Women’s Wear Daily hosted its 13th Beauty C.E.O. Summit at the Breakers in Palm Beach this week. The three-day invite-only conference began on Monday with 270 C.E.O.s and other executives from the top 100 beauty companies in attendance.
“[This] the only meeting of record for beauty industry people to get new ideas and hear from the most cutting edge speakers from all over the world,” said Jennifer Wayne, events manager for summits at Fairchild Fashion Group, a division of magazine publisher Condé Nast, who led the team of five event coordinators. “[Attendees] come for the coverage [in our publication] and the information that’s given that can’t be given anywhere else.”
The summit began with an outdoor cocktail party sponsored by cosmetic brushcompany Anisa International on Monday night, followed by a private dinner hosted by iVillage. Unlike traditional conference schedules that consist of breakout sessions and keynote presentations, the summit stages its meetings with all attendees in the same session all day.
"When doing breakout sessions, attendees can pick and choose what they want to hear," Wayne said. "At this summit we get all the top C.E.O.s in the industry in the same room to hear the same information from our speakers who address critical issues facing the industry today and talk about solutions."
Following Tuesday’s meeting, Fairchild staged an afternoon spa party in the cabanas surrounding the hotel pool. Sponsored by Foot Petals, a women’s high heel cushion insert company, the event included pedicure and reflexology stations, a branded drying lounge in Foot Petals’ logo colors, and themed drinks and snacks catered by the hotel.
After the treatments wrapped up, market research company Communispace Corporation hosted a poolside cocktail party before dinner in one of the hotel ballrooms. A presentation from Konstantin Andricropoulos, vice president of strategy and development for Russian fashion and beauty conglomerate Bosco di Ciliegi, filled out the dinner program. Boutique fragrance house Cosmo International sponsored an after-party in the next room, which offered paparazzi-style photo opportunities from Lila Photo. Ronen Bar and Furniture Rental created a custom photo board to display the pictures at Wednesday’s meeting before guests took them home as keepsakes.
