, she created Intimate Beauty Corp. as a subsidiary of Intimate Brands Inc. Essentially, she built the subsidiary from the ground up.

One of her primary goals was to overhaul Victoria's Secret Beauty, which sold mostly low–cost scented creams and body gels. This included developing a line of upscale perfumes, lotions, and makeup. The new line would target women who usually buy their beauty products in department stores. As part of this overhaul, she moved Victoria's Secret Beauty from Ohio to New York, where it became Intimate Beauty's first division, and began transforming the lingerie chain into a more sophisticated retailer. In recent years, Victoria's Secret has become more focused on keeping up with fashion trends. It also reduced the number of discounts offered and raised prices to attract upscale customers.

The Dream Angels Heavenly line was the first collection under the new Victoria's Secret Beauty brand to reach the stores. It includes creams, perfume, mist, and body wash. It proved to be a success, and it showed Burns the power of the Victoria's Secret brand. The next fragrance in the line that was launched, Halo, was another success. Sales were strong in stores and through the Victoria's Secret catalogue and web site. Burns also launched a laundry collection that included high–priced detergents and softeners packaged in pink candy–striped containers.

Burns also started building freestanding Victoria's Secret Beauty stores, designed with chrome fixtures and soft lighting. She is using the same look to renovate areas within the lingerie stores that will be dedicated to beauty products. Part of her plan includes educating salespeople on how to sell beauty products.

In 2001, Intimate Beauty Corporation announced the formation of a joint venture with Shiseido Co., Ltd. to develop, market, and sell new lines of prestige beauty products that will be offered for sale in the Shisheido free–standing stores. Shiseido, which was founded in 1872, is the leading cosmetics manufacturer in Japan. The collaboration is a coup for Burns, as Shiseido sells its cosmetics for men and women in approximately 60 countries. Wexner felt that alliance would allow his company to leverage Shiseido's global expertise in product and package research and development, and he felt the Japanese company would benefit from Intimate Brand's expertise in retailing and brand development. He added that both companies anticipated building a billion–dollar worldwide brand. Burns would function as the CEO of the joint venture.

Chronology: Robin Burns

1953: Born.

1974: Graduated from Syracuse University and went to work for Bloomingdale's.

1983: Hired at Calvin Klein.

1990: Became CEO and president of Estee Lauder USA and Canada.

1995: Launched Obsession with innovative ad campaign.

1998: Joined The Limited Ltd., and created Intimate Brands, Inc.

Social and Economic Impact

Robin Burns is highly regarded as a savvy businesswoman and powerful player in the beauty industry. Through her career, she was such an eager and receptive student of the beauty business that she has become one of its masters. She has been behind some of the best–known name brands in the industry including Calvin Klein Eternity and Obsession fragrances and Estee Lauder cosmetics. She's also known as an innovator who is not afraid to break or bend the rules of established marketing strategies. It was her groundbreaking tactics that turned Calvin Klein Cosmetics from a faltering concern into one of the giants of the fragrance industry. Wexner has said that Burns has the ability to spot trends and predict scale and timing. She has proved that designer–priced fragrances can be sold outside department stores in a vertical specialty store format.

At Calvin Klein, Burns came in and developed a marketing strategy at a company in which there was no marketing strategy. Under her leadership, the marketing team became enthusiastic and devoted. Burns would later say that the Obsession launch in 1995 was the high point of her professional life and her most innovative act. She said she modeled her strategy on ideas she gained from Gloria Vanderbilt, Giorgio Beverly Hills, and Yves Saint Laurent's Opium. The Launch involved a saturation advertising campaign that cost $14 million. In the process, she changed the way fragrances are launched.

Burns turned Intimate Brands, Inc. into a leading specialty retailer of intimate apparel, beauty and personal care products through Victoria's Secret, Bath and Body Works, and Intimate Beauty Corporation. By July 2001, Victoria's Secret products were available through 887 lingerie and 471 beauty stores, the Victoria's Secret Catalogue, and online. The company also offered a selection of personal care, home fragrance, and decor products through 1,481 Bath and Body Works and 129 White Barn Candle Company stores.

Sources of Information

Contact at: Intimate Brands, Inc.
3 Limited Parkway
Columbus, Ohio 43230
Business Phone: (614) 415–7546

Bibliography

"Intimate Brands Establishes Beauty Company in New York City: Robin Burns Named President," Intimate Brands IBI Exclusives, 1998. Available at http://www.intimatebrands.com/press/1998/1208b.asp.

"Featured Woman: Robin Burns," The Strait Times Interactive, July 2000. Available at http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/mnt/html/women/archive/featured1.html.

Born, Peter. "The Burns Equation." Beauty Biz WWD, June 2001.

LicensingWorld.com. "Intimate Brands,Inc. and Shiseido Sign Joint Venture Agreement." Licensing Resource Center, 14 September 2001. Available at http://www.licensingworld.com/news/html/0914001.html.

Hoovers.com. "Intimate Brands." Hoover's Online, 2001. Available at http://www.hoovers.com.