Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) UK & Ireland has shifted its focus to growth after the owner of MAC Cosmetics and Clinique completed a global turnaround programme that ended in June.

The restructuring, which included job cuts and a streamlining of operations across the business, concluded a plan first announced in November 2023 as the 'Profit Recovery and Growth Plan' (PRGP). The company launched the PRGP to boost flagging sales. It then expanded the programme in February last year under the banner 'Beauty Reimagined', which ran until its conclusion in June.

Now, with the turnaround complete, the UK and Ireland arm of the business is looking towards what Senior VP and GM Pernilla Nyberg describes as the next phase — identifying what she calls the 'levers of growth'. TikTok Shop features among the avenues under consideration for the business.

"Beauty Reimagined is really our foundational strategy and vision," Nyberg told Cosmetics Business, positioning the completed programme not as a closed chapter but as the base on which the company's forward plans now rest.

The distinction matters. A foundational strategy, in Nyberg's framing, suggests the structural changes made during the restructuring period — the operational streamlining and the workforce reductions — are intended to remain in place as the permanent architecture of the business. Growth initiatives, including the evaluation of TikTok Shop as a retail channel, would then be built on top of that foundation rather than requiring further structural overhaul.

For ELC, the completion of the plan marks the end of a difficult stretch. The company entered the Profit Recovery and Growth Plan in November 2023 with sales in decline, and the programme's expansion under 'Beauty Reimagined' in February last year widened its scope. The cost of that effort included job cuts across the global business and a leaner operating structure.

The UK & Ireland business, which Nyberg leads as Senior Vice President and General Manager, now operates within that leaner structure. Her comments to Cosmetics Business indicate the priority has moved from cost discipline and operational repair to expansion — with the social commerce channel TikTok Shop specifically in view.

The choice of channel would align ELC with a retail shift that has gathered pace across the beauty sector, where live and social commerce platforms have become significant sales drivers for colour cosmetics and skincare brands. MAC Cosmetics and Clinique, the two brands identified within ELC's portfolio, both operate in categories where TikTok Shop's demonstration-led format has proven effective.

Nyberg's title — 'levers of growth' — signals a deliberate, mechanism-by-mechanism approach rather than a single broad push. Whether those levers extend beyond TikTok Shop to further channel, brand or category initiatives is likely to become clearer as the UK & Ireland business sets out its plans under the completed 'Beauty Reimagined' framework.

For now, the direction is unambiguous: the restructuring era is over at ELC globally, and the UK team's attention has turned to growth.