Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Two women are leading JPMorgan’s acquisition of First Republic, FIFA is threatening to not stream the Women’s World Cup in some of Europe’s biggest markets, and Michelle Pfeiffer is bringing transparency to the fragrance industry. Happy Wednesday!
– Scent of success. In a beauty industry oversaturated with celebrity-backed brands, having a founder who is passionate about the product—and not simply slapping their name on a line—is critical to standing out. Among the current crop of famous founders, almost no one is as knowledgeable about their product as Michelle Pfeiffer.
The actor is the founder of the fragrance brand Henry Rose. Hearing her discuss fragrance formulations and ingredient transparency, it’s clear she’s an expert on the industry. The brand debuted in 2019, more than a decade after Pfeiffer first began to consider creating a new kind of perfume.
Michelle PfeifferWeiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images When she had children, she started paying closer attention to the ingredients in the products she used. Oftentimes fragrances were dinged by outside organizations like the Environmental Working Group that rated products based on the safety of their ingredients. But Pfeiffer discovered that the problem wasn’t that so many perfumes were toxic, but that information about their contents wasn’t available. Manufacturers kept their formulations under lock and key to the point that they refused to share ingredient lists. Unable to find fragrances she could fully evaluate herself, she stopped wearing scents for a decade.
The launch of Henry Rose, which Pfeiffer self-funded, helped nudge the industry in a more transparent direction. The brand shares information about all ingredients in its products, warning consumers of potential allergens and communicating that ingredients are used at safe levels. For the traditionally secretive fragrance industry, that was a groundbreaking shift that helped convince other brands they could do the same.
Four years in, Pfeiffer is ready to expand that influence. Henry Rose raised its first round of outside funding from Sandbridge Capital, Fortune is the first to report. Sandbridge’s portfolio includes beauty brands like Ilia, Madison Reed, and Youth to the People. The company declined to disclose the size of the round.
“I needed to have complete control over the brand in the early stages because we had set the bar so high,” Pfeiffer says. “We’ve proven our business model, so now it makes sense to bring in a strategic partner who can help us get to the next level.”
Scents made by Henry Rose, Michelle Pfeiffer’s fragrance brand. Courtesy of Henry Rose Henry Rose’s products, which range from $120 perfumes to $65 lotions, are sold on its website and in select retail locations, including Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman. The company allows customers shopping online to request shipments of samples to smell scents—an innovation in an industry that had been skeptical of online sales. Three years ago, Victoria’s Secret Beauty and Avon alum Debi Theis joined as the brand’s president; she now leads a team of 10.
“People said to me in the beginning, ‘Why don’t you do cosmetics? Why don’t you do skincare? Why don’t you do anything in beauty other than fragrance?’” Pfeiffer remembers. “And I said, ‘Because people have already blazed those trails. There’s a lot of progress being made with transparency and safer ingredients, but in the fragrance industry, there was zero movement.’”
With Sandbridge’s backing, she hopes to expand further into retail, grow the company’s team and, eventually, build a global brand. “I set out to do this because it was a product that I really, really wanted and couldn’t find,” she says.
Emma Hinchliffe
[email protected]
@_emmahinchliffe
The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Kinsey Crowley. Subscribe here.
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- Tag team. Marianne Lake and Jennifer Piepszak, co-CEOs of JPMorgan Chase's community and consumer business, are both in the running to succeed Jamie Dimon as CEO one day. But first, they are leading JPMorgan's absorption of First Republic Bank. The acquisition is a chance for the duo to redeem themselves from a past stumble: JPMorgan's now-legally contentious acquisition of Frank. Wall Street Journal
- Lonely at the top. Morgan Stanley is the only bank out of more than 20 Federal Reserve "primary dealers" that employs a woman—Ellen Zentner—as its U.S. chief economist. Women who have held chief economist roles in the past say that the lack of flexibility and discrimination they faced may be keeping women out of the job. Bloomberg
- More cuts. General Motors has cut hundreds of full-time contract roles from its global product development department. The move comes after earnings were higher than expected in the first quarter and the company led a successful buyout offering, which CEO Mary Barra said contributed $1 billion to a $2 billion savings target. Reuters
- Déjà vu. Ann Lai was a general partner at Bullpen Capital. But she says she was fired in a "discriminatory and retaliatory" move that came after she helped raise the firm's most recent $145 million fund. Lai previously worked for Binary Capital, founded by Justin Caldbeck, who has been accused of sexual harassment (he resigned following the allegations); she said she witnessed sexist behavior at that firm. Bullpen declined to comment. TechCrunch
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Qantas CFO Vanessa Hudson will take over as CEO in November. Regrow Ag has hired Sarah-Beth Anders as the new CMO. Whit Higgins has been promoted to EVP and head of global enterprises at Sesame Workshop. Melanie Hallenbeck will be the chief growth officer at Alegeus. Cheryl Hallinan has been appointed as vice president of sales and operations at Ideal Image. Liz Nesvold is joining Cresset as president.
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- FIFA vs. Big 5. FIFA is threatening not to air the Women's World Cup in Europe's "Big 5" countries because of unsatisfactory negotiations with broadcasters. Italy, Germany, France, the U.K., and Spain have not yet reached a deal, and the president of FIFA said that the broadcasters' offers were 20 to 100 times lower than the fees paid for the men's World Cup, despite the women's contest drawing roughly half the viewership of the men's. Bloomberg
- Boomerang nurse. Nurses who left their high-stress jobs during COVID for temporary, higher-paid gigs are returning to permanent roles. Turnover at HCA Healthcare has returned to pre-pandemic levels and has hired 19% more nurses in the first quarter compared to the average of four previous quarters. This means that the hospitals have to turn away fewer patients and have quicker waits in the emergency room. Wall Street Journal
- Keep trucking. Truck engine manufacturer Cummins raised its 2023 forecast to 15% to 20% from 12% to 17%. CEO Jennifer Rumsey said that the company continues to see growth quarter over quarter despite supply chain issues. Reuters
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"It was very difficult to have to be the face and the spokesperson for things where I didn’t get to be involved in the process...I only wanted to stand in front of things where if someone was going to give me flak about it, I could say...‘Yes, I screwed up, it was my decision, I should have done better.’”
–Actress Emma Watson, who is backing her brother's gin company
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