Coty’s chief scientific officer retires

13-Jun-2017 - Last updated on 14-Jun-2017 at 14:27 GMT

Having stayed on to help the company through the P&G brands acquisition and integration, Ralph Macchio is now leaving Coty.

In his role as the chief scientific officer and senior vice president of global research and development for Coty, Ralph Macchio “was responsible for all scientific, global regulatory and consumer affairs,” according to his profile on the Coty.com leadership page.

Honors and achievements

Reflecting on Macchio’s time at Coty, the company’s CEO Camillo Pane, says “Ralph has been an amazing R&D leader in the beauty industry and retires after a truly distinguished career. He has developed many iconic products over the years, pioneered radical and breakthrough technologies and authored numerous patents. These include our highly successful Sally Hansen Miracle Gel, one of the biggest nail successes in beauty, having won 34 awards, and Rimmel Lash Accelerator Mascara, proven to help grow lashes, to name just two.”

Macchio and his team have an award winning record. In 2007 he was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award in Product Innovation. And “in 2011, under his leadership, the Consumer Goods Technology Group awarded Coty the Achievement in Innovation Award,” as his Coty leadership profile notes.

Career milestones

Macchio began his career in science having earned degrees in both biochemistry and chemistry from the State University of New York at Albany. He went on to work at Revlon for 12 years in roles spanning junior chemist to color cosmetics department manager.

In 1992 Macchio was hired at Coty and has worked there ever since. (In fact, his current role as the chief scientific officer and senior vice president of global research and development is the only professional position listed on his LinkedIn profile.)

The road ahead

As of Tuesday, when Coty officially announced that Macchio is retiring, no successor had been named. It’s a big role to fill, but the company intends to appoint the next chief scientific officer soon.

“My many thanks, and those of our Board and Executive Committee members, and all his colleagues at Coty go to Ralph for his leadership, commitment, drive and passion for our business, and for the expertise he has brought,” Pane says in the company press release announcing Macchio’s exit. “We wish him a great retirement.”