M’lou has distinguished herself as a master change agent, team builder, culture shaper and value driver in her roles as the CEO for multiple PE-backed companies. From large, complex and global to smaller and US-based, she has turned around, driven growth, and completed successful exits for companies in the OTC, medical devices and personal care products spaces. She gets to work quickly, tapping into the power of people to transform brands, balance sheets and P&Ls, driving TEV for all.
For 3 years through the end of 2022, M’lou was global CEO for LifeStyles Healthcare, the only pure-play sexual wellness company of scale. LifeStyles has offices in 10 countries, 3 manufacturing plants, customers in 60 countries and over 3000 employees. She led the company through a significant restructuring, manufacturing expansion, double-digit growth and a successful exit for the PE owners. In addition, she currently serves as head of the audit committee for the board of Telvue Corporation, a small digital media
company, and on the board of StoneHill Holdings, a start-up in the cannabis space.
While M’lou has won a number of awards for her leadership, marketing, and entrepreneurship, she’s most well known for her ability to assess quickly the needs and opportunities at struggling companies and use the power of team creation and cultural transformation to drive outsized success in a short period of time. She was a key contributor to the strong IPO and record-setting exit of Adams Respiratory Therapeutics (2007). As CEO, she achieved excellent returns for PE owners (Matrixx Initiatives for HIG
Capital in 2017; LifeStyles Healthcare for CITIC Capital et al. in 2022). Her success has been built on the back of classic training in “Big Pharma” at the beginning of her career with work on flagship brands (Listerine, Mucinex, Zantac, Benadryl, Lubriderm, among others). Her background includes the unique combination of big company training with the careful resource management she employed while bringing her own venture-backed start-up to life and managing turnarounds for PE investors.
She is a change agent with uncommon combination of strategic thinking, financial acumen, and cultural transformation expertise. She has deep experience in regulated consumer goods industries (OTC monograph and NDAs, DSHEA, 510k devices, homeopathy). She has served on public and private company boards and qualifies as a “financial expert”. Her education (Yale BA, Columbia MBA) and training at blue chip companies (Chase Manhattan Bank, Warner Lambert, Pfizer) provide additional confidence in her intellectual capacity and practical experience.
