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 Sephora Collection quality strategy across product development, launch, lifecycle management, and supplier compliance. The role leads product testing and release, complaint investigations, quality systems, audits, and supplier improvement; it is full-time and office-based.
Role & Responsibilities
- Lead end-to-end quality strategy for Sephora Collection products, from development through launch and lifecycle management.
- Participate in early product development, provide quality and compliance input, lead project risk assessments, and identify potential issues proactively.
- Define and lead comprehensive new-product testing plans; coordinate suppliers, third-party laboratories, and other resources to ensure efficient and accurate testing ahead of launch.
- Lead process validation, trial production, and production-line testing for key projects; review formula, packaging-material, and finished-product consistency and test reports; make release decisions to ensure compliance.
- Provide technical documentation for product registration and support a smooth registration process.
- Establish and implement quality monitoring for replenishment products, including pre-production sample confirmation, process controls, and finished-product inspection.
- Lead investigations into major customer complaints and non-conforming products, conduct root-cause analysis, and track effective corrective and preventive actions to protect consumers and brand reputation.
- Prepare monthly quality reports and analyze sample-retention management, annual sampling inspection plans, and customer complaint data to identify trends and inform product improvement and process optimization.
- Support QSRP and continuously optimize the QMS to meet business needs.
- Lead responses to internal and external audits and track corrective and preventive actions.
- Maintain the supplier database, evaluate supplier performance, and formulate and implement annual audits covering GMP, environmental, and social-responsibility matters; promote supplier quality, compliance, and sustainability improvements through audits and feedback.
- Conduct regular on-site production inspections and consistency checks, identify production quality risks, and drive supplier improvement plans.
- Perform other duties assigned by the line manager.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree or above in chemistry, pharmacy, bio-engineering, or a related major.
- Over 10 years of cosmetics-industry quality-management experience, 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.
- Expertise in China’s Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Cosmetics and supporting regulations, with strong compliance awareness and risk-identification capabilities.
- Professional auditor background and familiarity with audit standards including China GMP, ISO22716, SA 8000, and EcoVadis.
- Familiarity with the operating models and capability assessment of third-party testing laboratories.
- Excellent leadership, with the ability to lead a team to deliver results 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
Over 10 years in cosmetics-industry quality management, including at least 5 years in a core role in a factory quality department or third-party laboratory.
Education
Bachelor’s degree or above in chemistry, pharmacy, bio-engineering, or a related major.
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 Control Manager», «Quality Systems Manager», «Product Quality Manager», «Quality Compliance Manager», and other variations. Our sophisticated search architecture anticipates these variations, ensuring that inquiries using related terms will seamlessly yield the exact roles you desire.