Founding Member Esi Eggleston Bracey

Esi Eggleston Bracey is a transformational business executive with over 30 years of experience in general management, brand building, and marketing leadership. She has a track record of success in creating, accelerating, and turning around business results across branded product categories, sectors, and geographies through marketing and operational excellence.

Esi has been appointed as Chief Growth & Marketing Officer at Unilever. In Esi’s new role, she oversees one of the world’s biggest advertising budgets. Esi recently led the $5B Beauty & Personal Care portfolio for Unilever North America, which included responsibility for the Hair, Skin Cleansing, Skin Care, and Deodorant businesses with iconic brands like Dove, TRESemmé, Suave, Vaseline, Degree, Axe, and Shea Moisture as well as newer brands like Schmidt’s Naturals and Love Beauty and Planet. She has brought fresh thinking to these businesses and championed high impact purpose-driven efforts like Dove’s founding of the CROWN (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) Coalition to help foster beauty inclusivity and to eradicate hair discrimination through support of the CROWN Act legislation. She is leading these brands and her team powerfully through the COVID pandemic, unlocking unprecedented growth (record H1 performance) and marketplace impact, including noteworthy programs Dove Courage is Beautiful, America Will Not Be Beautiful, and Fathers Taken programs.

Prior to joining Unilever, Esi spent more than 15 years as a leader in the dynamic global cosmetics industry. She held the position of President of Coty’s Global Consumer Beauty Division and Senior Vice President of Procter & Gamble’s Global Cosmetics leading a portfolio of flagship international makeup brands, including COVERGIRL, Max Factor, Sally Hansen, Rimmel London, Bourjois, and more. An energetic and dynamic leader known for creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, she is consistently recognized for her ability to guide organizations through brand-building excellence, agility, and operational discipline in light of competitive pressure and a rapidly evolving marketplace. She is well known for her disruptive work on COVERGIRL partnering with unconventional beauty talent (Queen Latifah, Pink, Ellen, Janelle Monae) before their prime, breakthrough new product innovation, and unexpected pop culture tie-ins partnerships (sports, movies, female empowerment) that fostered record brand love, equity, and sales growth. She has been recognized with numerous awards including the Ad Color Legend Award, BE Powerful Women in Business, Ebony Power 100, BET Butterfly Award, Cosmetics Executive Women Achievers Awards, Advertising Age Women to Watch, Women’s Wear Daily Marketer of the Year, and many more.

A native of Chicago, Illinois, Esi graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire with a Bachelor of Arts in Engineering Sciences. Esi is married with two children (15-year-old daughter Anura and 11-year-old son Benoit). She currently lives with her family in New York City.