L’Oreal Promotes Rahquel Purcell to Head Operations in North America

L’Oreal USA announced the promotion of Rahquel Purcell to senior vice president, head of operations North America, to lead the company’s operations division in the region, which includes the areas of manufacturing, distribution, supply chain, purchasing, and environmental health, safety, and sustainability.

Known for her strong leadership and business acumen, Purcell has built a dynamic team encompassing all areas of supply chain, including demand planning, transportation, FFS management, physical distribution and customer care. Over the past four and a half years she has played in integral role in the evolution of the operations division, redesigning the function to support the company’s network of freestanding stores, developing a strategic North America transportation plan and leading the roll-out of a new global supply chain infrastructure in partnership with IT. 

Purcell joined L’Oreal USA in January 2016 as vice president, supply chain North America after a 23-year career in supply chain and purchases at Procter & Gamble, both in the US and in Europe. In 2017, she was promoted to senior vice president, supply chain North America, at which point she joined L’Oreal’s U.S. Management Committee.

Purcell is moving into a role that was previously held by Xavier Windal who served as head of operations Americas for over seven years. Windal has had a very successful career in manufacturing and operations within the L’Oreal Group for 35 years. His leadership has made lasting imprint on the business, with achievements that include the reorganization of the company’s manufacturing network, adapting the supply chain model to support e-commerce and multi-channel shifts and the successful integration of newly acquired brands including Urban Decay, IT Cosmetics, NYX Professional Makeup and CeraVe. Windal has also played a key role in promoting the Group’s sustainability transition by championing CO2 and water reduction projects across facilities in the Americas.

Purcell’s appointment will be effective December 1, 2020. She will continue to be part of the L’Oréal USA Management Committee and will join L’Oréal’s Global Operations Management Committee.

Windal will return to France at the end of this year to take on new role that will be announced at a later date.