Manager, Social Impact & Sustainability

This role is built around two intertwined mandates: running Sephora Canada's social impact programmes and pushing its in-store and supply chain sustainability agenda. On the social side, the manager likely owns the employee giving, matching gifts and volunteering programmes end to end, meaning hands-on administration of the Benevity platform, campaign design, and activation across stores, the Field Support Centre and distribution centres. That includes leading the annual giving campaign, heritage and awareness month moments, and rapid-response disaster relief from concept through to wrap-up. On the environmental side, the manager probably drives workstreams that clients can actually see: packaging reduction and recyclability, in-store and distribution centre waste diversion, energy and emissions reduction, and refill and take-back programmes. A significant part of the job could involve partnering with Merchandising and brand partners on packaging standards, supplier data requests, and claims substantiation alongside Legal, work that sits at the intersection of commercial and sustainability decision-making. Finally, there is a measurement and governance layer. The manager might build the KPI framework, dashboards and leadership reporting, contribute to annual impact reporting and LVMH LIFE 360 commitments, and manage budgets with Finance including forecasting, purchase orders, invoicing and variance tracking. The role also includes managing charity and strategic partnerships, including vetting new partners and running annual reviews.

Working inside a company of Sephora's scale within the LVMH group, this role offers exposure to sustainability reporting standards and frameworks that few mid-level positions can match. The manager will likely gain direct experience with LVMH LIFE 360 deliverables, ratings submissions and client or partner questionnaires, a practical education in how a global luxury group translates commitments into market-level data and disclosures. On the programme side, the learning is operational and transferable: hands-on Benevity administration, campaign design across a multi-site retail network, charitable receipting and product donation logistics, and partner vetting and contracting. The role could sharpen skills in influencing without authority, executive-ready presentation building, and working with imperfect data from merchandising, supply chain and finance systems. Budget management with Finance (forecasting, POs, invoicing and variance tracking) is another concrete skill area. The role also sits at the intersection of sustainability and marketing, so there is likely exposure to claims substantiation and greenwashing risk management alongside Legal, plus internal communications and field toolkit development. If the candidate is interested in AI-enabled tools in a corporate setting, Sephora's explicit mention of responsibly using digital and AI tools suggests practical exposure there too.

The posting points to someone with at least 5+ years in social impact, CSR, ESG, sustainability or community engagement, and critically, experience doing this inside a large, multi-site organisation. That multi-site detail matters: a programme that works in one office rarely scales to 3,200 stores and distribution centres without deliberate process, documentation and reporting. The ideal candidate has taken something from a nearly blank page to launch with measurable results and built the scaffolding to keep it running. Analytical strength is non-negotiable. The role requires advanced Excel skills, comfort with data from multiple systems and owners, budget management, and the patience to work through imperfect data. Vendor and partner management experience (contracting, invoicing, reviews) is also expected. On the softer side, the candidate needs a track record of influencing partners without direct authority and building executive-ready presentations, plus the judgement to prioritise when everything feels urgent. A post-secondary degree in sustainability, environmental studies, business, public policy or communications is listed, or equivalent practical experience. Nice-to-haves include retail, beauty or consumer goods backgrounds, hands-on Benevity administration, experience in a global matrixed organisation, and French fluency, unsurprising for a Canada-based role with national campaign responsibilities.

Because this role spans both social impact and environmental sustainability, the strongest applications will show depth in both rather than strength in just one. Use the resume to surface concrete programme ownership: what you launched, at what scale (number of sites, employees engaged, dollars raised, waste diverted), and how you built the process and reporting around it. If you have administered Benevity or comparable giving platforms, make that explicit: it is a specific operational requirement here, not a nice-to-have. Sephora is a matrixed organisation inside the LVMH group, so demonstrate that you can move work forward through influence rather than authority. A cover letter that references the dual nature of this role (employee giving and volunteering alongside packaging, waste and carbon workstreams) will signal you have actually read the posting rather than applying to a generic CSR job. Also worth addressing: the role works closely with store, field and distribution teams, so any example of rolling out a programme to frontline or non-office populations will stand out. Prepare for interview questions about prioritisation under competing urgencies, working with imperfect data, and cross-functional partnership with Legal and Merchandising on claims. French fluency is a genuine advantage for national campaigns and stakeholder engagement; if you have it, say so early. Finally, the posting is transparent about using AI in initial screening, keep formatting clean and keyword-aligned with the language of the posting.

