L’Oréal-owned Maybelline New York has named Herieth Paul, a model of Tanzanian heritage, as its global spokesmodel for 2016.

Paul will join fellow Maybelline brand ambassadors Adriana Lima, Jourdan Dunn and Gigi Hadid, and industry commentators have welcomed the move as a sign of increasing diversity among beauty’s top faces.

Indeed, Paul is proud to be a part of the changing face of cosmetics, and believes her appointment will open up doors for other models from ethnic minorities. “There is a lot of work that needs to be done because out of 100 percent of models, there are only two percent black, and three percent Asian, so we need to change the numbers,” she told Ottawa’s CBC News.  

The industry has embraced greater ethnic diversity in recent years. Revlon was one of the first to signal change, appointing Halle Berry to debut its ColorStay collection in the 1990s, while Lauder launched a campaign featuring Joan Smalls and Liu Wen in 2011. Maybelline stablemate Lancôme signed Lupita Nyong’o to front the brand last year.