Tina Fair ’98
That was the first piece of advice Fair offered the Elon University community. Newly named head of L’Oréal’s largest global business division, Fair told students that agility, not certainty, separates thriving brands from fading ones.
The flagship series brings C-suite executives to the Love School of Business each semester for candid, student-driven conversations about career and leadership.
Fair arrived at Elon as a first-generation international student convinced she would build a Wall Street career. Two demanding years in finance changed her mind.
“I liked the numbers, but the culture wasn’t for me, so I went polar opposite,” Fair said.
Fair soon left finance to join Avon, first in accounting and then in marketing. A stretch at a California skincare startup deepened her appetite for rapid innovation, and in 2008 L’Oréal recruited her back to New York. Seventeen years and six promotions later, she became the first woman to lead its U.S. Consumer Products Division.
Fair rooted every answer in three habits she formed at Elon: curiosity, collaboration and resilience.
- Stay in the aisle: “Consumer obsession is non-negotiable; if you’re not out there listening, you’re guessing.” She still visits drugstores unannounced, asking shoppers why they choose one mascara over another.
- Build wide-open teams: “Hire people smarter than you and unleash them. Shared ideas execute faster than top-down directives.”
- Own the misses: Fair described a recent brand acquisition that stalled for weeks until she admitted the plan needed fixing and asked for help. “Bold choices invite failure, but they’re the only way to invite the future, too.”
Fair’s return to campus was also personal. Her husband, Allan Fair ’97, joined her on the visit. The two met when they were next-door neighbors in Oak Hill Village: she tutored him in economics, while he polished her poetry. Friends spotted their chemistry during a tubing trip on the Haw River, but romance waited until after graduation.
Now, with two children and trans-Atlantic flights on the calendar, Fair relies on what she calls “work-life blend.”
“No one else will guard your priorities,” she told students. “I’ll risk saying no to a meeting before missing a milestone at home.”
From late-night study sessions on Haggard Avenue to a seat in L’Oréal’s C-suite, Fair’s journey proved that the habits honed at Elon University, openness, empathy and a willingness to pivot travel farther than any job title or passport stamp.
Bold choices invite failure, but they’re the only way to invite the future, too.
