Joanne is the chief operating officer of Walker & Company Brands, a family of brands designing health and beauty solutions for people of color. Joanne brings more than 15 years of experience in beauty, retail, and consumer packaged goods from previous roles within the prestige cosmetics industry at The Estee Lauder Companies. Most recently, she was the senior vice president & international general manager of the company’s luxury skincare brand, La Mer, where she led sales and operations across 1,500 points of retail distribution in 70 markets throughout Europe/Middle East/Africa, the UK, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America, as well as the duty-free and spa channels globally.
Prior to joining The Estee Lauder Companies, Joanne was a management consultant in Accenture’s Retail Strategy practice. She holds a bachelor’s degree in both economics and art from Northwestern University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.
In Joanne’s role as COO at Walker and Company, she partners with CEO, Tristan Walker, to manage internal and external operations to grow the company’s stake in the health and beauty market for people of color. She is responsible for overseeing the planning, development, and execution of the organization’s strategic initiatives, while managing supply Chain, product development, sales, business development, customer success & education, talent, and human resources. She partners closely with the CEO to identify the company’s roadmap for growth through both product and commercial innovation, and an operating framework that scales with discipline, business processes and balance.