Renato Ancorotti

Renato Ancorotti

Premium Beauty News - You are succeeding Fabio Rossello, who has worked a lot on promoting the Italian perfume & cosmetics industry since 2011. How important is this industry today?

Renato Ancorotti - In 2017, the Italian cosmetics industry achieved a total turnover of 11 billion euros (+4.3%), even 15.7 billion euros if you count the whole chain, from the ingredients to the finished products, including the machines and the packaging. Export remains one of the key growth drivers of this branch in Italy, since, for the same year 2017, it rose by 8%, compared to the previous year, reaching 4.7 billion euros.

Premium Beauty News - What are your programme’s top priorities?

Renato Ancorotti – First, my mission will obviously be to do everything I can to make sure this sector develops according to ethical and responsible values. I will do everything needed to offer as many internal services as possible for our members. I consider my mission as a means to promote the values of the industry abroad and to protect the interests of our branch. The only vision needed for the Association is, above all, to be the only reference point for all cosmetics companies. I have planned to quickly organize a large meeting to redefine our strategic priorities and better understand how we should govern the association. In addition, I intend to appoint what I call a “coordinator”, who will be in charge of regularly visiting members in their premises, so that they are better-informed about the services the association can offer them. He/she will listen to their ideas and needs, which will then be shared and evaluated. Actually, I think the presence of a Board member that belongs to the same group as the company visited would contribute to strengthening the relationships between the Association and its members.

Premium Beauty News - What are your views on governance?

Renato Ancorotti - I think it is important to reinforce the role of our Board of Directors, by creating more operational positions. It will be essential to collaborate with the other organizations representative of the industry and with key people, as well as with the authorities, for example as regards training. We need to be able to share more about our industrial and commercial experiences. We will need to organize more meetings with each other. To me, it is important to make the association more flexible, to build a real structured network with the participation of new entrepreneurs guided by some of our own members who would act as “tutors”. And of course, all this should be done with perfect loyalty.

Premium Beauty News - Will there be working groups?

Renato Ancorotti - Of course there will be! They are very important. It is crucial to set up an accurate programme, and probably to increase these groups’ budgets. Each of them will need to be representative of the member sectors. Of course, we also need to invest in environmental protection, and we should not forget about better representing major companies.

Premium Beauty News - Is the global level a priority for you?

Renato Ancorotti - It is essential! We will most likely need to be more present in exhibitions and fairs. We will also need to develop more things with foreign countries’ local authorities. And of course, we should create a service to help companies export their products. It is very important for Cosmetica Italia to be recognized as a national reference entity by the main global players.

Premium Beauty News - Services, services, more and more services!

Renato Ancorotti - Of course! But we need to make them more and more profitable, interesting, and better-adapted to our members, by increasing our revenue, and then reinvesting them in the association’s activities.

Premium Beauty News - Communication and marketing are essentials today…

Renato Ancorotti - That’s true! Hence our analysis and search for potential partners to help us better know and analyze our customers’ needs. In addition, to better communicate, we should optimize our database. I also intend to strengthen our internal and external communication campaigns.

Premium Beauty News - It seems you also want to redefine the scope of a few sectors within the association…

Renato Ancorotti - Indeed! That of packaging in particular should be included, so that we can represent our branch more efficiently.
Cosmetics represent a field of excellence for the “Made in Italy” mark, but we will need to better focus our communications on it, so we can keep improving the trust in and reputation of our industry. We need to reinforce relationships with business stakeholders and ensure we take part in new economic and institutional initiatives.

Premium Beauty News - What are your plans as regards technical and legislative activities?

Renato Ancorotti - It is an essential aspect for any association worthy of its name! We should pay particular attention to the most relevant and emerging issues (for example, the next cosmetics regulation review, the common criteria, e-commerce/selective distribution). We need to help the industry work and efficiently innovate and guarantee regulatory stability. We should take part in the debates and get involved to overcome the technical/regulatory obstacles related to international trade in order to protect and develop export.

Premium Beauty News - Last major issue: research and environment…

Renato Ancorotti - Again, we will need to promote the collaboration of our study centre with external bodies as well as the creation of training courses in cosmetics.

Lastly, I would like to emphasize my commitment as regards ethics and sustainable development. We should encourage all members to commit to environmental strategies, for example by adopting the ISO certification on environmental management, and raise their awareness of corporate social responsibility. In addition, we intend to renew our support to the La Forza e il Sorriso programme, which is meant to help women cope with the visible side effects of the treatments of all cancer types, thanks to free beauty workshops.