After 35 years building Elemis, Sean Harrington has joined investment bank Lempriere Wells as partner, and the firm will rename itself Lempriere Wells Harrington. The appointment anchors the bank's focused push into the U.S. market, where Harrington will advise executives and founders on operational strategy and enterprise value as they scale and prepare for what comes next.

Harrington cofounded Elemis in 1990 and led the business through the end of 2025, steering it global and through multiple transactions — including a $900 million sale from private equity to a strategic holding company in 2019.

Before this move, Lempriere Wells built its track record behind some of Australia's and Asia's fastest-growing beauty businesses.

What does the new firm offer founders?

Alice Wells, founder of Lempriere Wells, framed the hire around the bank's positioning. "We are building a truly unique global investment bank for the next generation of disruptive beauty and wellness consumer brands. Sean is exactly who we want founders to sit across from as they think about and plan their future," she said.

The firm operates in the midmarket, on deals sized between $30 million and $300 million. That range defines its competitive stance against large banks.

"It's an important point because size does matter, as we all know," said Wells. "But the big banks want to represent big deals because multibillion-dollar deals pay the fees and make the whole system work and so, smaller deals are less important. Whereas for us, a $150 million, a $200 million deal is super important."

She added that she personally runs every deal, and that the firm's deal team matches the size of a consumer deal team at a major bank. The gap she identifies is geographic: strong regional midmarket advisers exist per territory, but no one consistently takes European assets to China or Australian assets to the U.S. "That's probably because it's a lot more work, and it's potentially harder cross language and cultural barriers, but it's the work that we love to do, and it's why we've chosen that niche," Wells said.

Why did Harrington make the move?

Harrington's rationale rests on timing. "I have spent more than three decades building, scaling and transacting in this industry, and I know how consequential the right advice can be at each stage of a founder's journey. From the moment I met Alice, I recognized she was building something rare," he said.

He drew a distinction in how the bank engages clients: "Most banks show up once a business is already built, but LWH shows up long before and stays long after. Together we will bring founders a unique perspective having lived through each side of the journey ourselves — from building category-defining businesses to navigating what comes next."

With a founder-operator who closed a $900 million deal now on the advisory side, midmarket beauty and wellness founders in the U.S. gain a counterpart who has sat on their side of the table — and a bank that says it wants the cross-border work larger rivals avoid.

By Amara Osei