Beauty / news

Cocolab Taps Ex-L'Oréal and Google Executive Gayle Tait as CEO After VMG-Led Series A

Cocolab, the company behind cult-favorite Cocofloss, has handed the chief executive role to Gayle Tait following a series A round led by VMG Partners, with dentist co-founder Chrystle Cu moving to product development.

Tait joins Cocolab from a career spanning beauty, technology and resale. She sits on the board of e.l.f. Beauty, previously ran L'Oréal's United Kingdom and Ireland business — a unit generating more than $400 million — and has held senior roles at Google and at resale technology company Trove.

The leadership handover shifts day-to-day management away from Chrystle Cu, the dentist who founded Cocolab with her sister Catherine in 2015. Chrystle will concentrate on product development and on relationships with the dental professional community, while Catherine continues to oversee brand, creative and sustainability.

Cu described the transition as a natural step for a business that has spent years proving demand for its products and is now moving to scale. She pointed to deeper retail partnerships, a broader assortment and continued innovation across the portfolio as priorities for the next phase, adding that the goal is to build a generational brand.

Tait said she considers herself a consumer marketer at heart and that her board work at e.l.f. reinforced where her interests lie. She described the new structure as a three-way partnership to grow the business, noting that the ambition extends well beyond selling more floss.

The company quietly closed its series A round, led by VMG Partners, last year. The combination of the investment and the executive change positions Cocolab to push beyond the devoted following Cocofloss has built since its launch.