The biggest challenge for a beauty brand is often not coming up with a new product but turning that idea into something safe, reliable, scalable, and ready for the market. Without the right partner to develop formulations, manage product development, create suitable packaging, manufacture at scale, maintain quality, and meet regulatory requirements, even a promising cosmetic concept can face delays, higher costs, inconsistent quality, or fail to reach consumers on time. Faber-Castell Cosmetics helps beauty brands overcome these challenges by supporting product development, formulation, packaging, manufacturing, quality, compliance, and supply chain management.
Leading this work is Dr. Franco Lucà, Managing Director of Faber-Castell Cosmetics, who brings nearly three decades of international experience across cosmetics, packaging, luxury goods, and e-commerce.
He focuses on strengthening customer partnerships, improving operations, driving innovation, and expanding global capabilities. His leadership has delivered measurable results, including 12.5% year-over-year revenue growth, 35.8% higher order intake, and 8.3% above-budget performance at Faber-Castell Cosmetics.
These achievements reflect his ability to turn customer needs, innovation, and disciplined execution into sustainable growth.
A global journey built on curiosity and growth
With more than three decades of international experience, Dr. Lucà has built his career around curiosity, continuous learning, and a strong interest in creating organizations that deliver lasting value. His professional journey has taken him across Europe, North America, and Asia, where he has led businesses in packaging, luxury goods, cosmetics, fashion, and e-commerce. His experience with family-owned businesses and private equity-backed companies has helped him understand how to balance long-term vision with strong day-to-day execution.
Each leadership role has added to his perspective. At Aptar and GEKA, he developed a deeper understanding of innovation, operational discipline, and the importance of staying close to customers. Later, as CEO-Asia Pacific of Intercos, he worked in one of the world’s fastest-growing beauty markets, helping the business expand, strengthen its digital capabilities, and build stronger relationships with leading beauty brands.
His time leading Faber-Castell Cosmetics further demonstrated his ability to turn strategy into measurable growth. Through a clear commercial direction, closer customer relationships, and disciplined execution, the company achieved double-digit revenue growth while building a stronger foundation for the future.
Dr. Franco Lucà brings this international experience to a new chapter. At the heart of his leadership philosophy is a simple belief: lasting transformation begins with people. He focuses on creating an environment where talented teams have the clarity, confidence, and freedom to take ownership, innovate, and work together toward better results.
Adapting to the new beauty landscape
The beauty industry changes quickly. Consumer preferences shift, product development cycles are becoming shorter, and customers expect partners that can respond faster while maintaining high standards of quality and sustainability.
When Dr. Lucà joined Faber-Castell Cosmetics, the goal was not simply to increase sales but to unlock the company’s wider potential.
He focused on several areas:
- Sharpening the commercial strategy
- Improving operational efficiency
- Strengthening collaboration across teams
- Improving planning and forecasting
- Building closer relationships with global customers
- Creating stronger accountability across the organization
One of the key challenges was bringing different parts of the organization together around common priorities. Greater transparency in planning, better forecasting, stronger accountability, and closer relationships with global customers helped create a more focused and connected organization.
The results were clear. Revenue grew by more than 12% year over year, order intake increased by almost 36%, and the company exceeded its budget expectations while strengthening its long-term commercial pipeline.
For Dr. Lucà, these results reinforce a simple belief: sustainable growth comes from disciplined execution, continuous learning, and the willingness to embrace change while staying focused on customer value.
True partnership in action
Faber-Castell Cosmetics stands apart by combining strong technical expertise with close customer partnerships. Rather than simply manufacturing cosmetic products, the company works alongside leading beauty brands to turn market trends and customer needs into practical, successful products.
Innovation is part of the company’s everyday work and goes beyond product formulation. It covers packaging, sustainability, manufacturing, supply chain improvement, and customer collaboration. Teams from research, product development, engineering, manufacturing, and commercial functions work together to bring ideas to market while maintaining high quality standards.
Reliability is another important strength. Beauty brands need more than creative ideas. They need consistent quality, regulatory compliance, scalable production, and dependable delivery. Faber-Castell Cosmetics has built long-term trust by providing these capabilities across global markets.
At its core, the company focuses on solving real customer challenges. By understanding changing market needs and anticipating what beauty brands and consumers will require next, Faber-Castell Cosmetics aims to create solutions that deliver lasting value.
The three forces revolutionizing modern beauty
The future of cosmetics is being shaped by three major forces: sustainability, digital technology, and personalization. Consumers now expect beauty products to be responsibly sourced, environmentally conscious, and transparent from development to the final product. Sustainability has therefore become an essential part of doing business, rather than simply an added advantage.
At the same time, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and other digital tools are changing how cosmetic products are developed, demand is forecast, and customers are understood. Brands that combine technology with creativity will be better positioned to respond to changing market needs. Personalization is also becoming increasingly important as consumers seek products that align with their individual preferences, lifestyles, and values. This calls for greater flexibility across product development, manufacturing, and customer collaboration.
