How Kiehl’s modernized over 170 years of education

The Challenge

Accessible, engaging global learning. A vision brought to life.

Since 1851, education has been at the heart of Kiehl’s. Aaron Morse was a founding family member of Kiehl’s, and had a vision: an Academy for employees to elevate their knowledge of Kiehl’s formulas and the science of skincare.

In order to deliver an exceptional customer experience in stores and online, Kiehl’s invests in expert-level education and training. Kiehl’s Skin Pros are renowned worldwide for their ability to provide highly personalized skincare consultations and product recommendations, with in-depth knowledge of formulas, ingredients, skin physiology, and sustainability.

As Kiehl’s expanded worldwide, they sought to bring the Kiehl’s Academy vision to life in a modern, uniquely branded way. This meant creating a highly personalized, accessible, and educational platform where both new and existing users could advance their education from anywhere in the world, in any language. With the help of Docebo, Kiehl’s has been able to amplify and modernize over 170 years of education in a single global platform.

“With the partnership of Docebo, we are able to bring our expert-level education and superior brand standards to our teams around the world, making the experience more engaging and accessible than ever before.”

Mia Kernaghan, Global Digital Education Specialist, Kiehl’s

The Solution

Kiehl’s Academy, powered by Docebo

Because Kiehl’s didn’t have an existing platform for global e-learning, they were seeking a partner to help them develop a customized LMS and create an engaging, accessible learning experience.

As an AWS Partner, Docebo brings certified expertise in delivering secure, cloud-native learning solutions for retail organizations. Docebo’s platform is deployed on AWS with global infrastructure supporting Kiehl’s 45-country retail operations, with Amazon CloudFront enabling fast, reliable content delivery to Skin Pros across every region and time zone.

Personalization has always been a core part of Kiehl’s identity. Kiehl’s and Docebo collaborated to customize the platform, creating a balance between engaging formats and rich content. Docebo’s AI recommendation model, a non-generative recommendation engine built on matrix factorization, analyzes learner and content interaction data to tailor each Skin Pro’s learning plan; just like customers experience tailored skincare recommendations from their Kiehl’s Skin Pros. That connection between trained Skin Pros and exceptional customer experiences is the engine behind Kiehl’s in-store and online performance across 45 countries.

Upholding their long-standing dedication to quality, Kiehl’s needed a best-in-class learning experience that would reflect their brand standards. This meant thinking strategically about the holistic learning experience, including how users log onto the platform, interact with courses, and how the learning is activated and reinforced with real customers. Kiehl’s also created Advanced Certifications, which offer an engaging learning experience that helps Skin Pros advance their career and furthers Kiehl’s business strategy.

Community is also an important component of Kiehl’s long-standing heritage, and was vital to include in their LMS. Docebo helped Kiehl’s infuse their Academy with rich social functionality, including Kiehl’s Global Community, where Skin Pros are empowered as brand ambassadors to share what matters to them, demonstrate their skincare expertise, and receive peer and mentor recognition for their achievements.

Kiehl’s Academy also features an ‘Ask the Expert’ page, where users can directly interact with home office employees, strengthening their connections and helping the brand stay informed about the questions Skin Pros and customers are asking every day. These social pages create a feeling of community, trust, and transparency for users.

Finally, Kiehl’s was built on a tradition of giving, including their generous sampling program, 100% money-back guarantee, and extensive philanthropic efforts. To help embody this generosity and ensure that the user learning journey felt just as rewarding as being a customer, Docebo weaved gamification into Kiehl’s Academy.

Users earn badges, points, and coins for completing training. These rewards are featured on a leaderboard and can be exchanged for items in a sustainable Rewards Store, which reinforces Kiehl’s commitment to sustainability and helps Skin Pros make eco-conscious choices both in and out of the store.

“We are proud to partner with Docebo to bring to life our long-standing vision of creating a digital and modern Kiehl’s Academy. Kiehl’s Academy is a place to advance users’ education and strengthen their connection to the brand in a truly meaningful, impactful and original way.”

Mia Kernaghan, Global Digital Education Specialist, Kiehl’s

The Results

Glowing user reviews, incredible learning and engagement, and a more efficient, globally-scaled education experience

Kiehl’s partnership with Docebo has been a vital tool in helping the brand ensure all training is accessible and complete while saving time and cost, increasing learning retention, and providing trackable and measurable results that help users improve performance.

Kiehl’s Academy has made digital education accessible to over 45 countries, with over 20 of the countries onboarded during the 2021 pandemic. With Train-the-Trainer modules, Kiehl’s Educators are able to expedite their onboarding process as well, ensuring that the platform is fully optimized in their market to create the best learning experience for users.

