L’Oréal selected PROtect as the winners of L’Oréal Brandstorm 2024. Brandstorm is L’Oréal’s program where young people pitch their beauty projects to industry experts. PROtect, a team from France, created a wearable device that monitors hairdressers’ back posture, hand and wrist movements to help prevent musculoskeletal disorders.

PROtect receives a three-month entrepreneurship at L’Oréal Groupe headquarters where they will work on a dedicated assignment. The finals were the culmination of many weeks of competition, when youth from all areas of study worked in teams to pitch their innovative beauty projects while receiving expert coaching by top business leaders, scientists and academics.

Brandstorm 2024 was sponsored by L’Oréal’s Professional Products Division, which has partnered with the global professional hair styling community since 1909 and served as inspiration for this year’s Brandstorm business challenge. Participants were invited to reinvent the future of professional beauty through technology, to address long-standing consumer and stylist challenges. In total, 43 teams from 64 countries – 130 participants – made it to the Brandstorm semifinals. The Top 10 advanced to the finals to pitch their innovation before the Executive Jury.

“Congratulations to team PROtect, whose disruptor mindset and focus on hairdressers’ health proved a winning combination,” said Omar Hajeri, president of the L’Oréal Professional Products Division and president of the L’Oréal Brandstorm 2024 Executive Jury. “Their vision for the future of professional beauty is highly complementary to PPD’s, where together with hairstylists, we are constantly reinventing beauty. Thank you to all the 2024 Brandstorm participants for delivering a tour de force of creativity.”

“Year after year, the Brandstorm competition receives enormous interest from youth of all backgrounds, but 2024 was unique for its focus on professional beauty and the choice of London as the backdrop to our semi-final and final contests,” said Michael Kienle, director of talent acquisition, L’Oréal Groupe. “Through L’Oréal Brandstorm, we demonstrate our commitment to helping youth acquire new skills that will help them stand out in a dynamic job market and foster lasting connections with international peers. It is a key driver for our recruitment of the best and most diverse talent from across the world.”

During its 32-year history, 700,000 youth have participated in L’Oréal Brandstorm. Since 2023, nearly 1,000 of them have found their first career opportunity at L’Oréal after participating in Brandstorm. L’Oréal Brandstorm is the only certified youth innovation competition, offering a full e-learning platform, MyTrailhead by Salesforce, with exclusive L’Oréal and Salesforce business content. L’Oréal Brandstorm is integrated into coursework at 135 universities in 29 countries and has earned pride of place in participants’ curriculum vitae.