An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Everything is a design for learning. Every day is a continuation of expecting the unexpected and simply dealing with it. When you’re focused on innovation for a product, an industry, a ‘new normal’ even: you need the ability to go from one place to the right place, and we do this every day. While I am taking these leaps every day, all of our teams in the business are too. It’s a collective effort and belief.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Paul Peros.
CEO of RÉDUIT and its parent company WELLFULLY, Paul Peros has over 30 years of experience under his belt of disrupting the beauty-tech sector and the wider wellness market. Prior to RÉDUIT, Paul led a number of successful luxury consumer brands, including his time as CEO of Swedish beauty brand FOREO which he saw turn into a global market leader with over USD 1 million in revenues in just 5 years. Paul plans to expand the beauty-tech market far beyond what we know of it today and in turn empower others to use their initiative and be brave, just as he has done each step of his journey.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Physics has always been a huge passion of mine, it’s actually what steered a lot of my career decisions. I was fortunate to be able to obtain an MBA from IMD, Lausanne, and a BS in Physics from UCLA.
Prior to RÉDUIT, I was at the helm of several successful luxury consumer brands including Swedish beauty-tech brand FOREO. I also spent over 10 years in management consulting roles in different places around the world including Dubai and Perth, before moving to Switzerland, which is where I live now.
My background in physics coupled with my experience in the beauty world and my keen passion for nature’s own principles, particularly magnetic fields is what led me to believe that there must be a way to improve the current beauty sector. Particularly in the area of beauty application devices. I applied the principles of physics to introduce enhanced delivery systems to the beauty industry that in fact already exist in the pharma world. This led to the creation of the revolutionary beauty innovations we have at RÉDUIT today.
My mission has always been the same, to empower others to be brave, take initiative and learn from mistakes along the way, which are inevitable. I now spend my time leading the charge at RÉDUIT where I still have a very hands-on approach. I like to be involved in the day-to-day decision-making of the brand and have a good overview of what is happening at every level.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
We are focusing on providing different technological solutions in the field of ingredient delivery to optimize the active ingredients in our consumer’s skincare while also ensuring we are matching the fast-paced, ever-changing market trends and demands. To be more precise, at RÉDUIT we are creating technology to deliver your active beauty ingredients precisely where you need them most, giving you better performance and increased effectiveness in your daily beauty regime.
Our parent company, WELLFULLY, has been growing its know-how in advanced drug delivery technologies and applications across the last 20 years, finding ways of getting active ingredients to where they are needed in a controlled and effective way. So it felt fitting to bring this technology over to the beauty world and see the shifts we could bring to it.
A great example of our ‘disruptive’ work is RÉDUIT’s newest product, the BOOST. With BOOST we have coupled our enhanced delivery systems with ultimate personalisation to create never-before-seen technology that works in tandem with our consumer’s existing skincare routine. Each BOOST device is programmed specifically for the user, taking into account their age, gender, location, climate factors, skin concerns, skin tone, skin type, and more. All of these factors create a personalized profile that allows BOOST to deliver the best active ingredients to your skin that it needs the most.
For us at RÉDUIT, in order to be always ahead of the curve, one of the most important things is research. We must always be on top of the latest and most current trends, to the point where we can predict future ones and what is coming around the corner. This allows us to be ahead of our competition and have time to develop our products and truly bring forth new, trail-blazing innovations to the market. The same can be said for other industries too, not just beauty. We were able to spot the trend for enhanced delivery in the pharma market which enabled us to apply these features to the beauty world. Innovations in one sector can spill into other sectors and the same applies to hot trends.
Furthermore, like in physics and the great leaders before us like Eisenhower and Einstein — once you have created, invented, and launched something special — there is no limit to what is possible.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
It was probably the wrong assumption of equating our products to the traditional beauty products that are already present on the market. When you are designing and creating a completely new product using new features and technologies, it’s simply not possible to follow “old” patterns of doing things, such as packaging, technology or development. Without considering every possible outcome, this can lead to more hours spent in the laboratory or manufacturing site at a later stage, which can compromise the whole product launch process.
The key to learning was — the importance of learning itself. We adjusted the organization and our processes to make sure we were maximizing the exploration of “unexpected phenomena” when designing products at RÉDUIT that nobody had ever seen or created before.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I was fortunate to always have had amazing mentors. At GEA my mentor was Mario Consiglio, one of the firm’s founders from 1965 with over 50 years of experience that included directing Confindustria — Italy’s chamber of commerce that was led by legends such as Benetton, Agnelli, and Pininfarina. During my time at FOREO, I also worked closely with Filip Sedic, the company’s founder and one of the most astonishing entrepreneurs I’ve ever had the chance to meet. Additionally, I was blessed to have support from Steven Schapera, an expert in luxury beauty and the founder of Becca Cosmetics.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Disruption is the new normal, and every business has to make the choice for itself whether it will be disrupting or being disrupted. This also isn’t a one-off challenge, it’s how a modern business scene operates. Moreover, from an entrepreneurial point of view, disruption is needed, if not essential, in order to constantly evolve along with the market, making sure you don’t get left behind and bringing bigger and better things to consumers. It’s always a good thing for businesses to be reminded that they need to evolve. Staying still isn’t an option if you want to progress and thrive.
Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
- Innovate. And never stop innovating.
- Failure does not exist.
- Always expect the unexpected…
and
4. Be ready for anything.
5. Start your day with a clear idea of what you need to achieve and how to make that happen.
Explanations:
- Everything is a design for learning. Every day is a continuation of expecting the unexpected and simply dealing with it. When you’re focused on innovation for a product, an industry, a ‘new normal’ even: you need the ability to go from one place to the right place, and we do this every day. While I am taking these leaps every day, all of our teams in the business are too. It’s a collective effort and belief.
- Every failure brings some success as long as you learn from it. It brings you somewhere more along the path, and even if that is a path you weren’t planning to take, sometimes these mistakes take you to where you need to be. You must go past the limit. For example… you need to spin out a few times in the car before you learn how to avoid it right.
- & 4) In business, but also in life in general, you have to always stay up-to-date and on track with all the possible outcomes, so you can prepare in advance and react promptly. You can keep learning and putting all the effort in the world, but if you’re not ready to react appropriately to let’s say emerging trends and show your hard work, you simply won’t make progress.
Time is the most valuable asset we have. They don’t say for anything that time is money. For this reason, make good use of it. The way to do it is to have a defined set of goals and mini-actions every day.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
If you want to be disruptive and innovative, the cogs have to always be turning! All I will say is…watch this space!
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
I really liked the late Hans Rosling. All of his speeches are phenomenal, “The Magic Of the Washing Machine” in particular is a favorite of mine. Putting things from the world around us, and our activities into perspective.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart.”, but also “You are your own worst enemy.” which ties in with the first quote really nicely in my opinion.
At the end of the day, how we live our life and the attitude we want to adopt is totally up to us. Just like all of the big disruptors in the world so far, it takes courage to bring something completely new and unheard of to the market, but if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it!
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
The discipline and practice of critical thinking. As simple as that — the rest will follow.
How can our readers follow you online?
Please, you can check out my career journey here: LinkedIn
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Meet The Disruptors: Paul Peros Of RÉDUIT On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
