Director Retail Concepts

Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organisation:
- Lead the design and development of industry-leading global retail environments, standards and guidelines. This includes leading future developments and refinements of existing concepts as a strong conceptual and innovative Design Director for adidas Global Retail Design.
Ensure retail design expressions deliver against business objectives and are executed on-Brand to allow scaling of concepts across all channels to meet market and customer needs.- Key Responsibilities:
- Partner with the Senior Director of Global Retail Design and steer the development of adidas’ future concept creation strategy globally to further enhance adidas’ labels and categories to deliver against commercial needs
- Lead a team of internal architects and designers to deliver industry-leading, consumer-centric, culturally relevant brand store concepts that establish adidas as a true innovator for Retail Design.
- Partner with the relevant stakeholders to create clear requirements and development of guidelines, structure and positioning for markets to implement the concepts whilst ensuring continued alignment to Brand objectives and positioning
- Lead the adaptation of the overarching Brand Creative direction and ensure the brand story translates cohesively across every touch point of the retail store experience
- Lead the development of the conceptual framework for other contributing teams e.g. Marketing, Visual Merchandising, Communication, Digital, Instore Experience to work within and lead these teams x-functionally to deliver challenging, stimulating and globally significant retail spaces.
- Retail Design Strategy and Delivery:
- Setting of overall Retail Design objectives, strategies, and priorities
- Shape, strategize and develop design briefing against business requirements
- Lead and define the Retail Design Direction on assigned projects and concepts
- Drive highly complex, impactful projects and tasks requiring in-depth knowledge of the design process and provide precise design direction and guidance
- Steer a wide range of complex assignments with global responsibility
Drive Global projects as assigned
- Ensure training to marketplace including provision of all necessary tools and an established communication loop for implementation learning and further enhancements
- Lead additional special projects as assigned or agreed
- Resource and Team Management:
- Management and mentoring of assigned team and overarching x-functional team against defined objectives
- Control of the assigned budget and planning of assigned projects
- Provide broad context of activities to the team and set objectives while providing expertise for supervised area
- Accountability for performance reviews and identifying development opportunities of assigned team. May have some recruitment and salary review responsibility
- Design Leadership:
- Contribute to building a network of external and internal experts to foster an open source, creative environment, and shape a team culture that enables collaboration and innovation at its core
- Select, appoint and lead world class agencies to support store developments
- Drive industry-leading innovations in Retail Design. Build business cases and studies for capital investment opportunities to realize concept proposals, with a focus on commercial and on-brand consumer experiences
- Continuously monitor the retail industry (brick and mortar and digital) for best practices to understand the trends
- Self-initiate assignments with emphasis on strategic & tactical focus
- Key Relationships:
- Global Retail Teams
- Brand Design / Brand Expression
- External Agencies
- Business Units
- Brand Marketing
- Store Development Teams
- Sales, Strategy, Brand Communications teams
- Global Key Markets
- Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
- Passion of architecture and design
- Deep knowledge in specialised store design, plus broad knowledge of other retail and brand areas
- Possess a strong work ethic, perseverance, and flexibility
- Unmatched time management and multi-tasking and organisational skills
- Proven track record in retail concept design development and implementation
- Outstanding collaboration skills, excellent communication and presentation skills and the ability to influence and negotiate
- In-depth understanding of technical & design innovations including experience of construction and architectural detailing
- Excellent 2D presentation skills including hand-sketching and architectural illustration skills to convey design ideas and direction
- English fluent: verbal, written & spoken. Another European language is an advantage
- IT: Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Cloud, 3D Visualisation (Sketchup / VRay or other) and CAD (Vectorworks/AutoCad)
- Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualifications:
- Business or Design Degree (Architecture - Interior Design)
- 10 years relevant experience in retail development and design, including fashion retailing
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