Head of Retail - South

Salary: Competitive + Car Allowance & Benefits

Head of Retail - South

Working Pattern: Full Time

Contract Type: Permanent

As a Head of Retail, you'll set the strategic direction for part of Matalan's UK store estate in the South, empowering Regional Managers to deliver strong commercial results, operational excellence and an exceptional omni channel customer experience. You will represent retail across the business, enhance cross functional alignment and ensure the retail perspective informs key decisions and drives performance.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the operational delivery of Matalan's retail strategy across your regions, aligned to the 5 year plan and key business priorities.
• Drive consistent execution of the retail plan through one best way, ensuring strong EBITDA performance and high standards of visual execution.
• Translate strategic goals into clear operational actions that drive performance, consistency and a great customer experience across all stores.
• Own performance across key retail KPIs including sales, profit, productivity, customer satisfaction and colleague engagement.
• Own the execution of the new and refresh store programme across regions, as a key part of the business strategy.
• Drive agility and pace, adapting interventions to meet local performance trends, customer needs and opportunities.
• Own and lead Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) across regions, ensuring robust performance discussions, clear accountability and aligned action plans.

Leadership and Team Development

• Lead, coach and inspire a team of Regional Managers, building a high performing, commercially capable leadership team.
• Create a culture of continuous learning, inclusion and accountability where leaders feel empowered to make decisions.
• Strengthen succession across retail by identifying, developing and retaining high potential talent and building out the long term succession for new stores and future pipeline.
• Role model and lead Matalan's values through consistent, purposeful leadership, setting the cultural tone across retail and championing the values as they are launched across the business.
• Champion colleague engagement and ensure teams feel supported, connected and valued.

Customer and Commercial Focus

• Drive a customer first mindset, raising standards and ensuring a consistently great shopping experience.
• Lead commercial execution across regions, partnering with buying, customer and VM teams to activate campaigns and tailor activity to customer needs.
• Hold full P&L responsibility for your regions, identifying opportunities to improve cost, productivity and profitability.
• Influence pricing, promotional and trading decisions through clear insight and regional expertise.

Operational Excellence

• Collaborate with the Director of Retail Operations to embed "One Best Way" processes, enabling consistency, efficiency and high quality execution.
• Use insight and data to drive continuous improvement, simplify processes and remove barriers to performance.
• Lead delivery of the shrink, risk and compliance agenda across stores, ensuring strong governance and ownership.
• Ensure operational readiness for new store formats, technology enhancements and future omnichannel capabilities.
• Maintain retail business continuity, ensuring smooth and effective day to day operations.

Cross Functional Collaboration

• Act as the primary retail interface into key business areas, ensuring retail has a strong voice in shaping initiatives, decisions and priorities.
• Work closely with property and store development on store refreshes, new openings and site plans.
• Collaborate with trading, customer, VM, finance, people and supply chain to embed retail considerations early.
• Represent retail in business wide planning forums, ensuring stores are set up to deliver new models, trials and transformation activity.

KPIs and Measures of Success

• Stores sales and EBITDA performance
• Customer satisfaction and NPS
• Shrink and risk compliance
• Colleague engagement and leadership capability
• Regional consistency, pace and quality of execution

Experience Leadership and Growth Planning

• Beneficial experience would be to have worked in a similar level role in a Retail / Fashion business.
• Experience leading large scale, multi site retail operations across multiple regions with accountability for commercial and people performance.
• Proven track record of building and developing high performing teams and driving empowerment and accountability with senior leaders.
• Experience shaping and embedding culture across a dispersed workforce.
• Strong experience partnering with senior stakeholders up to board level on business decisions, change programmes and investment priorities.

Commercial Acumen

• Strong commercial instincts with the ability to interpret insight, drive action and influence change at pace.
• Deep understanding of store operations and the levers that drive sales, profit and customer experience.
• Demonstrated ability to optimise P&L performance through cost control, productivity improvements and commercial activation.

Collaboration and Stakeholder Management

• Skilled at influencing senior stakeholders and working collaboratively across functions.
• Proven experience delivering cross functional projects and landing operational change effectively.
• Strong, clear communication skills with the ability to engage, align and challenge when needed.

Analytical and Insight Driven

• Demonstrates deep capability in analysing data, insight and customer feedback to diagnose root causes and inform high quality decisions.
• Able to simplify complexity, identify root causes and communicate clear actions.

Benefits

• Generous Company Bonus
• Healthcare - Self and Family
• Birthday Early Finish
• 20% Discount for you and a friend
• And many more