Noah Bricker’s path to becoming General Manager of BaBylissPRO was anything but traditional. After beginning his career at Deloitte, he moved into private equity at American Securities, where he embedded himself inside portfolio companies undergoing major transformations, often working directly alongside CEOs. Noah joins Jodi and CEW President Elana Szyfer to talk about what it takes to earn a CEO’s trust, why careers can be made during a crisis, and how his years advising businesses ultimately showed him that he was an operator at heart.
Now running BaBylissPRO, part of Conair, Noah is taking a professional heritage brand and pushing it toward its next phase of consumer growth. He gets candid about competing with powerhouses like Shark, Dyson, T3 and Bio Ionic, dramatically shifting the brand’s media investment toward social, and obsessively studying everything from Amazon reviews to competitor products. He also digs into one of the biggest challenges facing the hair tools category, delivering the performance consumers want while responding to the growing focus on hair health and the “skinification” of hair.
The conversation also explores Noah’s intense but people-focused approach to leadership. He believes careers are built by getting as many experiences, or “reps,” as possible, and that leaders have a responsibility to challenge, support and develop the next generation of talent. Then Jodi and Elana get personal, uncovering Noah’s highly disciplined 4:30 a.m. routine, including coffee, email, the gym and a protected morning window he calls his “intense thought” time. It’s a conversation about ambition, transformation, leadership and what it really takes to turn an established professional brand into a modern consumer beauty business.
This episode is presented by Beauty Connect.