Job Description

CHANEL is a privately-owned company whose values are grounded in creating the conditions for people to perform at their best, feel fulfilled and confident in their work. We care deeply about our employees and strive to create a safe environment that values people’s humanity and uniqueness so that they are free to bring full selves to work and to their life’s calling.

At CHANEL, being a purposeful and human-driven employer means being intentional, meaningful and caring in inspiring our people; fostering an environment that reflects our strong values; encouraging and enabling inclusion and investing in work and workplace that foster collaboration and well-being. This is critical for the long-term success of our business.

The Retail Manager - Fashion Local Market is dedicated to inspiring and mentoring the retail teams to engage the client of today and tomorrow to the brand through fostering a culture of excellence in providing unsurpassed service to all clients (internal and external) and ensuring high image standards in all boutiques at all times while being committed to all retail employees’ personal and professional development and growth and fostering the strategic and strong partnership with trade.

Key Responsibilities:

Uphold the image of the brand

• Instills an uncompromising culture among all the retail teams towards upholding the image of the brand through Merchandising, Visual Merchandising, Boutique Maintenance and Staff Grooming.
• Partners proactively and closely with the Visual Merchandising Team to ensure that window and in-boutique displays consistently reflect the essence of the seasonal line and are in accordance with the Chanel image.
• Sees that the Boutique Management and teams always place priority and urgency in ensuring that the boutique environment is in optimum condition, including the professional image of retail team members.

Leadership, Management and Development of Staff

• Fosters a culture of excellence in the retail teams: ensures that retail team members are excited, motivated and performing their duties in accordance with the Chanel vision and mission.
• Devotes a significant amount of time to people development, with focus on Head of Boutiques (*HOB) to ensure that they are able to effectively lead a “self-managed” boutique. To influence HOBs to become inspirational leaders and brand advocates through mentoring, coaching and being positive role models.
• Effectively convinces and demonstrates to the boutique teams to be both sales and service driven. In situations where team members tend to favor one at the expense of the other, swiftly intervene and re-calibrate mindset.
• Identifies and implements ways to empower and inspire his or her boutique management to surpass the expectations of customers.
• Has a good handle on retail manpower needs and works closely with People & Organization in making hiring decisions and proactively help to find and retain talent.

Build a Client-centric Boutique team

• Drives Boutique Management to adopt a Client-centric culture within the boutiques to champion customer engagement to develop long lasting relationships.
• Stress to Boutique Management the importance of obtaining a thorough and personalized understanding of every Clients’ needs and expectations
• Works proactively with the Retail Marketing Team to analyze customer trends, and purchase behavior and spares no efforts to see that Clients’ needs and expectations are always met, and surpassed frequently.
• Takes all client feedback and sees that all customer service complaints and/or merchandise complaints are handled expeditiously and shares feedback to retail teams.

Properly Manage Merchandise & Inventory

• Works closely with the Merchandising teams to ensure that each boutique is stocked with an appropriate depth and width of merchandise that is relevant to the profile of the boutique’s clientele
• Encourages active participation from the retail teams on the “buy by boutique” initiative
• Ensures that each boutique follows the most efficient process obtaining stock on the floor

Performance/ KPI management:

• Works with Boutique Leadership Team to achieve KPIs

• Drives sales on a daily / weekly / monthly basis and analyzes variance against sales targets and takes appropriate actions
• Partners with P&O to elevate commission schemes and recommends incentive schemes and to maximize Service and Sales performance.
• Prepare and propose sales target budget to Merchandising Team on a monthly/ quarterly/ yearly basis

Strategic Management of Boutiques and Retail Partners

• Build strong partnerships with Trade Partners (*Department Stores), Regional Real Estate and Boutique Architecture teams to ensure that all expansion, retrofits and renovations in long term vision while ensuring that the boutiques are in line with the brand’s strategy and are contributing to the One Boutique One Story with a Marketing Plan per boutique
• Responsible to ensure that the boutiques are embedded with the Client Service Values and engage each customer to consistent client experience in collaboration with relevant teams
• Assume full spectrum of P&L responsibilities related to boutique operations and expenses

Fostering Close Partnerships:

• Form close partnerships relevant Corporate functions (Finance, People & Organization, Legal, PR, Media, Communications, Tech, Logistics,) as well as all domains within Fashion division ( Learning & Development, Merchandising, Style Expertise, Orchestration & Event, Visual Merchandising, Client Experience, Top Client Management, etc.) in order to best execute and achieve business objective.
• Partners with Retail Planning & Operations team to elevate the professionalism of Retail by people development and innovative processes to deliver exceptional client experience.

Academic / Professional Qualifications

• University graduate or above

Work Experience

• Fashion / retail / luxury background
• 8–10+ years of experience in retail, with 3–5 years in retail management is preferred
• Prior experience in luxury or premium retail brands is strongly preferred
• Experience working in a fast-paced, multinational or matrix organization is a plus

Functional Competencies

• Highly analytical with strong numeric sense
• Strategic mindset and logical thinking
• Excellent communication skills to fit with all internal/external key stakeholders and boutique leadership/retail staffs
• Able to understand and synthesize business and market intelligence.
• Develop clear and challenging but achievable goals and maintain commitment to goals even in difficult situations
• Ability to navigate matrix and have strong problem-solving skills
• Performance driven and always striving for excellence
• Strong customer-centric mindset
• Strong proficiency in Business English (written and verbal)

Leadership Capabilities

• Innovative mind to venture new initiatives
• Interpersonal skills to build relationship across diverse stakeholders and retail staffs
• Exceptional client focus and service mindset
• Personal flexibility and willingness to learn
• Strong leadership skills including empathy to engage and motivate the team
• Collaborative mindset and strong team player
• Emotionally grounded and humble