Ray Burns

With a passion for luxury, Ray has had success working with some of the world’s most prestigious beauty and fragrance brands, he has spent his 25 year career surrounded by taste makers and innovators in the beauty world. 

With his start in fashion working with retailers Barneys New York and Saks Fifth Avenue, Ray soon found himself drawn into the world of beauty. 10 years of his career was spent at NARS Cosmetics as Vice President of Sales & Marketing, where he worked with the top makeup artist and tastemaker of his generation, Francois Nars. Other most notable career highlights was his move to Europe, where he worked for 6 years at Space NK and helped distribute and develop brands under the Space Brands portfolio as Director of Brands. Most recently, Ray worked for the ICON herself, Pat McGrath as a Managing Director for EMEA.

Ray also had found a love for fragrance working with some of the world’s top fragrance masters, learning the art of carefully designing a fragrance that inspires, transports and transfixes the wearer. He went on to help create and market some of the top selling and most innovative luxury niche fragrances on the market.

Ray is half Italian half American and spent half of his life living in NYC and Los Angeles and most recently Milan. He is looking forward to his next role in Dubai where he has a great respect for the culture and finds the region inspiring. He spends his free time traveling, experiencing new restaurants, cooking and spending time with his dog Diego.

In his role as Head of The Beauty Makers at Chalhoub, Ray heads WOW Beauty Forward, Beauty Nation and Brand Creation at the SGII Group .

His responsibilities include:

• Brand Growth and Development
• Drive Profit & Growth across multiple brands
• Create go to market strategies
• Lead cross functional teams
• Corporate and business unit strategy
• Develop innovation pipeline opportunities
• Strengthen entire portfolio and identify opportunities
• Be a Visionary leader