Face to Watch

Charles Strauss '65 likes to make people smell good. As the new president and CEO of Unilever United States, he oversees Dove and Lever Brothers soap and Calvin Klein fragrances. Although Unilever racked up more than $8 billion in sales in the United States last year, Strauss has growth on his agenda. The self-described "English-by-default" major plans to use the Internet to revolutionize the personal care industry. Strauss sees the Internet as providing Unilever with a research and development team of hundreds of millions of people sudsing up. He also expects that information made available by the decoding of the human genome will eventually allow for scientifically personalized soaps and shampoos. If all goes according to Strauss's plan, Unilever will enjoy the sweet smell of success.