As a rising young executive within the personal-care business, Carol Hamilton dressed entirely in Brooks Brothers suits—complete with tie—for a full 12 months with a view to secure a promotion.

Hamilton earned that promotion—and way more. Over the course of her 35-year profession, she has successfully scaled the chief ranks of beauty, and today is group president of acquisitions at L’Oréal USA. While her wardrobe has also evolved considerably—today, she wears the likes of Saint Laurent, Valentino and Oscar de la Renta, amongst others—what hasn’t modified is the length that many ladies still should go to with a view to reach the senior-most levels of corporate management in the wonder industry.

Despite beauty being a category that is essentially marketed for ladies, gender inequality on the c-suite level persists—and with it, a wage gap that also ends in a wealth gap. Not only are women not getting the massive executive-suite salary, they are sometimes not getting the expansive stock options and advantages that include it. And at a time when more women are opting out of the company world to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors, the necessity to attract and retain strong female talent at each the chief committee level and board member level has never been so necessary. “It’s pay, it’s [women’s] overall earning potential, it’s the business decisions they’re brought in on,” said Lisa Marie Ringus, executive vp of world sales and business development at 24 Seven. “It’s their ability to influence decisions inside the organizations.”

While women have clearly made strides over the past 20 years, there continues to be a ways to go. “In beauty, you do have more women in leadership positions up until the vp level and president level. The massive gap is once you go into the [chief executive officer] level,” said Jill Scalamandre, president of Shiseido’s global makeup center of excellence and president of world marketing for BareMinerals and Buxom. “You see all these women coming up and founding their very own brands, being ceo’s and being respected as ceo’s and changing the sport. Where it continues to want to vary is within the larger, more established firms.” At Shiseido Americas, which is headed by ceo Marc Rey, 81 percent of employees and 60 percent of the senior leadership team are women, in accordance with the corporate.

In actual fact, of the highest 20 beauty manufacturers within the WWD Beauty Inc Top 100 rating, only Revlon is led by a female ceo—Debbie Perelman, who was named to the highest post in May. Avon, number 14 on the list, replaced former ceo Sheri McCoy with a male, Jan Zijderveld, in February. Ulta Beauty also has a female ceo, Mary Dillon.

The shortage of ladies in beauty’s c-suites mimics the broader business establishment. There have been only 24 women on Fortune 500’s list of ceo’s as of May—that’s lower than 5 percent. One in every of those women, Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo stepped down in October, lowering the general percentage and leaving only one woman of color in place as a Fortune 500 ceo (Geisha Williams, head of energy business PG&E).

“I wish we did see more women, but I also hope we get to the purpose where we’re not distinguishing in order that it becomes so common that it’s less about gender and more about capability,” Perelman said. “There may be room for improvement when it comes to increasing the variety of female ceo’s on this industry, and albeit beyond, and I believe now could be the time. You see it in politics, with the increased number of ladies in politics, and the identical thing must be happening in corporate.”

While from a sociocultural viewpoint, gender equality is increasingly in the general public consciousness, research shows that it makes higher business sense, too. In response to Catalyst, the worldwide nonprofit organization formed within the early Sixties to enhance the workplace for ladies, firms with the next representation of ladies in senior management positions financially outperform firms with proportionally fewer women at the highest.

In beauty—an industry that employs mostly women and makes products primarily utilized by women—the final consensus is considered one of not being so bad compared to other industries. But in most big beauty firms, women are still not represented in equal numbers to men at the best ranks.

“My impression is that beauty is one of the crucial inclusive industries with quite a lot of women representation across the ranks,” said Sylvie Moreau, president of skilled beauty at Coty Inc. “Possibly the tip of the iceberg continues to be somewhat bit too male dominated, but under the water, it’s a really equal world.”

Moreau is considered one of three division heads at Coty, and she or he is paid lower than the 2 male division heads, in accordance with filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Her base salary is 550,000 Swiss Francs (roughly $568,000), while Laurent Kleitman, head of the buyer division, earned a base salary of $800,000, and Edgar Huber, who oversees the luxurious division, has a base salary of 585,000 euros (about $687,000). At Coty, 57 percent of the full workforce, 49 percent of managers, 30 percent of the chief committee and 11 percent of the board are women, in accordance with the corporate.

“For me, equality means it must be equitable not necessarily equal,” Moreau said, when asked about her pay. She notes that she runs a $1.9 billion division, in comparison with Kleitman’s $4.2 billion segment and Huber’s $3.2 billion business.

Which may be so. But salary disparity at the best levels exists—and seems built into the system. For instance, in 2000, when Andrea Jung was the ceo of Avon, which had almost $5.7 billion in net sales, she had a base salary of $897,536, in accordance with SEC filings, plus bonuses and other options. For comparison, Fred H. Langhammer, who was then ceo of the Estée Lauder Cos., which had about $4.6 billion in sales on the time, earned $1.9 million, SEC filings show.

