Carla Ruiz

Carla Ruiz, SVP of Global M&A at Shiseido, brilliantly merges financial expertise with her passion for beauty. With an MBA from Columbia and a background in investment banking and global business development at Johnson & Johnson, she brings deep industry insight.

At Shiseido, Carla has spearheaded pivotal deals like the Drunk Elephant acquisition and the Tory Burch beauty license partnership. She leads her M&A team with a collaborative, founder-centric approach, seeing the industry's rapid change as an opportunity for respectful, accelerated growth. Beyond deals, Carla champions mentorship at Shiseido and supports first-generation college students through America Needs You.

Aurelian Lis

Aurelian Lis is the global CEO of Dermalogica, a subsidiary of Unilever Prestige. For over 30 years, Dermalogica has been committed to elevating the skin care industry through providing world-class education to professional skin therapists and salon owners, as well as cutting-edge, professional-grade products that deliver results. Dermalogica is a standalone company headquartered in Los Angeles and is sold worldwide. Since 2016 the company has embarked on a digital transformation that has redefined the brand to new consumers seeking healthy skin. Dermalogica’s FaceMapping® technology is just one of the many examples.

Cindy Deily

Cindy Deily serves as Vice President of Merchandising, Skincare for Sephora US. In her role, she oversees a team of merchants focused on the continual development and improvement of the retailer’s robust and diverse skincare product assortment.

Since joining the company in 2006, Cindy has driven the strategic development of multiple categories at Sephora and leading industry-wide trend curation, including skincare, hair, bath & body, sun, wellness, clean beauty, CBD, and intimate care. Managing 100+ brand partnerships, she effectively nurtures brands from infancy to industry dominance – such as, Drunk Elephant, Tatcha, and Summer Fridays to name a few – and has established products such as dry shampoos and face oils as key categories across prestige beauty. Cindly also spearheaded and continues to lead and evolve the ‘Clean at Sephora’ program, including updating the initial restricted ingredient list from 13 to more than 50 ingredient groups.

Nish Samantray

Nish Samantray is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Arrae, a science-backed wellness brand he launched in 2020 with his wife, Siffat Haider. Drawing on his background in operations and growth, and Siffat’s passion for holistic health, Nish helped lead Arrae from hand-packing orders to rapidly scaling the brand. Recognizing the power of natural solutions to address everyday wellness challenges—particularly those affecting women—Arrae is on a mission to make effective, accessible remedies for all.

Liz Allison

Liz Allison is the CEO of Tricoci, a modern beauty enterprise built around three distinct business units: Salon & Spa, MedSpa, and CPG Brand Incubation. Each business draws on Tricoci’s professional legacy while scaling through its own focused growth strategy.

With more than 20 years of experience transforming and scaling consumer businesses across beauty, retail, and wellness, Liz has held executive leadership roles at Milan Laser Hair Removal, Neiman Marcus Group, and JCPenney.

Since joining Tricoci in 2023, Liz has helped accelerate the brand’s evolution through talent investment, service expansion, the launch of Tricoci MedSpa, and the development of Nutrire, the company’s salon-born, science-backed haircare brand.

Liz holds a degree in accounting from the University of Iowa, has served on multiple advisory and organizational boards, and actively mentors rising female leaders in service, retail, and CPG.