The environmental core of this role sits in the parts of Sephora's footprint that clients encounter directly: packaging and recyclability, in-store and distribution centre waste diversion, energy and emissions reduction, and refill and take-back programmes. These are customer-visible proof points for a prestige beauty retailer, and they require coordination across Merchandising, Supply Chain and brand partners rather than sitting in a single sustainability team. Supplier data requests and claims substantiation alongside Legal suggest the role also touches product-level sustainability standards. On the reporting side, the manager will likely feed Canadian data into LVMH's LIFE 360 commitments, ratings submissions and client or partner questionnaires, as well as Sephora's own annual impact reporting. That means the sustainability focus is not purely operational: it is also about making local progress legible in global frameworks, which is where a lot of the analytical and stakeholder work concentrates. The social dimension is equally structural. Employee giving, matching gifts and volunteering programmes, national giving campaigns, heritage and awareness activations, and disaster relief are how Sephora Canada plans to make its purpose tangible to staff and clients. The role is effectively the connective tissue between global commitments and a workforce of thousands across stores, field support and distribution.

The most obvious challenge is scope. This is one role covering employee giving, volunteering, national campaigns, product donations, packaging, waste, carbon, reporting and budgeting. The posting itself flags "the judgement to prioritise when everything feels urgent", a signal that the manager will be balancing a large portfolio with limited bandwidth. Deciding what to deprioritise, and defending that to stakeholders, could be a recurring tension. A second challenge is data. Sustainability work in retail often depends on fragmented systems and multiple owners (merchandising, supply chain, finance, stores) with inconsistent formats. Building KPI dashboards and credible reporting from that material takes patience and diplomacy, especially when numbers will be scrutinised by LVMH-level and external audiences. Similarly, packaging claims and supplier data requests sit close to legal risk, so the manager will need to slow down partners who want to move faster than substantiation allows. Influencing without direct authority across store, field and distribution networks is a third and persistent challenge. Frontline teams are busy; volunteering and giving campaigns compete with operational priorities. Rolling out programmes nationally, especially with seasonal peaks and disaster relief that arrives without warning, is likely to demand strong campaign instincts and constant stakeholder management.

A typical day probably splits between programme operations, cross-functional meetings and reporting. Mornings might involve checking in on an active giving campaign or volunteering drive (reviewing Benevity data, troubleshooting a store-level issue, or following up with a distribution centre coordinator) before a planning meeting with Communications or Marketing on toolkit content and storytelling. Budget work with Finance, including invoice approvals or variance tracking, could surface at any point in the week. Mid-day and afternoons likely lean into partnership work: a call with a charity partner on deliverables, a session with Merchandising and Legal on packaging standards or claims substantiation, or a working group on waste diversion and take-back programmes. During peak moments (the annual giving campaign, heritage months, or a disaster relief activation) the rhythm shifts heavily toward campaign execution and rapid coordination across the network. There is also a steady background of measurement. Building or refreshing dashboards, pulling data from multiple owners, and preparing leadership updates or LVMH reporting inputs are recurring tasks. Days will vary significantly depending on whether the focus is a national moment, an ongoing sustainability workstream, or a reporting deadline.

This role sits inside a large, matrixed organisation with a parent group, LVMH, that offers a well-known internal mobility market. A manager who delivers measurable results across both social impact and environmental workstreams is likely to be well positioned for senior roles within Sephora Canada, the broader Sephora global network, or LVMH's sustainability and CSR functions. The posting explicitly frames career growth as built into every role and references access to LVMH's global community. Skill development is likely broad rather than narrow. The manager could deepen expertise in sustainability reporting through LIFE 360 deliverables and ratings submissions, sharpen budget and vendor management, and build a strong track record in employee engagement at scale. Exposure to packaging standards, supplier data and claims substantiation is a specialised area that few generalist CSR managers acquire, and it is increasingly valuable in consumer goods. There is also the option of lateral moves. Someone who excels at the employee giving and campaign side might move toward internal communications, engagement or DEI-adjacent roles; someone who gravitates to packaging, waste and carbon might pivot toward a dedicated sustainability or product stewardship function. High-visibility partnerships, such as the referenced Toronto Tempo collaboration, could also raise the manager's profile internally.

The manager reports to the Director, Employee Engagement and Internal Communications, which places the role within the People function rather than a standalone sustainability team. That reporting line shapes the stakeholder map: close day-to-day collaboration with HR, internal communications and engagement colleagues is likely, along with frequent contact with Finance on budgets, POs and variance tracking, and with Legal on claims substantiation. Operationally, the role touches Merchandising, Inventory and Supply Chain on packaging, product donation logistics, eligibility and allocation, and works with Marketing and Communications on strategic partnerships, campaigns and storytelling. Store teams, Field Support Centre staff and distribution centre colleagues are the audience for giving and volunteering programmes, and they are also the people whose participation determines whether campaigns succeed, making them both stakeholders and participants. Externally, the manager will interact with charity and community partners through vetting, agreements, deliverables and annual reviews, and potentially with brand partners on packaging standards and supplier data requests. Because Sephora sits within LVMH, there will also be a global layer (counterparts responsible for LIFE 360 commitments, reporting deliverables and ratings submissions) making upward and sideways engagement across the group part of the regular rhythm.