More recently, Tracey Travis, Lauder’s executive vp and chief financial officer and the one named female executive officer included in the corporate’s SEC filings, had a $980,000 base salary for 2018, lower than that of any male director on the business. President and ceo Fabrizio Freda earned a base salary of $1.9 million; executive chairman William Lauder, $1.5 million; executive group president John Demsey, nearly $1.2 million, and group president, international, Cedric Prouve was paid $1.1 million, SEC filings show. At Lauder, 84 percent of the worldwide workforce and 53 percent of vp and above positions are held by women, in accordance with the corporate.

At L’Oreal, which hires a 3rd party called EDGE—Economic Dividend for Gender Equality—to envision over its data, the wage gap within the U.S. market is between 5 and 6 percent, in accordance with Angela Guy, senior vp of diversity and inclusion at L’Oréal USA. In France, its home country, the gap is about 3 percent, and the general goal is to achieve zero. “For those who’re committed to equity, you might have to have a option to measure it,” she said. “We’re transparent and vulnerable at the identical time. We’re moving toward equity, and we’re not there yet, but we’re getting really close.”

A part of the problem with regards to the wage gap in beauty is lack of transparency—only the salaries of those on the very top are disclosed—which may result in pay discrepancies at lower and mid-levels. “There’s not quite a lot of transparency on wage inequality,” said Esi Eggleston Bracey, executive vp and chief operating officer of North America beauty and private care at Unilever. Bracey spent about 25 years at P&G before transitioning to a job at Coty after the acquisition. In early 2018, she joined Unilever. “As I’ve turn into an increasing number of senior and chargeable for other people’s salaries and wages, I can tell where I even have suffered from that wage inequality.”

Asked if she thought that was because she was a lady, or because she is a lady of color, or each, Bracey says it was likely a “combination of each,” plus the bottom salary of starting with a bachelor’s degree—hers is in engineering from Dartmouth—versus an MBA.

While she rose through the wonder ranks, Bracey’s profession didn’t really take off until she embraced herself. Like Hamilton, she spent much of her life as a young skilled attempting to slot in—she wore khaki suits, for instance, and styled her hair in a bob, and when others asked what she was doing on the weekend, she would say things like, “Spending time with friends,” as a substitute of what she was really doing—going to Chicago to listen to deal with music with friends.

But after hearing a chat on diversity just a few years into her profession, she cut her hair and went natural, and commenced bringing more of her true self to work. “I became happier in my role, my results became higher, it opened up all types of things for me,” she said. Crucially, she also gained the support of key colleagues and sponsors, who helped propel her profession path. At P&G, when she was seeking to transition from home and fabric care into beauty, she planted a seed with a higher-up who could advocate for her behind the scenes. “What I’ve found most helpful is letting people of influence know what I’d prefer to do next,” she said.

While Bracey has found her stride in the company world, many other CPG and wonder executives have exited greater businesses in favor of smaller, more entrepreneurial opportunities. That is increasingly true of younger executives.

“Behaviors at so many levels, when it comes to priorities for somebody’s life, have shifted,” Ringus said. She notes that with regards to their jobs, Millennial are likely to prioritize climate and culture along with pay.

“There may be a shift when it comes to what’s necessary that’s being driven by what’s happening within the country,” Ringus said. “Quite a lot of those social issues have made people take pause and say, ‘Wow, I don’t know if this company or brand really represents me, and this is vital to me.’ They’re evaluating not only how they purchase [as consumers], but where they wish to go to be inspired after they go to work each day.”

Consequently, many Indie beauty brands emerging in the fashionable marketplace have been founded by women, an element which actually affects the ceo pipeline, experts agree. In response to the Indie Beauty Expo, 66 percent of the brands that exhibited on the August showcase in Latest York were female-owned or co-owned, and on the London show in late October, 69 percent of the brands are female owned or co-owned.

Hamilton, who works with Indie founders as a part of her recent M&A-focused role, calls it “considered one of our best, brightest pipelines. It’s demanding that the way in which we have a look at a ceo’s role evolve to reflect a few of the real values that these female founders [have],” Hamilton says.

Hamilton’s outlook on gender equality has shifted over the 34 years she’s been with L’Oréal, which has a workforce that’s 69 percent women and a board of directors that’s 46 percent women. “At first and middle of my profession at L’Oréal…I felt if I just kept advancing and chipping away at what I call the plexiglass ceiling, that my being within the c-suite, even when I used to be only considered one of two women in a 15-person meeting, that me being a job model could be enough,” she said.

Several years ago, though, Hamilton had an epiphany. “I noticed that much deeper work needed to be done on this front,” she said. “To essentially change gender inequality, we would have liked sophisticated programs which might be sustainable. While you’re talking about gender equality, it could fairly often turn into people within the room talking and gossiping and getting upset,” she continued. “At this stage in my profession, I made a decision that was a ridiculous waste of time since it wasn’t moving the needle. So what were we actually going to do to maneuver the needle?”

Hamilton began with L’Oréal leaders heading to Harvard’s Women in Power program, which trains women on negotiation, networking, asking for raises, etc.—and that evolved into Harvard coming to L’Oréal to show an organization specific, coed-version of that program.

