From Makeup Artist to Retail Education Director

I have worked in retail for 26 years and in beauty for 22 of those years, working across various roles in sales and education. I worked in brand education for close to 15 years and completed a university degree in adult education before joining Sephora.

I have been with Sephora for 7 years, opening the first Australia store in Sydney as Training Manager for Australia and then promoted to Head of Training for ANZ. After leading the training team for over 4 years, Sephora offered me a rare opportunity to be the first person to hold a regional role outside of the SEA headquarters in Singapore, there was a lot of learning from that in and of itself. 

Armed with a deep understanding of the Australian market and its beauty landscape, I had to be resourceful being the only person in the Retail Education team. I leveraged the talent to gain insights and support from the various markets and used external resources such as third-party vendors depending on the projects and circumstances. 

Spot me with my amazing retail team at Sephora ANZ’s Broadway store opening in 2016!

From Country to Regional Scope

In this regional role, I contribute more into training curriculum and program design. The main differences would be taking charge of five different markets, managing the curriculum program design, project management scalability, systems development and management. 

In terms of the team structural design process, I was previously focused on design, deployment and evaluation in a single country context. In the regional role, it is anchored around discovery, definition, and design so it’s slightly different in terms of where I step in and operate given the scalability and reach of each project. Strategizing for each project and considering the differences in culture, maturity, market size, adds a very different level of complexity to the role. 

Lastly, I’m still learning along the way. I very much like to sit in trainings and observe people, how they shop in markets. I haven’t been able to do it because of COVID, hopefully in the future that would come about as I have great support in the countries who provide the detail and information for me right now. 

I work very closely with the retail, category management, HR teams in the region. They are very supportive and inclusive, and they help make my job enjoyable. 

With my awesome Sephora University Training Managers at the 2020 Sephora Collection conference in Singapore!

Goals for Tomorrow – Modernise learning and have fun!

One of my main goals is to create credibility and upskill our trainings so that we create greater credibility for Sephora University, in the region and within countries. The other goal for me is to remember that Sephora is a fun place to learn. Perhaps some of the fun in the last couple of years was harder to achieve, particularly with the distance between us, but at least I remind myself every day that its part of Sephora’s DNA. We want to reignite the fun but at the same time also add value, it’s best to fuse the two together.

We have a vision of Sephora University and it really sums up what we want to achieve for the department, which is “to establish an incubator of learning with Sephorans of tomorrow, grow and thrive, building a community where Learning and Development is fun, engaging and motivating.”

Meet the spectacular ANZ trainers & Sephora Collection captains at Sephora‘s skin specialist training in 2019!

Unlimited access to different brands and products

Any beauty lover would absolutely love it here, it would give them a huge exposure to unique opportunities that you don’t get anywhere else. In retail education, it’s essential to know about the products and how they compare to one another. Specifically, our cast members have been trained first-hand by world renowned beauty experts and brand founders such as Priscilla Ono, Jen Atkin, Mario Dedivanovic, Ole Henriksen, Natasha Denona, Christophe Robin, Indie Lee, Tata Haper and Rea Ann Silvia to name a few. 

The original ANZ team cutting the cake at Sephora‘s 50th Global birthday celebration

Be Proactive, Grow & Learn

Firstly, do your job and do it well. Secondly, try to lean into projects and opportunities for experience and exposure, make yourself uncomfortable. Let yourself grow and learn, build your network not only internally within Sephora but also externally within our partners and sister maisons, whether it be locally or globally. Last but not least, LVMH had also organised various training sessions during COVID that enabled me to network and maintain relationships.

Lots of fun at the virtual Christmas celebration with Sephora ANZ’s training team in Dec 2020!

Do your best and be proactive with Angelique Hogan