Panel SA: Avon wants to do racial literacy with more than 1 million representatives

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The racial literacy work of Avon’s diversity and inclusion program, which began to be done internally with the company’s professionals, should reach the sales force, made up of more than 1 million people, according to Daniel Silveira, the company’s president. Now, Avon launches the Diva project to speed up the process, as part of the new stage of the EssaéMinhaCor movement, started in 2020.

How has Avon been handling racial diversity?When we look at the black population at Avon, we have a lot to achieve. But we started to accelerate this attraction process at the base of the pyramid, bringing young talents to the company. In leadership positions, we also evolved a lot. We are advancing, we realize more and more that this is an issue that, yes, needs to come from the top leadership. But he is everyone’s theme. You have to convene the entire organization. Top leadership is not enough.

We learned that it is one thing to bring these people into the organization. But once a person is inside, is this environment inclusive? There is a lot of talk about the number of people hired, but are they happy in here? Do they feel powerful, empowered, do they have the space to be who they are? That’s another part of the story that needs everyone.

In this speed up, in practical terms, what will happen?As this is an urgent issue and we owe a lot, it is all at the same time. You can’t choose. We have to do everything together. It has no phases. On the one hand, increasing the inclusion of people and bringing more people into the organization. Then there is inclusion, preparation, leadership.

The Diva project brings the structuring of a talent bank. I discovered something that shocked me: capable black women who saw a position open with a manager title in any company did not apply because they thought they would not pass. I heard this from several black women, including those in the selection process.

That’s why we are building a talent bank. In the first week, there were already more than 300 people who signed up. We’re calling on people on LinkedIn to self-declare, to make it easier to find talent. Let’s work on the racial literacy of the teams.

Last year, with the management, we already made a first deepening of this theme and, this year, we will go further, with several groups starting in November for racial literacy for all audiences,
including the sales force.

Are you going to do racial literacy with the sales force? How big is this?
The employee sales force, which is our first stage of the journey, has around 700 people, who are employees. It’s no use going to the top without the leaders here
are well formed.

In a next step, we started to work with this network of more than 1.2 million representatives. If there’s a place where Avon’s diversity is represented, it’s in this network. Imagine the power of social impact we can have by inviting these people to look at themselves again and find the potency they have in their blackness. Working diversity in the network is the next stage.

And how will this be? Isn’t this communication project ambitious with more than 1 million people?It’s ambitious. But imagine this: we have the ability, every two weeks, in some way, to connect with them to talk about product launch topics, our causes. We are challenging ourselves to take that step. We don’t know exactly how yet.

We know that this leadership of 700 people has a fundamental role because they are the ones who are on a daily basis with this 1.2 million. And we still have our businesswomen who are also autonomous, but take care of a group of people from 200 to 250 people. So, it’s the next layer of this structure.

Beauty companies have the particularity of the products, such as labels that indicate normal hair or lack of makeup for black skin. How do you handle it?This was very connected with our movement last year and became part of our daily lives. We brought our researcher from the United States, who carried out research on Brazilian skin. Between tones and overtones, there’s a gradient that’s not found anywhere in the world, and the products don’t match.

We spent almost two years researching how to reach these tones and last year launched an entire collection. Next year, we’re going beyond makeup. It has products for hair and others. We are already the leader in makeup for black skin, we have four times more market share than the next placed company, and this market is still small. Only 10% of the makeup market is in these shades for black skin.

This has all accelerated since 2020 with the deaths of George Floyd and João Alberto, from Carrefour. Are you here to stay?I have no doubt that it is here to stay. It accelerated too much, but it’s still slow. And we are committed to accelerating further. Therefore, even in the madness of increasing input, crisis in Brazil, political crisis, let’s not stop talking about it. We have absurd business challenges, but let’s not stop talking. Let’s not let go of this topic even in today’s hostile environment.


Daniel Silveira

Graduated in electrical engineering, postgraduated in marketing and master in administration, he has been with Natura for 20 years. At the company, he held senior positions, including business director. Since February 2020, he has been president of Avon Brazil

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