At Sephora, beauty is about feeling seen, valued, and empowered, individually and collectively. It is connecting deeply with others, celebrating diversity and inclusivity, unlocking your potential and making a difference every day. Together, we belong to something beautiful. Since its inception in 1969 in Limoges, France, and as part of the LVMH Group since 1997, Sephora has been disrupting the prestige beauty retail industry. Today, Sephora continues to break with convention to drive its mission: champion a world of inspiration and inclusion where everyone can celebrate their beauty. With 56,000 employees in 35 countries, we connect customers and beauty brands within the world’s most passionate beauty community. With a curation of nearly 500 brands, and our own label, Sephora Collection, we offer the most unique and diverse range of products: fragrances, makeup, hair care, skincare... and much more.
Position Purpose:
The Director of Retail & Omnichannel Technology is responsible for defining and executing the technology strategy, delivery, and operational performance of Sephora Middle East's retail, omnichannel, and digital platforms. The role leads three verticals: Retail Solutions, Omnichannel Solutions & Support, and Digital Engineering & Platforms. Scope spans store technology, payments and EFT, clienteling and in-store digital experiences, Order Management System, omnichannel fulfilment, integrations, digital engineering and the operational services required to run these capabilities reliably across the region. While Digital Product leadership retains accountability for product vision, prioritisation and roadmaps, the Director acts as a strategic partner, translating those priorities into scalable technology solutions, roadmaps, delivery plans and sustainable platforms, providing technology direction and constructive challenge on feasibility, architecture, investment, risk and sequencing. Working closely with Global technology team, the Director establishes strong regional governance, delivery discipline and engineering standards, and builds a high-performing Middle East team that turns technology investment into measurable business value.
You will excel and enjoy this role if you are ready to actively handle the following missions:
Technology Strategy, Portfolio & Governance
- Define and maintain the Retail & Omnichannel Technology strategy, capability roadmap and investment view, aligned to business roadmaps and global technology direction.
- Own technology governance across architecture, delivery risk, non-functional requirements, service transition and technology lifecycle, with clear executive reporting and escalation.
- Establish measurable technology KPIs, availability, performance, incident trends, delivery predictability, technical debt and service quality, agreed jointly with Product and business stakeholders.
Retail Technology & Store Operations
- Own the technology strategy and lifecycle for retail store capabilities, including POS platforms, store devices and peripherals, pricing and promotions, inventory processes, and retail integrations.
- Lead and govern technology delivery for POS implementations, upgrades, releases, deployments, cutovers and stabilization, including new store openings and major rollouts.
- Ensure robust POS integration with EFT terminals, payment gateways, acquiring services, loyalty and gift cards, with strong understanding of transaction flows, reconciliation and operational resilience.
- Build strong team-wide understanding of SAP Retail flows and integration points with POS, inventory, merchandising and pricing, enabling effective requirement assessment and incident diagnosis across SAP Retail and connected applications.
Omnichannel Technology & Unified Commerce
- Act as key partner to Digital Product leadership, translating approved business priorities into technology roadmaps, architecture decisions and investment requirements.
- Provide technology leadership for unified commerce journeys, Click & Collect, Ship from Store, Endless Aisle, store fulfilment, order lookup, cross-channel returns and clienteling.
- Own technology oversight of the Order Management System, order orchestration, inventory visibility and fulfilment integrations, ensuring the technology can support intended customer and operational journeys.
- Establish effective incident, problem and service management across omnichannel platforms, with clear ownership, SLAs, stakeholder communication, vendor coordination, root-cause analysis and continuous improvement.
Digital Engineering & Platforms
- Own and develop the Digital Engineering capability, establishing modern practices across APIs, integrations, cloud platforms, mobile and web, automation, CI/CD, quality engineering and observability, while proactively managing technical debt.
- Partner with Enterprise Architecture, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure to ensure solutions are secure, resilient, scalable and aligned with enterprise standards.
- Identify practical opportunities for AI, automation and data-driven capabilities to improve customer experience, store productivity and technology operations.
Payments, Compliance & Regional Readiness
- Ensure technology solutions meet applicable UAE and regional payment, fiscal, tax, data protection and regulatory requirements, working closely with Finance, Legal, Risk and Compliance.
- Maintain strong awareness of country-specific fiscalisation, payment certification and regulatory constraints when designing and deploying retail solutions across the Middle East.
- Ensure payment and POS changes are appropriately tested, certified, reconciled and operationally supported, with clear controls for business continuity.
Leadership, Commercial & Vendor Management
- Lead and develop a high-performing team building succession depth, clear accountability and a culture of ownership, collaboration and continuous improvement.
- Manage technology partners, vendor performance, budgets and investment priorities to maximize business value.
- Build strong relationships with local and global stakeholders, fostering collaboration, innovation and execution excellence.
Do not hesitate to apply if you are/have:
- 15+ years’ experience in Retail Technology, Omnichannel, Digital Commerce, or related technology functions, including senior leadership roles.
- Strong background in large, multi-site retail environments, managing store technology implementations, rollouts, and technology modernization programs.
- Proven ability to lead multi-disciplinary technology teams and partner effectively with product owners.
- Solid knowledge of SAP Retail, POS implementation and operations, OMS (Fluent Commerce preferred), and omnichannel / unified commerce journeys solutions.
- Good understanding of compliance, taxation, payment and data privacy, ideally within Middle East region.
- Strong commercial acumen across budget management, business cases, vendors, contracts, and SLAs.
- Excellent communication skills and stakeholder management, able to simplify complex technology decisions for business leaders while retaining the technical depth to challenge solutions.
- A collaborative, customer-centric mindset, comfortable working in a fast-paced and matrix environment.
- Bachelor’s degree in relevant field, professional certifications are advantageous (Agile, ITIL, cloud or program management)
- Fluent English; Arabic and/or French would be a plus.
Here, you will find:
Community. In which authenticity is embraced, and the strength of our differences fuels our collective spirit
Culture of empowerment. Learning & growth, that offers you the tools, space and opportunity to learn, innovate and lead
Work that brings fulfillment. From delighting clients every day, to inspiring our industry at large, every action makes a difference
Join us and belong to something beautiful