Trading Director
Home Counties / Hertfordshire
Six Figure Salary + Package + Excellent Bonus
A leading National retailer continues to grow market share and is looking for an experienced Trading Director to lead and develop the Global Sourcing, Buying and Merchandising departments.
The role requires a blend of high level strategy definition, hands on operations and the creation and leadership of your team. You will develop group purchasing policy and the global purchasing function to achieve Best Practice strategic and operational performance.
As Trading Director you will:
- Partner and influence strategic planning and budgeting process with the CEO and Board through category and sourcing strategy.
- Build, Lead, and manage the necessary category team to deliver profitability targets
- Manage all global resources with any supplier relationship to optimize group sourcing opportunity and minimise business risk.
- Drive restructuring of global supplier relationships and collaboration processes (e.g. through introduction of formal contracts and service level agreements, implementation of IT support in processes, etc.).
- Product development for core and promotional lines, and implementation of a clear pricing strategy and full analysis to support business decisions.
- Conduct thorough market/competitor reviews
- Work with merchandising, operations and suppliers to improve logistics efficiencies for lower net costs.
- Develop factory CSR guidelines and ensure compliance of ethical sourcing from Low Cost Sourcing countries.
- Develop the sourcing strategy framework to ensure the business remains agile enough to take advantage of supplier dynamics.
- Input into the promotional trading plan, identifying opportunities for spot buys and leveraging supplier support on promotional activity.
- Cross functional communication to ensure the various departments such as Marketing, QA, Supply Chain are fully behind and aware of all strategic and operational changes
- Communicate category strategies, vision and business results to senior leadership, category leadership, business unit leadership and field teams
- Set financial standards and goals for the category team and ensure consistent execution, process and accountability
- Drive merchandising plans and strategies that support seasonal key stories and initiatives and promoting
Person Specification:
- Strong commercial awareness with an entrepreneurial approach
- A strong commercial/buying background with ability to negotiate with confidence at all levels and appetite to drive sales and profitability.
- Successful & demonstrable track record of effective purchasing, vendor or category management.
- Experience within a FMCG or other high SKU environment is desired.
- Knowledge and experience of purchasing best practice, business process improvement and change management.
- Experience of LCC (Low Cost Country) sourcing and understanding of international markets, operations and diverse business cultures.
- Strong planning and analytical skills with excellent attention to detail and the ability to think strategically.
This is a dynamic and innovative organisation who look forward to working with a like minded professional with the necessary collective experience to help shape and develop their business.
To apply for this position please contact us for a discussion or email your CV to us here.
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