L'Oréal's chief responsibility officer shares how she's making sure women have more of a say in designing the world

• Alexandra Palt, the chief responsibility officer at L'Oréal, said she doesn't tire from challenges.
• In the latest Equity Talk, Palt said she's changing lives by meeting social and environmental KPIs.

In a world where men often dominate, Alexandra Palt has had no trouble finding her place and her role.

"This society was built by men for men — and even in fields that we considered neutral or objective, such as science. So that led, of course, to a world that was invented by male scientists for men, by male governance, for [an average] population," Palt told Insider. "So the objective is that we need definitely, really urgently to design solutions, innovations — a society of all that works for everyone."

Palt is L'Oréal's chief corporate responsibility officer and the CEO of Fondation L'Oréal, which the company established in 2007 to empower women to make contributions to the science, climate, and diversity-and-inclusion spaces.

"Women are not naturally averse to science and tech; we see that girls, until a certain age, perform better in math and physics than boys," Palt said. "What we want to do is to make women visible — women scientists and their achievements — to create role models to encourage them to stay in these professions."

Combining her background in law and human rights and her current roles at L'Oréal, Palt is at the helm of enacting change at the global beauty brand. Of course, the journey isn't easy, but Palt said she views it as an ongoing process. "It is about always being in movement and always being challenged, and always trying to get better," she said.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Science and tech are still traditionally dominated by men. How are you opening up the fields to show women that science and tech need them to innovate and grow?

When you look even in the United States, you know, in the beginning, computer science — programming computers was considered a not very interesting job. So in this not-very-interesting job, you had a lot of women, and you had a lot of African American women. And as soon as it became clear that computers might be the future and an interesting job, women were kicked out of these jobs, and they left the jobs in the '60s and '70s. So that is very clearly — it is a societal issue about having women in leadership positions, powerful positions, positions where they can design the world.

One thing I've come across a lot as a woman of color is that a lot of makeup or beauty products don't work for my skin tone or skin type. How have you worked with L'Oréal to be more inclusive and remind developers, scientists, and others that makeup isn't one-size-fits-all?

That was a huge, huge issue, and I completely acknowledge the fact that for a long time, beauty was very standardized. You know, it was like, one beauty for everybody. Now it's that beauty is a very personal interpretation.

So I think for the last 20 years, we have been working very extensively on diversity and inclusion in our teams but also in the products we propose and in the development, research, and innovation of our products.

I think that criticism was very justified and very relevant. But then a lot of work has been done and is going on in order to serve the needs of everybody.

You have quite the varied career: a lawyer by training, a specialization in human rights, and now a key member of L'Oréal's C-suite. What was the biggest challenge you've overcome? The most disappointing thing you were ever told that pushed you to recreate the narrative?

I don't stop and look, and there was one challenge, and then I overcame it. My life is an everyday challenge and every day overcoming something.

My state of mind is, "Wow, great, a challenge to overcome," and so I cannot say this is the one challenge that I have overcome that made me the woman I am or the professional I am today. I think what makes me the professional I am is that I want to learn every day. I want to discover something new every day. I want to overcome challenges every day. And I never get tired of facing them.

I think the most interesting thing is that you have to understand that you are always in movement, always in a new crisis, and that it never stops and so that you cannot have the time to sit down and say, "Oh, I've overcome a challenge. Now I'm fine."

You have to have an appetite for facing challenges and overcoming them.

I think it's more a state of mind than one challenge overcome — and I'm the woman I am.

You've been at L'Oréal since 2012. How have you found your voice in the boardroom, leading meetings, and being in such a visible role?

In general, you arrive in this role when you have a voice, you know. That's not the other way around, you know; it is by your merit.

You have very often sustainability people or social-impact people, human-rights people — all of this is in a department that is not sitting at the table of the C-suite or the board. And that has to change.

How do you work to make sure that the initiatives L'Oréal launches aren't just performative or only focused on key performance indicators? How do you make sure there's more behind them and that they're lasting?

When I reach my KPIs, that means I reduce carbon emissions, I protect natural resources, I regenerate nature, I reduce resource utilization and recycle water. So I'm very happy when I've reached these KPIs because actually, they change people's lives. That means that I create employment for people who are coming from underserved communities and that I help women get out of difficult life situations and restart their lives differently.

So I think when I achieve my KPIs, which are the KPIs of our social- and environmental-impact programs, I don't need more sense of purpose than that.

Corporate America is going through quite the transition now with climate change, sustainability, and companies needing to be carbon neutral and go green. How is L'Oréal doing with its carbon-neutral goals and going green and telling the consumer how that works?

We have science-based targets. And we always work based on science-based targets related to carbon, related to water, related to biodiversity, and resource utilization.

And I think it can be very complex and, for non-scientists, not always an easy-to-understand program. Our aim is to operate within the planetary boundaries. Everybody has a certain amount of capacities used to use water resources, carbon emissions, and so on. And L'Oréal stays within those limits.

The most important thing today in America, and everywhere else, is not just to write plans on how to become carbon neutral in 2050 but really to start now to transform growth models into circular models. Because we do not have to 2050. Change has to happen now. What is very important is to be very determined to reduce carbon emissions in your value chain.

What does that mean concretely for L'Oréal? It means in 2025, 50% recycled plastic; in 2030 it means 100%. It means not using just renewable energy in 2025 — that our factories are going to use industrial water in a completely circular process, that 95% of our ingredients will be bio-sourced or coming from biotech. It means, at L'Oréal, that each and every department is transforming its model of performance and functioning to a model that is aligned with planetary boundaries.

I've heard some people claim that chief sustainability officers aren't necessary positions in C-suites. What's your thought on that?

In general, people who say that do not have a very credible track record on sustainability.

Congrats on 25 years of the For Women in Science Program. How has the program changed over the past 25 years and what do you hope it accomplishes?

The question of honoring and celebrating women's successes has become very mainstream, compared to 25 years ago, when shining light on women scientists was really new. I think that what has changed is that for my completely, you know, underserved field of honoring and celebrating women's female success, it became mainstream. We added a young doctor and some post-docs — women who do theses and post-docs — in order to encourage them to stay in science.

We had a lot of feedback in the survey of women scientists about what the award changed for them. A lot of them stayed in research and innovation. In research, they think that it brought them confidence, visibility, and career opportunities. We will continue to shine that light on women scientists — younger and older and more-accomplished women scientists — in order to have role models, but we will also continue to create interest in girls choosing science, computer science, artificial intelligence, math — all these kinds of jobs are for the future.

You know, I don't want to live in a world where a computer, where robots, are just programmed by men. So we will definitely need to have women.