Sephora Human Resources and Education Director

About Sephora

Sephora is a global prestige beauty leader, renowned for redefining the retail experience through creativity, inclusivity, and expert service. Founded in France and now part of LVMH, the company brings together an exceptional portfolio of beauty brands with a distinctive culture of discovery and innovation. As an employer, Sephora offers a dynamic, customer-centered environment where talent is encouraged to learn, experiment, and grow across retail, digital, merchandising, operations, and corporate functions. Its teams are united by a passion for beauty, entrepreneurship, and belonging, making Sephora a compelling workplace for professionals seeking impact within a fast-moving international brand.

Role & Responsibilities

• Define and lead the multi-year people and organisation strategy for Singapore and Malaysia, aligned with market, regional and Group priorities.
• Advise the General Manager and leadership team on organisation design, leadership capability, operating model and workforce choices to support growth.
• Use people, productivity and engagement insights to identify opportunities, prioritise investment and measure business impact.
• Sponsor transformation, growth and change programmes, ensuring governance, stakeholder alignment and sustainable adoption.
• Set the culture and engagement agenda, translating Sephora Purpose & Values into leadership expectations, employee experiences and ways of working.
• Strengthen Sephora’s position as an employer of choice through differentiated employee propositions, inclusive practices and market-relevant programmes.
• Hold leaders accountable for engagement, performance and inclusion outcomes, using employee listening and business data to drive action.
• Integrate people considerations into commercial and operational decisions as a trusted adviser and constructive challenger to the General Manager and leadership team.
• Partner with functional leaders to strengthen organisation and leadership capability, improve productivity and prepare the workforce for long-term growth.
• Lead, coach and develop a high-performing HR and Education leadership team, with clear accountabilities, succession plans and service standards.
• Partner with Regional HR, Finance, Legal and business teams to influence enterprise solutions and ensure disciplined local execution.
• Own the rewards agenda with the Regional Rewards team, ensuring market competitiveness, internal equity, affordability and alignment with Group philosophy.
• Provide governance and recommendations for annual salary, incentive and benefits decisions, supported by market data and people-cost analysis.
• Oversee reward-policy design, communication and compliant administration, enabling consistent and well-informed leadership decisions.
• Lead market execution of performance management, annual review, salary review and promotion cycles in line with regional approach and governance; ensure differentiated, fair and high-quality decisions.
• Coach leaders to set clear expectations, address underperformance and foster feedback and accountability.
• Provide executive oversight of complex performance and employee-relations matters, balancing business outcomes, employee experience, legal risk and Sephora Values.
• Lead strategic workforce planning, integrating business scenarios, labour-market dynamics, productivity, capability needs and succession risk.
• Own organisation, headcount and people-cost governance; partner with Regional HR and Finance on annual planning, forecasts, investment cases and corrective actions.
• Establish robust succession and talent pipelines for critical roles with the General Manager and Regional Talent function, particularly for leadership and retail capability.
• Provide the General Manager and Regional HR leadership with workforce insights, risks and recommendations through accurate dashboards and forward-looking analysis.
• Own HR governance, policy and compliance across Singapore and Malaysia, aligned with local employment law, Group requirements and Sephora standards.
• Oversee sensitive employee and industrial-relations matters, investigations and organisational decisions, involving Legal and Regional HR as appropriate.
• Maintain controls, risk monitoring and escalation mechanisms, and ensure leaders understand and fulfil their people-management obligations.
• Partner with Regional HRIS on the HR technology and data agenda, driving adoption, process simplification, employee experience and effective use of regional and global platforms.
• Govern employee data, system access, data quality and reporting through regular controls and clear accountability.
• Partner with the General Manager and Regional Talent Team on the talent strategy and succession agenda, building a strong, diverse pipeline for critical office and retail roles and future growth.
• Lead talent reviews with the leadership team and turn outcomes into development, mobility, retention and succession actions.
• Advise on leadership appointments, organisation transitions and critical talent decisions with the Regional Talent COE.
• Oversee the market retail talent acquisition strategy and employer proposition, securing critical capabilities efficiently and sustainably; partner with Regional Talent Acquisition for office hiring.
• Connect talent, rewards, mobility, learning, HR operations and inclusion priorities in a coherent people plan aligned with business strategy.
• Set the leadership and capability-building agenda based on business priorities, talent risks and future skill requirements.
• Partner with the Regional Talent COE to shape and deploy scalable development solutions that address market needs, using Sephora’s Global Leadership Blueprint.
• Prioritise learning investment against measurable capability and business outcomes, with clear budget and impact governance.
• Build leader ownership of development and embed learning through coaching, mentoring, career experiences, mobility and succession actions, aligned with the LVMH Career Compass and LVMH People Development principles.
• Own the retail education strategy with the Director, Retail and Regional Director, Sephora University, ensuring capability supports service excellence, commercial performance and brand standards.
• Lead the Education function and network of brand and field trainers across Singapore and Malaysia, setting direction, operating standards and performance expectations.
• Translate Sephora University and regional programmes into an integrated market learning roadmap adapted to business and workforce needs.
• Establish outcome-based education KPIs and use insights to improve learner reach, field execution, customer experience and return on investment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business, Psychology or a related discipline; a relevant postgraduate qualification is advantageous.
• Typically 12–15 years of progressive HR leadership experience, including substantial experience leading a broad market or business-unit people agenda and managing experienced HR professionals; minimum 10 years of HR experience.
• Proven success as a strategic adviser to a General Manager and senior leadership team, with the judgement and courage to influence complex business and people decisions.
• Strong commercial and financial acumen, with experience in organisation design, workforce planning, talent, rewards, employee relations, transformation and HR operations.
• Ability to operate in a matrixed environment, partner effectively with Centres of Excellence and translate regional or global frameworks into market impact.
• Experience in retail, luxury, FMCG, consumer, hospitality or e-commerce environments, ideally across both Singapore and Malaysia.
• Track record of building high-performing teams, coaching senior leaders and delivering measurable improvements in engagement, capability, productivity and succession.
• Executive presence, sound judgement and exceptional communication skills, with the ability to navigate ambiguity, handle sensitive matters and build alignment across diverse stakeholders.

Skills

Experience

Typically 12–15 years of progressive HR leadership experience, including substantial experience leading a broad market or business-unit people agenda and managing experienced HR professionals; minimum 10 years of HR experience.

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business, Psychology or a related discipline; a relevant postgraduate qualification is advantageous.

Benefits

Community and an inclusive culture; opportunities for learning, growth, innovation and leadership; fulfilling work and the opportunity to make a difference.

Culture

Sephora fosters a dynamic, inclusive workplace where creativity, curiosity, and a passion for beauty are encouraged at every level. As an employer, it is distinguished by its focus on empowerment, continuous learning, and a collaborative retail culture that celebrates individuality and client-centric innovation.

About Cerulean

Cerulean is the definitive career portal for the global luxury industry. We match exceptional professionals with exclusive opportunities at the world's most prestigious brands. From haute couture and fine watchmaking to prestige beauty, hospitality, and boutique retail, Cerulean centralises luxury employment to help you find the career for which you were destined.