Caci’s New CEO Simon Duffy Predicts Where The Skin & Appearance Industry Is Heading Next

He’s known for building multimillion-dollar beauty brands from the ground up. Now he’s at the helm of one of the country’s biggest appearance medicine franchises. Simon Duffy is shifting the narrative around gendered approaches to skincare. The global beauty entrepreneur, who co-founded Bulldog Skincare in 2006, is credited After noticing a lack of dedicated natural skincare options for men in-store, Duffy – who in August became the chief executive of Caci – sought to make his own, creating a range of cruelty-free products built exclusively for men, rather than rebranding women’s cosmetics.“For a long time the industry told men skincare wasn’t really for them, and the result is that a lot of men still don’t know where to start,” he says. “The answer isn’t necessarily a ‘men’s version’ of everything – in many cases, good advice on how best to look after a particular skin concern works well for everyone.”His challenger instincts and self-discipline served him well during his tenure at Bulldog, disrupting the industry with the brand’s stance around sustainability and packaging. Duffy and his co-founder Rhodri Ferrier pioneered many industry firsts in the men’s market – including the brand’s almost entirely plastic-free bamboo handle razors and sugarcane-based plastic tubes.While the brand began as a men’s skincare line, Duffy says it eventually shifted gears to be non-gendered, dropping the “For Men” from Bulldog’s name 10 years after launching.A handful of brands have followed suit, but Duffy believes there’s still a way to go before beauty is a truly non-gendered industry. “For example, the great majority of retailers still split their product assortments into male and female sections,” he says. Duffy co-founded Bulldog Skincare in 2006. Now two months into his new role as chief executive of FAB Group, the parent company behind leading skin and appearance medicine franchise network Caci and wholesale distribution company Beauty Distributors, Duffy is already taking notice of where the industry is moving next.He says one of the major shifts he’d like to see at Caci is more New Zealand men having facials. “Men still assume a skin clinic isn’t for them,” Duffy says. Several months before he was chief executive, he was a member at Caci Ponsonby and says, “I’ve seen first-hand the benefit of having a dedicated skin expert build a plan unique to my skin.”Caci was founded in 1994 by Jackie and David Smith and its goal from the start was making skin confidence easy and accessible for all New Zealanders. The Smiths grew the brand to 75 clinics across the country, have employed more than 400 people and have more than 22,000 active members. While Caci’s core clientele is women in their 30s to 50s, Duffy says recent studies found that four in 10 men have either tried or considered treatments. His mission is to attract more men to Caci clinics, with campaigns aimed specifically at them, or to engage current customers with a partner, brother or dad who would benefit from a Caci membership. “We’ll be looking at how we can encourage these trusted recommendations. The job for Caci is to make all this more obvious,” he says. Duffy is quick to point out the differences in men’s skin, which span the physiological (skin thickness, pore size), hormonal, and behavioural (shaving frequency), but adds the right skin therapist can factor these differences in and make expert recommendations.“Many of the fundamentals of skincare are the same whoever you are: how to keep your skin clean and hydrated, how to protect it from the sun, and where to get good advice when something isn’t right,” he says. Duffy was appointed as Caci's new chief executive in mid August. Keeping abreast of what’s next in beauty is all part of the territory for Duffy, who predicts a handful of key shifts in the skincare and appearance medicine space across the next five years. He believes clients will be arriving in-clinic more informed than ever, either from reading about the treatment or asking AI about it before they set foot in the door. “The clinic’s job is partly shifting towards helping people work out what’s genuinely right for them, rather than what’s trending on social media,” Duffy says. “For me, skin confidence isn’t about chasing perfection. It’s about getting the best out of your own skin, so you feel comfortable in it.”Duffy also believes people will begin to approach skincare the same way they approach fitness, leaning towards “ongoing maintenance rather than one-off fixes”, and booking in for regular treatments like they would a workout. “For example, if you’re a member of a gym, you’re already thinking about your wellness from a fitness and strength perspective every time you visit, and you likely already know that consistency gets results,” he says. “Skincare is just the same: consistent behaviours will deliver better results over the long term, and if you pay for a membership at a professional clinic to supplement what you already do at home, [your skin] will look even better.”Duffy also predicts appearance medicine standards will rise. He says regulation that boosts safety, transparency and accountability is good for both clients and providers, but New Zealand has room to be more formalised in this space (including cosmetic injecting). Duffy at his Pt Chevalier home. An Oxford graduate, Duffy’s career began at Auckland-based agency Saatchi & Saatchi, before jetting to New York to establish Fahrenheit 212, an innovation consultancy advising brands like Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Samsung. He and Ferrier spent more than a decade building Bulldog into a global brand, which is now available in more than 40 countries and has achieved global retail sales exceeding $100 million. Consumer goods giant Edgewell Personal Care acquired the brand in 2016 for an estimated US$34m (NZ$60.6m), according to financial data and research platform PitchBook. The same year, Duffy and Ferrier were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for their services to the beauty industry in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. Duffy returned to New Zealand in 2024 with his wife Annabel Davidson (editor of Vanity Fair On Jewellery) and their three children Olive, Annie and Tom, when he became interim chief executive of notable fashion design duo, Paris Georgia. “Settling back into New Zealand life has been easy,” Duffy says, explaining it’s the third time he’s returned after stints living overseas. “When I’m not in [Auckland] city, we head up north to our place near Pākiri Beach. It’s a great community, and there’s nothing better than walking on the beach with our two little dogs while the kids are in and out of the water all day.”The family man says there’s one major global beauty trend he hopes never lands on our shores: skincare marketed to children. “Overseas, social media has driven a trend of tweens building elaborate multi-step routines with products designed for adult skin. Children’s skin doesn’t need an adult regime,” he says. “What worries me about the trend is less the products and more the message – that at 9 or 10 years old, your skin is already a problem to be fixed. I think that can feel like a lot of pressure to put on a child.” Despite his job meaning his children will have access to Caci’s premium skincare, Duffy hopes they keep their skincare routines simple. “As a parent, I’d much rather my kids learned the basics [from me] – wash your face, wear sunscreen, drink water and get to bed on time – not from a 10-step routine they’ve seen on social media.”More beautyThe top beauty trends that emerged from the NZFW runway; experts share their go-to products to use backstage; wellness rituals to combat burnout and how to achieve great eyebrows.