L’Oréal has a new leader overseeing diversity, equity and inclusion across North America, and she is arriving from an unusual place: the company’s operations and transformation ranks.
L’Oréal announced that Rahquel Purcell will serve as Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer for North America, effective immediately. She succeeds Liliahn Majeed, who is leaving the company after three years to pursue new opportunities.
Purcell will report to Alexis Perakis-Valat, CEO of L’Oréal USA and President of North America. She will also retain her position on L’Oréal USA’s management committee and join the global DE&I leadership team led by Margaret Johnston-Clarke, L’Oréal’s Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer.
It is a notable pivot for an executive whose career at L’Oréal has largely been built outside traditional human-resources and culture functions. Over nearly a decade with the company, Purcell has moved through supply chain, operations and enterprise transformation—roles that have given her a front-row view of how strategy, people and execution come together inside a global organization.
A Career Built in Supply Chain and Operations
Purcell joined L’Oréal USA in January 2016 following a 23-year career at Procter & Gamble, with earlier professional experience at General Motors and PepsiCo. Her first positions at L’Oréal centered on supply chain leadership, where she quickly took on broader responsibility across the company’s North American operations.
She was subsequently promoted to Senior Vice President and Head of Supply Chain for North America, becoming part of L’Oréal USA’s management leadership.
In 2020, Purcell became Chief Operations Officer for North America. The role put her in charge of a substantial operational network encompassing manufacturing, distribution, supply chain, purchasing and environmental health, safety and sustainability.
According to MSC Industrial’s announcement of Purcell’s appointment to its board, her responsibilities included oversight of six manufacturing facilities, 16 distribution centers and eight customer-care facilities supporting a business generating approximately $10 billion in annual revenue.
Her operational leadership also came during a particularly challenging period for consumer businesses. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted manufacturing, logistics, retail and consumer behavior across the world, requiring companies to rethink how products moved from factories to customers.
Purcell’s next move took her even further beyond a traditional functional role.
In December 2022, L’Oréal appointed Purcell as its first Chief Transformation Officer for the North America Zone. The newly created position focused on transforming the company’s operating models, organizational design, ways of working and core business tools.
At the time, L’Oréal described the new Transformation Office as a way to continuously evolve its business model across operations and functions. Purcell was tasked with building the transformation function and leading an enterprise-wide agenda rather than overseeing a single operational department.
That experience now becomes part of her new mandate in diversity, equity and inclusion.
A Different Kind of DE&I Leader
Purcell’s move into DE&I is notable precisely because of where she is coming from.
Her professional background is rooted in supply chain management, operations and organizational transformation rather than a traditional HR or DE&I career. That gives her experience with the practical side of implementing large-scale organizational change—experience that L’Oréal is now bringing into its North American inclusion strategy.
In announcing the appointment, Purcell emphasized the connection between strategy, people and execution. She said she was honored to bring her experience in Operations, Supply Chain and Transformation to advancing L’Oréal’s culture and to connecting business objectives with organizational culture and measurable outcomes.
The approach fits with the way she has described transformation throughout her career: not simply as a matter of changing structures, but as a process that requires people, systems and business priorities to move together.
For L’Oréal, that business perspective is an important part of the appointment.
Perakis-Valat highlighted Purcell’s “operational expertise, business acumen and transformational leadership,” saying those qualities would help the company continue fostering an innovative and inclusive culture while accelerating progress in what L’Oréal considers a high-priority area.
The company also sees DE&I as closely connected to its relationship with consumers.
Beauty is an industry in which identity, representation and cultural understanding can influence everything from product development and marketing to the way consumers experience a brand. For a company operating across a wide range of beauty categories and markets, understanding those differences is both a cultural and a business consideration.
A Leadership Transition at L’Oréal North America
Purcell succeeds Liliahn Majeed, who led L’Oréal North America’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts for three years before leaving the company to pursue new opportunities.
The transition gives Purcell responsibility for continuing the work already underway while bringing her own operational and transformation background to the function.
Her appointment also comes during a period of broader leadership change at L’Oréal North America.
Perakis-Valat became CEO of L’Oréal USA and President of North America on January 1, 2026, succeeding David Greenberg, who moved into a newly created chairman role.
Purcell’s new position therefore places her within a changing senior leadership structure while maintaining continuity through her existing seat on L’Oréal USA’s management committee.
Her connection to the broader business community extends beyond her L’Oréal responsibilities as well. In December 2022, she was elected to the board of directors of MSC Industrial Supply Co., where her experience in supply chain and operations became part of her contribution to the publicly traded industrial distributor’s board.
Purcell also holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where she has participated in conversations about leadership, transformation and innovation.
From Transformation to Inclusion
For Purcell, the new appointment represents a continuation of a career defined by expanding responsibility.
She joined L’Oréal in supply chain leadership, moved into North American operations, became the company’s first Chief Transformation Officer for the region and has now taken responsibility for diversity, equity and inclusion.
The common thread is organizational change.
Supply chains require coordination across people, processes and systems. Transformation requires organizations to rethink how those same elements work together. DE&I, at its most practical level, also requires organizations to turn broad commitments into policies, practices and everyday experiences.
That makes Purcell’s operational background central to the story of her appointment.
Whether that experience ultimately translates into measurable progress across workplace culture, representation and inclusion will take time to assess. But L’Oréal’s leadership has made clear why it chose Purcell for the role: the company is betting that an executive experienced in transforming how a large organization operates can bring that same execution-focused perspective to its DE&I agenda.
For Purcell, it is another significant chapter in a career that has continually expanded beyond its original lane.
After nearly a decade at L’Oréal, the longtime operations and transformation executive is now stepping into one of the company’s most people-focused leadership roles—bringing with her the business, operational and organizational experience that has defined her rise through the company.
