# 35 - Drake Stimson

I was introduced to MD Complete Skincare Line and Drake Stimson during a promotional stint I did where I used the product, posted about it, and shared before and after pics. I had the chance to have dinner with Drake and his PR team and found him to be a very cool man.  After the promo period ended I noticed how amazing my skin looked and started receiving compliments that I was glowing.  I began reading more about the product and was very impressed with what I read. I reached out to their office angel, Pat Slater, to let her know I wanted to keep using the product and sharing about it. Our relationship is going strong and MD Complete donated 100 units of my favorite products for the swag bags at my messy imperfect life workshop.  I just landed the CEO of MD Complete on my podcast.  

 

Drake Stimson, the CEO of my favorite face product line MD Complete Skincare is in my house! He has dedicated his career for the last 30 years focused on empowering and uplifting women. Thank you for your dedication and commitment to women. We appreciate you! 

 

Drake brings 30 years of executive leadership in marketing, sales and general management. He led the launch of four new businesses that generate over $1 billion in sales, developed three different billion-dollar new business platforms, won multiple “Top Marketer” awards from Brand Week (now Adweek) and Ad Age, and has had P&L responsibility for brand portfolios, global businesses, start-ups and large businesses. He began his career in consumer marketing at Procter & Gamble, advancing quickly over his twelve-year career to key leadership positions on both large established businesses and new business ventures. This included leading one of the company’s billion dollar categories (U.S. Fabric Conditions) as a Marketing Director to four years of near double-digit annual growth in the face of unprecedented competitive activity, price reductions and new brand entries into this highly profitable category. He developed a highly disciplined marketing operation that simplified the brand equities, made them more consumer-relevant, and delivered a short and longer-term product pipeline to accelerate revenue and profit growth.

Drake also led some of P&G’s most successful and innovative new business efforts. This included a five-year stint leading the development and launch of Febreze from pre-market qualification, test market, U.S. national expansion to global expansion. Drake developed a high performance innovation engine to systematically overcome issues related to consumer relevance, believability, value, product adoption and in-store presence/awareness. This led to record-setting year-one national expansion results in the U.S.: $230,000,000 retail sales, 38% household penetration, significant year-one profit and the lowest new brand cost-per-acquisition on record at P&G. Drake then led P&G’s Woman’s Health & Beauty new business platform development to identify and enter strategically important whitespaces for P&G. This resulted in a “hair removal” platform (a supporting element of the Gillette acquisition) and a disruptive “professional skin care” platform (including an acquisition, technology JV and innovative brand strategy).

Drake left P&G to start a new business incubator. The most successful start-up in this incubator was SOMOS Beauty, a hybrid direct-selling business serving the Latina community with a unique and highly appealing consumer proposition via a unique and culturally relevant business model. It was sold in 2007.

Most recently Drake was EVP of Sales & Marketing at TRIA Beauty, leading the innovation program and global commercialization of this VC funded start-up. TRIA Beauty delivers disruptive skin care benefits (permanent hair removal, elimination of acne and skin rejuvenation) via Rx-to-OTC switches of professional light-based devices. The commercial launch was very successful. Despite a dramatic downturn in the luxury beauty market, Drake’s organization exceeded its stretching financial commitment to the VC’s two years in a row (the only company in the VC portfolios to do this): +20% (2008) and +14% (2009) vs. forecast. This commercial success resulted in part from an innovative hybrid direct-response model which accelerated and lowered the cost of innovation – a model that can be reapplied by large manufactures to improve their innovation engines.