Throughout his career, Dr. Franco Lucà has focused on preparing businesses for change rather than simply reacting to it. His experience with sustainable lipstick technologies in Asia and commercial transformation across Europe and North America reflects this approach. He believes long-term investment in sustainability, digital capabilities, agile teams, and strong customer partnerships will help shape the future of the cosmetics industry.
Bringing the right people together
For Dr. Franco Lucà, innovation begins with creating a culture where people feel trusted, encouraged to question existing practices, and confident enough to share new ideas. He believes strong results often come from collaboration, bringing together teams from research, manufacturing, commercial operations, marketing, and other functions to solve customer challenges.
Continuous learning has also played an important role in his leadership journey. His doctoral research in change management and business sustainability continues to shape his approach to organizational growth and long-term improvement. He believes sustainable transformation requires ongoing learning rather than isolated initiatives.
Throughout his career, Dr. Lucà has worked with international customers, academic institutions, government organizations, and industry partners on innovation and sustainability initiatives. In China, he collaborated with the Shanghai Fengxian Government through the Oriental Beauty Valley ecosystem to strengthen connections between industry, research, and public institutions.
As a speaker at international conferences and industry events, he also shares knowledge and learns from diverse perspectives. For him, meaningful innovation comes from bringing different experiences and disciplines together to create value for customers, organizations, and society.
Trust is the ultimate beauty ingredient
Trust is at the heart of every successful partnership in the beauty industry. While consumers see the brands and products on store shelves, their success also depends on manufacturing partners that can consistently deliver quality, safety, innovation, and reliability. For Faber-Castell Cosmetics, this responsibility begins at the earliest stage of product development and continues through formulation, sourcing, manufacturing, packaging, and delivery.
Maintaining consistent standards across global operations requires strong quality systems, strict regulatory compliance, and continuous investment in technology and people. Whether a product is developed in North America, Europe, or Asia, customers expect the same level of quality and reliability.
Sustainability is also an important part of this approach. Responsible sourcing, lower environmental impact, sustainable packaging, and efficient manufacturing are becoming essential to long-term business success.
Under this leadership approach, transparency remains central to building lasting customer relationships. Open communication, accountability, integrity, and a commitment to continuous improvement help Faber-Castell Cosmetics strengthen customer confidence and build partnerships that last.
Accelerating growth and market presence
For Dr. Franco Lucà, leadership is measured by results rather than promises. Throughout his career, he has worked with strong teams to turn business strategies into measurable growth and lasting progress.
During his tenure at Faber-Castell Cosmetics, the company achieved:
- 12.5% year-over-year revenue growth
- 35.8% increase in order intake
- 8.3% above-budget performance
- Stronger commercial capabilities
- Expanded partnerships with global beauty brands
- Greater business presence across Europe and North America
Earlier, at Intercos China, Dr. Lucà helped drive significant revenue growth while improving profitability. He contributed to strengthening the company’s position in China’s growing beauty market, expanding its digital capabilities, developing sustainable product innovations, and building strategic partnerships.
For him, these numbers are important, but lasting success goes beyond financial performance. His greatest measure of leadership is building organizations that remain strong, capable, and ready to grow even after a leadership transition.
Best ideas come straight from the customer
Throughout his career, Dr. Franco Lucà has learned that customers often recognize emerging opportunities before companies do. For him, listening closely to customers is an important part of effective leadership and business growth.
While leading businesses in Asia, he saw consumer expectations changing faster than traditional product development cycles. Customers were looking for faster innovation, more sustainable solutions, and products suited to local preferences. In response, he strengthened collaboration between commercial teams, research and development, operations, and customers. This closer cooperation helped shorten development cycles and bring new products to market more efficiently.
He also believes that constructive criticism can be a valuable source of improvement. By listening to customer feedback and responding to changing needs, organizations can build stronger partnerships, make better decisions, and remain relevant in a rapidly changing market.
The five core principles of true excellence
Financial performance is an important measure of business health, but it is not the only measure of success. For Dr. Lucà, true excellence comes from achieving strong results responsibly, consistently, and with a long-term view.
His approach to leadership is built on five key principles:
- Integrity
- Customer focus
- Accountability
- Innovation
- Continuous learning
Integrity builds trust with employees, customers, suppliers, and shareholders. Customer focus keeps business decisions connected to real customer needs. Accountability encourages people to take ownership, while innovation helps organizations stay relevant as markets change. Continuous learning ensures that past success does not lead to complacency.
His international experience across Europe, Asia, and North America has also shown him the value of diverse perspectives. He believes organizations perform better when global expertise is combined with local understanding and people from different backgrounds are encouraged to contribute.
For Dr. Franco Lucà, successful leadership ultimately means leaving an organization stronger than it was before. When employees grow, customers remain confident, partnerships become stronger, and the business creates lasting value, success goes well beyond financial results.
Dr. Franco Lucà’s 5 impactful business mantras
- Put People First: Empower people to take ownership, innovate, and grow.
- Stay Close to Customers: Listen to customer needs and turn feedback into better decisions.
- Make Innovation Matter: Use innovation to solve real problems and create lasting value.
- Execute and Adapt: Set clear priorities, act with discipline, learn continuously, and embrace change.
- Build for the Long Term: Strengthen people, partnerships, and the organization for sustainable success.
