Shiseido’s CEO Masahiko Uotani has revealed that the company has ushered in a diversity policy not only for its staff, but also for its brands in order to take the Japanese firm truly global and challenge the growing dominance of K-beauty.

In an interview with the Business Times, Uotani claimed, “The reason people really like Korean beauty brands is that they are becoming more and more diverse. Years ago, we were simply putting our products on the shelves saying ‘hey, Shiseido is a Japanese company’. And that’s it. Now we have to tell consumers why a Japanese brand is good, why we are confident to tell them that they should be buying our brands, and what is the value of that.”

To that end, the company’s brand overhaul, which kicked off in January with new visuals designed to appeal to the global consumer, starring Dutch model Imaan Hammam, Hungarian Eniko Mihalik and Asian-American Asia Chow, will see Shiseido emerge as a truly global player. Meanwhile, the brand has brokered several deals in the first half of the year in a bid to take its portfolio to the next level, most notably securing the fragrance license for Dolce & Gabbana and snapping up French make-up brand Laura Mercier.

“If you take a look at our portfolio, Shisiedo, this brand is firstly very much Japanese, but we are going global, it’s part of our identity,” Uotani explained. “Our philosophy is think global, act local.”