Vice President, Operations

Inspired by Dr. Murad’s lifelong commitment to science-backed wellness, we create products and experiences not only for healthier skin, but for happier lives. At Murad, we’re committed to conquering the global health epidemic of stress. “Stress less. Be imperfect. Live longer.”—Dr. Howard Murad, Founder

Murad is a leading prestige skincare brand with a science-backed heritage spanning more than 30 years. As part of Unilever Prestige, Murad operates within a portfolio of high-growth, premium beauty brands distributed globally across direct-to-consumer, professional, specialty retail, and international channels. The company is headquartered in El Segundo, California, and operates within a complex, fast-moving environment that demands operational rigor, cross-functional partnership, and supply chain excellence at scale.

Murad offers a rare opportunity to lead a high-impact, end-to-end supply chain function at the intersection of prestige beauty, global brand growth, and operational transformation. As part of Unilever Prestige, the VP, Operations gains access to group-level resources, supplier networks, and cross-brand collaboration while maintaining the agility and ownership culture of a leading independent skincare brand. This role offers direct executive visibility, meaningful transformation scope, and the ability to build lasting operational infrastructure in a brand with genuine growth momentum.

ABOUT THE ROLE:

The Vice President, Operations is Murad's most senior operational leader, responsible for the end-to-end performance of the company's global supply chain function. This role holds direct accountability for procurement, logistics, warehousing, transportation, order management, quality, supply planning, demand planning, and inventory control with executive ownership spanning strategy, execution, people, and transformation.

Reporting to the CFO/COO, this leader serves as a critical business partner to Executive Leadership, Finance, Commercial, Brand Marketing, Product Development, Regulatory, IT, and Unilever Prestige. The VP, Operations is accountable for ensuring Murad has the supplier base, planning discipline, inventory strategy, quality systems, logistics network, and operational infrastructure required to support profitable, scalable growth across all channels and geographies.

This role requires an executive who can operate credibly at the strategic level while remaining close enough to execution to identify risks, remove barriers, and drive outcomes. The ideal candidate is a decisive, commercially-oriented operator with a track record of building lean, high-performing teams, redesigning global value chains, and elevating supply chain as a competitive advantage within a premium consumer goods or beauty environment. Critically, this leader must have a proven record of driving structural change — reengineering ways of working, deploying technology and automation to eliminate manual effort, and building an organization that delivers more with a materially leaner footprint. This is a transformation mandate, not a caretaker role.

This position is hybrid and will be based in our El Segundo, CA headquarters on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and work remotely for the rest of the workweek , unless business needs require otherwise . Occasional domestic and international travel required.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Strategic Supply Chain Leadership

Define and execute Murad's end-to-end global supply chain strategy in alignment with company growth objectives, brand priorities, financial targets, customer service expectations, and international expansion plans to ensure Supply Chain capabilities scale ahead of business demand.

Establish and continuously improve the operating model, governance cadence, KPI framework, and cross-functional ways of working across the full supply chain function with a focus on lean, agile, and technology-enabled processes.

Serve as the primary operational business partner to the CFO/COO, Executive Leadership team, Finance, Commercial, and Unilever Prestige stakeholders.

Lead the transformation of the operations organization into a lean, agile, technology-enabled team — significantly improve efficiency and productivity relative to today’s ~15-person structure, benchmarking against best-in-class skincare peers; own organizational design, succession planning, talent development, and capability building throughout.

Drive operational excellence across service, cost, quality, inventory, speed-to-market, compliance, and business continuity simultaneously, using process automation, digital tools, and analytics to structurally lower cost-to-serve and reduce manual workload.

Procurement

Own procurement strategy across finished goods, components, raw materials, contract manufacturing, packaging, logistics services, and indirect spend, with a mandate to fundamentally redesign Murad’s global value chain around Asia as a priority market.

Lead supplier relationship management, vendor performance governance, cost improvement initiatives, and supply risk mitigation at scale.

Partner with Product Development, Packaging, Quality, and Finance to support new product launches, reformulations, supplier transitions, and value engineering programs.

Drive vendor scorecards, supplier business reviews, savings tracking, risk assessments, and business continuity planning across critical supply partners.

Leverage Unilever Prestige and cross-brand procurement relationships to identify leverage opportunities, supplier synergies, and shared-service efficiencies.

Evaluate and build Asia-based OEM/ODM and contract manufacturing options to localize production closer to priority Asian markets, shorten the supply chain, and improve landed cost, speed, and responsiveness.

Optimize the sourcing footprint to improve production agility and structurally reduce production lead times.

Logistics, Warehousing & Transportation

Lead Murad's logistics, warehousing, 3PL management, freight, transportation, distribution, and fulfillment operations across domestic and international channels.

Own operational performance across warehousing accuracy, outbound service levels, transportation execution, cost management, inventory movement, customer compliance, and fulfillment reliability.

Manage strategic relationships with 3PLs, freight forwarders, carriers, and distribution partners; hold partners accountable to SLA and cost commitments.

Drive continuous improvement across warehouse operations, freight optimization, service performance, capacity planning, and cost-to-serve.

Lead logistics network strategy including distribution footprint, storage requirements, channel support, regional expansion, and global fulfillment evolution.

Support international shipping execution, import/export requirements, tariff considerations, and operational feasibility for global market expansion.

Order Management

Oversee order management operations across wholesale, retail, professional, international, e-commerce, distributor, and internal business channels.

Ensure accurate and timely order processing, allocation, fulfillment coordination, issue resolution, and customer service support across all trade channels.

Drive process discipline around order prioritization, inventory allocation, backorder management, customer requirements, returns, credits, and exceptions management.

Partner with Sales, Commercial, Finance, Planning, and Logistics to improve order flow, fill rates, service levels, and customer compliance performance.

Quality

Lead the Quality function across finished goods, components, contract manufacturers, customer complaints, non-conformances, investigations, and quality systems governance.

Ensure quality processes support regulatory compliance, product safety, brand standards, customer expectations, and operational readiness across all channels.

Oversee quality governance including SOP management, deviation