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.
Sephora seeks a Quality Assurance Manager in Shanghai to lead end-to-end product quality, compliance, testing, lifecycle monitoring and supplier quality across product development and production. The role also oversees quality systems, audits and complaint investigations and requires more than 10 years of cosmetics quality-management experience, including at least 5 years in a factory quality department or third-party laboratory. This is a full-time, on-site store-position listing.
Role & Responsibilities
- Lead end-to-end quality strategy from product conception through launch and lifecycle management, operating the quality management system and strengthening supplier capabilities while ensuring compliance and product quality.
- Provide quality and compliance expertise during early-stage product development, lead project risk assessments and address potential issues proactively.
- Define and lead comprehensive new-product testing plans; coordinate suppliers, third-party laboratories and other parties to ensure efficient, accurate execution ahead of launch.
- Lead process validation, trial production and production-line testing for key projects; assess formula, packaging-material and finished-product consistency and test reports, then make final product-release decisions to ensure full compliance.
- Provide technical documentation for product registration and support a smooth registration process.
- Establish and implement quality monitoring for replenishment products, maintaining consistent quality through pre-production sample confirmation, process controls and finished-product inspection.
- Lead investigations into major customer complaints and non-conforming products; conduct root-cause analysis, drive and track closed-loop corrective and preventive actions, and protect consumer rights and brand reputation.
- Prepare monthly quality reports and analyze retained samples, annual sampling plans and customer complaint data to identify quality trends and inform product improvements and process optimization.
- Support QSRP and continuously optimize the QMS to align with business needs.
- Lead responses to internal and external audits and track corrective and preventive actions.
- Maintain the supplier database, evaluate supplier performance, and develop and implement annual audit plans covering GMP, environmental and social-responsibility matters; use audits and feedback to improve supplier quality, compliance and sustainability.
- Conduct regular on-site production inspections and consistency checks, identify production quality risks, and promote effective supplier improvement plans.
- Perform other duties assigned by the line manager.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree or higher in chemistry, pharmacy, bioengineering or a related field.
- More than 10 years of quality-management experience in the cosmetics industry, including at least 5 years in a core role in a factory quality department or third-party laboratory.
- Proficiency in cosmetics production processes, testing methods and GMP standards.
- Expert knowledge of China’s Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Cosmetics and related regulations, with strong compliance awareness and risk-identification capabilities.
- Professional auditor background and familiarity with audit standards such as China GMP, ISO22716, SA 8000 and EcoVadis.
- Familiarity with third-party testing laboratory operations and capability assessment.
- Excellent leadership skills and the ability to lead a team to deliver efficiently in a fast-paced, changing environment.
- Excellent communication and coordination skills, with the ability to build effective working relationships with cross-functional teams and external suppliers.
- Strong problem-solving and analytical skills; able to manage multiple priorities while maintaining attention to detail and results.
- Fluent English communication skills.
Skills
Experience
More than 10 years of quality-management experience in the cosmetics industry, including at least 5 years in a core role in a factory quality department or third-party laboratory.
Education
Bachelor’s degree or higher in chemistry, pharmacy, bioengineering or a related field.
Benefits
An inclusive community; an empowering culture that supports learning and growth and provides opportunities to learn, innovate and lead; and fulfilling work.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
The luxury industry is characterised by a diverse and nuanced nomenclature. Esteemed houses frequently employ proprietary terminology, and even within a single organisation like Sephora, titles may vary across global markets to reflect local conventions. To ensure absolute clarity, Cerulean assigns a standardised, industry-coherent canonical title to every listing. However, it is worth noting that this role is functionally synonymous with «Quality Management Manager», «Product Quality Manager», «Quality Systems Manager», «Quality Assurance Lead», and other variations. Our sophisticated search architecture anticipates these variations, ensuring that inquiries using related terms will seamlessly yield the exact roles you desire.