Dollar Shave Club CEO Larry Bodner is under no delusions about the brand’s recent performance.
More than a decade after cofounder and former CEO Michael Dubin’s viral ad launched its successful direct-to-consumer (DTC) business, Dollar Shave Club is far from its mid-2010s peak. Unilever, after paying a record $1 billion for the company, offloaded a majority stake to private-equity firm Nexus Capital Management in 2023 for an undisclosed sum. And although Unilever never broke out Dollar Shave Club’s results, former Unilever CEO Hein Schumacher said at the time of the sale: “Not all of our acquisitions have delivered, and we’ve made some unsuccessful attempts to move away from our core.”
Addressing a room full of employees assembled for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the company’s new headquarters in Durham, N.C., earlier this month, Bodner was optimistic but candid as he spoke of “bringing the brand back.” In an interview with Fortune, Bodner went even further.
Mario Jones—Luxe Portraits
Post-acquisition, Unilever moved the brand away from its core values while also scaling back its investment in product quality, said Bodner.
