Usha Vijay is Vice President – Global Marketing Head of Symrise’s Consumer Fragrance Business. In her current role, she is responsible for developing and implementing Global Marketing Strategy to support Consumer Fragrance across Beauty Care and Home Care.
Throughout her 16-year Symrise career, Usha has been the architect of some of the company’s memorable marketing programs and fragrance-based innovations. A remarkable mix of strategic brilliance and a natural affinity for creativity, distinguish Usha as a visionary leader who continuously pushes the boundaries of marketing in a meaningful manner with the focus, discipline & persistence to achieve results. Prior to Symrise, her experience spans the fields of Advertising and Consumer Research.
As the head of marketing of Symrise Scent & Care (from 2010 – 2016), Usha actively advocated a program to boldly broaden the role of fragrances – in addition to having a “hedonic” purpose, developing fragrances with multiple benefits (moisturizing, calming, anti-bacterial / deodorizing benefits for body & hair care applications), by building on synergies between Symrise Fragrance & Cosmetic Ingredients Divisions. A highlight of the program was the SMART re-imagination of fragrance solutions for high SPF beach wear and SPF based skin care products. Usha has developed a reputation as a game-changer with an ability to redefine the benefits of the categories in which Symrise Scent & Care participates in.
In 2016, Usha was appointed the Regional Business Unit Leader for Beauty Care for North America, overseeing seasoned & highly talented Perfumery, Evaluation and Marketing teams. Her dynamic and positive leadership delivered major wins in Beauty Care for Symrise across iconic brands in Body Care, Shower Gel, Hair Care & Male Grooming. Along with the Global team, she enabled the team to develop a strong focus on Naturals, expanding Symrise’s Naturals fragrance portfolio across olfactive segments, including the challenging olfactive buckets for Naturals such as ‘Fruity’. This speaks to a new generation of consumers who look for Natural fragrances yet an indulgent experience.
In 2019, as Vice President, Global Marketing Head of Consumer Fragrance, Usha developed and implemented the social media strategy for Consumer Fragrance, along with the Corporate Communications team, connecting Symrise with a wide range of consumers across the globe. The results in a short period of time are impressive. Usha’s passion and support for diversity, inclusion and grooming talents drives her to define programs and processes for the next generation of Symrise Marketing leaders.
Usha loves to dance and is an active student of Indian Dance Forms – Bharatnatyam and most recently Kathak. She lives in New Jersey, loves to travel & to spend time with her two lovely & talented children.
