Crystal Sai

Executive Director, Chief of Staff, Global Online The Estée Lauder Companies

Crystal Sai’s nontraditional background in beauty has landed her in a diversity of roles, brands and functions during her 9+ year tenure at the Estée Lauder Companies (ELC)- from Demand Planning and Global Business Planning for MAC Cosmetics, to Makeup and Fragrance Marketing for Estée Lauder North America.  She also served as the Director of Global Brand Activation on the Corporate Global Communications and Corporate Affairs team, where she focused on the overall enterprise brand and designing activations and programming to reinforce ELC’s cultural values.  She currently holds the role of Executive Director, Chief of Staff to the Global Online President at ELC, Gibu Thomas.  She also co-chaired ELC’s Black employee resource group NOBLE, the Network of Black Leaders and Executives from 2018-2021, and is currently the Global Advisor.

Crystal began her career in corporate retail holding buying, planning, and merchandising positions at Robinson’s May, Macy’s, and Ross Stores Inc. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a Marketing and Promotion Strategy concentration. She later became the first person to earn two Master of Professional Studies degrees from the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), completing her first MPS in 2010 for Global Fashion Management – a joint Master’s program with Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Institut Français de la Mode in Paris, and her second in June 2017 in FIT’s Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing and Management Master’s Program.  She later returned to the program as an Associate Adjunct Professor teaching the Global Supply Chain course for the CFMM Program.