From Engineering Roots to Industry Leadership

Under Melis Del Rey’s leadership, Amazon Beauty has reached new heights. The skills she used to grow it, though, come from an unexpected past professional life.

“I did quite a wide spectrum of engineering jobs, stretching from hands-on production to more research-led, more technical and scientific modeling because I was doing my PhD and I was a researcher as well in an academic institution,” she said of her background in manufacturing engineering. “When I look back, those years were really foundational in skill building, but I always knew at the back of my mind that I wasn’t going to pursue a career in engineering.”

After that came the first move to beauty when she joined Procter & Gamble in the U.K., working in consumer goods, from Pantene to Olay to Herbal Essences and eventually Pampers. As well as giving her vital P&L experience, it also allowed her to get a taste of the beauty industry for the first time, a sector that she fell in love with.

She had a two-year stint leading Amazon’s pet supplies division in London before joining Amazon’s European beauty business, eventually moving across the pond and becoming health and beauty general manager at Amazon U.S. Stores.

Del Rey posited that the verticals are more alike than they are different. “There is now a clear convergence of customers’ behaviors across beauty, health and wellness so there is no better time for us to think bigger in terms of how we can innovate across these spaces and think more holistically from a consumer perspective,” she said.

Although Amazon has far north of 150 million Prime members, Del Rey thinks the key is to approach each of them individually.

“Personalization really matters in these categories, as well as understanding everyone’s health and wellness needs,” she said. “In the wellness category, inspiration matters too, because now you see a lot of new trends in these categories.”

In terms of the beauty business, Amazon has made great strides as of late, attracting prestige brands like Clinique and Kiehl’s that for years held off from joining the platform.

“I’ve had numerous chats with all of these brand founders and CEOs, and they’ve been hugely helpful in so many ways, helping us understand how we can continually raise the bar on behalf of them and on behalf of our customers,” said Del Rey.

This has included storefronts and personalization tools — and she’s not done yet. “We have been very busy launching a lot of new brands. We have more than 100,000 beauty brands on Amazon, so our selection is vast, but we are continually adding incredible brands. Even in the last few months of this year, we’ve added The Ordinary, Laura Mercier, Kiko Milano last week, and we have so many more exciting brand launches coming up.”

As for her leadership style, consistency is key.

“I try to be as consistent as possible with my actions, because I think consistency matters a lot for any leader,” she said, although that doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. “But also when you are doing all of that, you have to be empathetic. You have to be also willing to serve others’ needs. You’ve got to be understanding of what’s going on around you and the context.”

One thing that has helped her develop both the businesses she serves and her own leadership style over the years is goal setting.

“Goal setting for yourself is very important. I always set out what do I want to do in this role? How do I want to grow as a leader? What are my key objectives for the next few years as a leader for myself? And nobody asked me to set these goals. Frankly, it’s just for myself, for my personal growth plan, and that served me well.”