Head of Retail- Hotel Chocolat

Job Description:

Head of Retail- Hotel Chocolat

Chicago, IL

Hybrid (on-site 3 days a week)

Hotel Chocolat has built a strong position as the UK’s favorite premium chocolate brand

As Head of Retail, you’ll be the lead and voice for Retail, driving sales & profitability, and focusing on operational excellence & consistency. You will build cross functional relationships with other departments and key stakeholders (Directors & Execs) to enhance best for business 'one-team’ performance, drive proactive and continual improvement, and trouble shoot where necessary.

You will have responsibility for delivering the customer service proposition and standards to deliver the best brand experience in store. You will also lead and motivate a large group of people both through both the day-to-day detail and ongoing business changes.

What are we looking for?

• Bachelor’s degree preferred, High School diploma required

• Proven multi-site retail and café experience.

• Commercially astute with demonstrable experience delivering KPIs and profitability.

• Clear understanding of aspects of marketing to drive footfall, and design aesthetics to drive aspiration.

• Strong leadership and people management experience,

• Excellent communication and influencing skills.

• Excellent prioritization, organization, and time management skills

• Ability to understand the wider business and the part you play to deliver the strategy.

• Continuous improvement mindset to make a difference and own your expertise

• Ability to work independently and with autonomy when needed.

• Build strong working relationships with colleagues across other departments.

• Must be willing to travel.

What would be your key responsibilities?

Commercial

• Formulate and implement the retail strategy, ensuring it’s aligned and complimentary to the wider business & brand shapers.

• Actively drive and maximize sales and retail KPIs through your team, reviewing performance regularly and identifying improvement opportunities.

• Take full ownership and accountability for the retail P&L, reviewing regularly and taking actions to improve as necessary.

• Manage your team to deliver payroll to ensure the right hours are in the right stores at the right time of year to deliver the brand experience. Continuously review and remain agile to ensure that payroll budget reflects the commercial needs of the business.

• Work with the property team to successfully deliver new stores, as well as regularly reviewing the store portfolio, identifying opportunities for new locations, refits, relocations, or closures.

• Lead retail teams through business change initiatives, winning hearts, and minds.

• Lead, contribute towards and successfully deliver all promotions, marketing campaigns, NPD and ranging.

• Continuously stay up to date with market trends and activities, ensuring we meet current and future customer needs.

• Support District Managers, Central Operations and Store Managers with clear action plans as required, providing feedback and recommendations.

• Engage collaboratively and work cross functionally with all key stakeholders to deliver retail and business requirements & initiatives .

People

• Lead, coach and support the District Managers, Operations team, Store teams and other teams who support Retail.

• Take accountability for all People related KPI’s (recruitment, absence, holiday, liability, attrition, payroll), ensuring they are embedded and regularly reviewed.

• Work in partnership with HR on people strategies, change initiatives. issues and trends, working collaboratively to mitigate future issues.

• Champion employee engagement through the effective creation and implementation of engagement plans.

• Celebrate team success but equally provide constructive feedback where improvement may be required.

• Identify and lead people training & development needs.

• Ongoing review organizational design to help & improve payroll efficiency.

Customer Engagement

• Lead and ensure the implementation & embedding of the customer service proposition for Retail.

• Champion and drive the customer engagement program VIP Me.

• Keep abreast of customer comments and feedback, taking on board to proactively improve the customer experience.

• Keep aware of complaints/feedback through to resolution.

• Play a key role in the experiential development of retail & the café to include sampling, instore demonstrations, events after hours and paired tastings.

Operational Excellence

• Maintain operational excellence consistently dealing with improvement areas, guiding the whole team to maintain high standards.

• Promote best practices across the estate ensuring consistency across all stores, all of the time.

• Ensure that all Health and Safety legislation requirements are in place and consistently achieved.

• Commercially drive efficient stock management and controls.

• Continuously review & complete operational audits as required to continuously improve standards.

• Successfully plan and organize to support Seasonal peaks.

• Ensure appropriate training matrix is in place through multiple mediums and teams are competent and confident at adhering to all necessary standards & ways of working.

• Build cross functional relationships with other departments in the business to enhance 'one-team’ performance, proactively make improvements, trouble shoot and continually make improvements.

• Be seen as the expert for Retail.

Success Measures

• Achieve and exceed sales budgets & EBITDA.

• Plan and deliver improved stock loss and margin performance.

• Successfully open and manage new stores.

• Ensure clear communication & ways of working across all store teams.

• An engaged, trained, confident and motivated team .

What can you expect from Hotel Chocolat?

• We offer a range extending from luxury giftable chocolates to alcohol and our pioneering drinking chocolate system; the Velvetiser™. Our mission is to make people and nature happy through chocolate. Customers, colleagues, cacao farmers and suppliers can all benefit from the success we make together.

• A competitive salary and Incentives based on performance

• 50% unlimited staff discount to treat yourself and your friends and family

• 70% discount off a stay in our Hotel in St Lucia

• We recognize that our employees may wish to balance their work and family/home life and therefore we are open to discussions around flexible working

• A chance to work in an exciting, innovative and expanding company

Mars does not sponsor visas for this role.

This position is not eligible for relocation benefits .

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