With over 4,500 users on the platform, Kiehl’s sees 100% adoption rate for measures such as training completion and Educator adoption, demonstrating how invested learners can be in their education if they feel that the platform is invested in them, too.

Kiehl’s Academy has elevated the Educator experience as well, giving them more ways to track and measure the effectiveness of their learning programs by pulling reports on user test scores, completion rates, and more. Educators also leverage a blended-learning approach, using Kiehl’s Academy as a way to uphold traditional in-person training when possible, while enhancing the learning experience with digital education.

Kiehl’s is proud to partner with Docebo to uphold founding family member Aaron Morse’s vision of creating a Kiehl’s Academy; amplifying and modernizing over 170 years of education on one accessible, engaging platform.

Retail impact

Kiehl’s Academy is more than an employee training platform, it is a frontline enablement engine for a global beauty retailer. Kiehl’s Skin Pros engage directly with customers, using their knowledge of formulas, ingredients, skin physiology, and sustainability to deliver personalized skincare consultations and product recommendations.

As Kiehl’s expanded across more than 45 countries, the business needed to give every Skin Pro access to consistent, accurate product education while preserving the brand experience across stores and markets. Kiehl’s Academy delivers 300+ courses in 11 languages to more than 4,500 users, with 100% completion of onboarding and virtual sustainability training and 100% Educator adoption.

This connects learning directly to retail performance: faster time-to-productivity for new Skin Pros, stronger product knowledge, more confident customer consultations, consistent brand execution, and a more reliable customer experience across every market. Docebo’s non-generative AI recommendation model personalizes each learner’s path, while Kiehl’s Global Community and Ask the Expert connect Skin Pros with peers and home-office experts to share knowledge and resolve questions that arise in the field.

Educators can track completion rates, test scores, adoption, and learning effectiveness, giving Kiehl’s the visibility to identify knowledge gaps, reinforce critical product and service behaviors, and continuously improve frontline readiness and customer experience.

Docebo platform architecture supporting Kiehl’s Academy

As an AWS Partner, Docebo brings certified expertise in delivering secure, cloud-native learning solutions for retail organizations, and has completed an AWS Foundational Technical Review (FTR). Docebo’s platform is deployed on AWS, supporting Kiehl’s Academy across 45 countries and multiple time zones.

AWS services in use

Amazon EC2 / Amazon ECS	Compute and container orchestration, with capacity managed through ECS services and EC2 Auto Scaling Groups
Amazon S3	Secure storage and delivery of learning content
Amazon RDS for Aurora MySQL-Compatible	Database management with Multi-AZ deployment, reader instances for read scaling, and cross-region snapshots for recovery
AWS IAM	Identity and access control
AWS KMS	Encryption key management
Amazon CloudFront	Global content delivery across Kiehl’s 45 markets

Personalization is core to the Kiehl’s Academy experience. The Docebo AI recommendation model, a non-generative, matrix-factorization-based recommendation engine, analyzes learner and content interaction data to deliver personalized course recommendations to each Skin Pro, much as a Kiehl’s Skin Pro tailors a skincare routine to each customer.

Docebo’s platform runs active-active across multiple Availability Zones, with cross-region disaster recovery through a paired failover region. Docebo supports customer-selectable hosting across regions including Ireland, Frankfurt, London, Northern Virginia, Sydney, and Canada, each with a regional DR pairing. Standard disaster-recovery targets are a 36-hour Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and an 8-hour Recovery Point Objective (RPO). All data is encrypted at rest using AWS KMS and in transit using TLS 1.2+.

The database layer uses Aurora MySQL-compatible technology with Multi-AZ replication, read scaling, and cross-region snapshots, a standard Docebo Learn platform capability. Compute runs through Amazon ECS on EC2, and Amazon CloudFront distributes course content globally, minimizing latency for learners in every market. The platform supports localization across 11 languages.

Docebo’s platform supports GDPR-aligned regional hosting for customers operating in Europe, including EU-based data and backup options.

Infrastructure changes across the Docebo platform are managed through Terraform and OpenTofu, with deployments running through GitLab CI/CD pipelines to ensure consistent, auditable, and repeatable updates.

This program aligns with Docebo’s Store Operations & Associate Enablement competency category within the AWS Retail Competency framework.

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About Kiehl’s Since 1851

Kiehl’s Since 1851 began that year in New York’s East Village. For over 170 years, Kiehl’s has provided customers with highly personalized skincare expertise, with over 4,500 Skin Pros worldwide. Passed down through generations, the mission of Kiehl’s has always been guided by founding family member Aaron Morse’s vision for making “better citizens, better firms, and better communities.”

Mia Kernaghan is a Global Digital Education Specialist at Kiehl’s Since 1851 and is quoted throughout this case study.