Priya Venkatesh is the Global Chief Merchandising Officer for Sephora. In her role, Priya is responsible for leading the strategic global merchandise planning to identify, fast-track and develop multi-year growth plans for priority brands, as well as the makeup, skincare, fragrance, hair and wellness categories. While overseeing the full scope of Sephora’s merchandising teams globally, Priya works to curate differentiated assortments for each region, while ensuring cohesion across the global strategy. Through her experience and leadership, she and her team shape Sephora’s future growth and expansion, and ensures a cohesive global approach to the development of brands.
In her 18-year tenure at Sephora, Priya has focused on category vision and development, including building a robust brand portfolio of indie, emerging, clean and classic brands, as well as the initial introduction of K-Beauty in prestige retail. She’s accomplished all of this while also driving creativity in diversified formulation offerings, product and service experiences at Sephora, such as the launch of Skin IQ, an instore skincare solutions diagnostic tool that addresses skin concerns through a series of deductive questions and reinforces the retailer’s philosophy around unbiased client service.
Leading up to her current role, Priya has held various senior leadership positions within the merchandising team where she showcased her profound knowledge of the international beauty industry and masterfully shaped Sephora’s global objectives within both existing categories and new business opportunities. She has developed and executed many successful initiatives, including, pioneering Sephora’s prestige haircare business, the launch of “Clean at Sephora,” providing clients a clear point of view on the clean beauty category and Sephora’s offering across 50+ brands and 2,000 products, as well as Sephora’s sustainability initiatives. She has also introduced a range of high performing brands including Topicals, Supergoop, Crown Affair, Sol de Janeiro, Drunk Elephant, Dyson, Farmacy, Glow Recipe, Living Proof, Olaplex, Summer Fridays, and TATCHA.
Prior to Sephora, Priya was the Director of Makeup at The Body Shop. She earned a master’s in international economics and finance from Brandeis University and is the recipient of The National Mother’s Day Committee Outstanding Mother of the Year award. Priya currently resides in the Bay Area with her family.