“What needs to essentially shift now could be that any discussion of gender equality have to be coed,” Hamilton said. “Women should be the catalyst and deeply present, nevertheless it’s as necessary for men to grasp it so that they can change behavior.”

Groups just like the 30% Club, which strives to push boards to incorporate no less than 30 percent women, are taking over that challenge. William Lauder, executive chairman at Lauder, joined the organization after its founding chairman, Peter Grauer, the chairman of Bloomberg, asked him to. “It’s not as hard as some people make it seem to seek out capable, qualified women to be board members,” said Lauder, who presides over a board that’s 47 percent female.

The corporate has also made promoting women and wage equity a priority, and Lauder, like Perelman, emphasizes capability over token efforts. “The gender conversation gets into representation versus capabilities,” Lauder said. “We would like to be certain that that whoever we elect for leadership roles in our company are essentially the most qualified and capable executives for the role.”

Subsequently, the corporate has implemented specific inclusion and variety efforts, in accordance with Marilu Marshall, chief inclusion and variety officer at Lauder, and the daughter of Cuban immigrants, who notes how her role has evolved over the past decade. “At the moment, it wasn’t as proactive because it is now—it was very much a reporting function,” Marshall said. “Today, it’s a crucial a part of our business strategy.”

Along with those efforts, Lauder has several “worker resource groups,” Marshall said, including a women’s leadership network co-chaired by Travis, group president Jane Hertzmark Hudis and general counsel Sara Moss.

For his part, William Lauder said that appointing a lady ceo is “entirely likely sooner or later in the longer term.” He’s not alone in that sentiment—everyone interviewed for this story say they expect to see more women ceo’s in the longer term. But that change isn’t without its roadblocks. One is network differences.

“I can’t consider one company that couldn’t be run by a female ceo. To me, that isn’t the problem,” she said. “It’s the trust factor. It’s the c-suite and who’s occupying the c-suite today, and it is admittedly attempting to break down a few of the network. There’s still quite a lot of work to do to place women into the identical network at the identical level to construct successful nominations.”

One other impediment, in accordance with Ringus, is prioritization. Beauty firms are working to vary their culture to satisfy the demands of contemporary staff—adding several types of advantages of flexible working options—but that, together with broad industry disruption from direct-to-consumer brands and social media, can sometimes mean gender equality isn’t making its option to the highest of the company checklist.

“That is now one topic of fifty,” she said. “All of those brands and businesses are here to drive results and people priorities are taking a front seat.…We have now leadership across boards—men and ladies—who’re really having to shift what got them to their success, quickly.”

Salaries, in some cases, are shrinking, Ringus notes. When a high-ranking executive exits a business with a $5 million package, they aren’t necessarily being replaced at that pay grade, she says. Pay can also be affected by industry newcomers attracted from tech and fashion. Beauty pays greater than fashion, Ringus notes. But fashion executives joining the industry are likely used to gender inequality. In response to a recent report by McKinsey, only 14 percent of major fashion brands have a lady at the highest, and one hundred pc of ladies surveyed saw gender equality as a problem within the industry, while fewer than 50 percent of men did.

“One in every of the things we saw in fashion—and you can make a relevant comparison—was because there are such a lot of women within the industry, primarily at lower levels, there wasn’t a perception that there was an issue,” said McKinsey’s Stacey Haas, who coauthored the style report. “The number-one thing we saw when it comes to a problem was lack of know-how that there was an issue.”

The study found that a part of the rationale women weren’t advancing to the best ranks was because they didn’t know the foundations. While women in fashion were more more likely to ask for a promotion than a person of their younger years, those requests decreased on the vp level, Haas said. “One thing we heard through interviews was in those earlier tenures, their manager was often a lady. Women felt more comfortable asking one other woman for a promotion.”

Such isn’t universally the case, but women interviewed for this story acknowledged they’d been omitted for promotions partially because they weren’t all the time clear on “the foundations.” Until the final manager level, Moreau, was promoted through the P&G ranks based on merit. “Becoming a general manager is a pivotal point in P&G and few people reach that level,” she said. “In some unspecified time in the future, I became clear that unless I specifically asked and made my ambition of becoming a general manager explicit, this could not occur—or no less than, it will not occur as fast.

“I knew my boss on the time thoroughly, and I discovered a option to tell him casually, ‘You already know what? What would mean the world to me is that I turn into a general manager before I’m 40.’ He knew my birthday,” she noted, adding that she didn’t want to vary her overall tone, but did have the desire to make her ambition explicit.

Hamilton, too, said she needed to make it expressly clear that she was all in favour of being considered for larger jobs when she was heading L’Oréal Paris. After being omitted for a job, Hamilton asked higher ups if she was considered for the position. “They said, ‘No, you haven’t asked for the job.’”

“I said, ‘Oh—I didn’t realize I needed to ask for the job.’”

So she asked, and roughly a 12 months later, landed the position as head of L’Oréal USA’s Luxe Division, where she tripled the scale of the business over the course of a decade. And people are results that anyone, no matter gender, can appreciate.