Category Director - Beauty

Job description / Role

INSPIRE | EXHILARATE | DELIGHT

For over six decades, Chalhoub Group has been a partner and creator of luxury experiences in the Middle East. The Group, in its endeavour to excel as a hybrid retailer, has reinforced its distribution and marketing services with a portfolio of eight owned brands and over 300 international brands in the luxury, beauty, fashion, and art de vivre categories. More recently, the Group expanded its expertise into new categories of luxury watches, jewellery, and eyewear.

Every step at Chalhoub Group is taken with the customer at heart. Be it constantly reinventing itself or focusing on innovation to provide luxury experiences at over 750+ experiential retail stores, online and through mobile apps, each touch point leads to delighting the customer.

Today, Chalhoub Group stands for 14,000 skilled and talented professionals across seven countries, whose cohesive efforts have resulted in the Group being ranked third in the Middle East and first in Saudi Arabia as a Great Place to Work®.

To keep the innovation journey going, the Group has set up "The Greenhouse", which is not just an innovation hub, but also an incubator space and accelerator for start-ups and small businesses in the region and internationally. This is just one of the several initiatives taken by the Group to reinvent itself, catalysed by forward thinking and future-proofing. The Group has also been embedding sustainability at the core of its business strategy with a clear commitment towards people, partners and the planet, and by being a member of the United Nations Global Compact Community and signatory of the Women's Empowerment Principles.

What you'll be doing

The Merchant Director will manage forecasting budgets and planning cycles, rolling out new initiatives, reengineering processes, and implementing tools across merchandise planning, pricing, and analytics. In addition, he/she should adopt an attitude to drive operational excellence in cross-functional business areas and inspire teams to perform and excel in achieving targets.

Strategic Planning and Design:

- Design winning strategies (Customer Target, USP, growth plan)
- Define the organization's business model & competitive position for internal & external stakeholders
- Interpret business risks and potential threats to business and work towards mitigating them
- Analyse and help interpret trends pertaining to the market, competitors, customers & partners and use insights to drive initiatives for growth
- Assist in building a competitive assortment, keeping in mind the market and competition trends
- Play a role in building assortment and pricing strategy of e-commerce in line with competition to drive omni-channel retailing

Assortment and Brand Management:

- Build assortments/brand portfolio
- Drive team to maximize additional income for the organization through initiatives like space selling (animation)
- Ensure that the commercial teams drive new launches, new categories, or new brands/initiatives successfully

Go-To-Market Strategy:

- Design go-to-market strategies
- Play a crucial role in formulating & driving Joint business plans with key suppliers to drive profitability and growth
- Ensure that the commercial teams drive new launches, new categories, or new brands/initiatives successfully

Operational Execution and Management:

- Build an omnichannel activation plan
- Manage in-store space allocation/floor plan
- Define rules for product displays
- Overlook brand relationship (Booster plans & Trade Terms)
- Accountability for regional volume margin
- Take ownership of gross margins & drives an optimal category mix to influence growth
- Play a role in ensuring optimal space productivity and brand placements in stores via planogramming
- Work closely with internal functions like supply chain for inventory management & managing the buying budget, marketing for the promotional calendar, and sales operations for driving fundamental initiatives/novelties

Leadership and Mentorship:

- Drive team to maximize additional income for the organization through initiatives like space selling (animation)
- Motivate, guide, and mentor both category and commercial teams to drive effective and profitable commercial decisions
- Mentor the team on all major strategic sales planning functions, issues, and considerations

Decision Making and Escalation Handling:

- Influence organization-wide or high-impact decisions/initiatives
- Act as the primary point of contact for organization-wide commercial initiatives
- Address commercial escalations, both internal and external

Requirements

What you'll need to succeed

- Worked in a similar role for a minimum of 3-5 years
- Strong strategic planning skills, including designing winning strategies, defining business models, interpreting risks, and analyzing market trends for effective growth initiatives.
- Demonstrated expertise in assortment and brand management, go-to-market strategy formulation, and operational execution, including space allocation, product display rules, and brand relationship management.
- Proven ability to influence high-impact decisions and initiatives.

What we can offer you

With us, you will turn your aspirations into reality. We will help shape your journey through enriching experiences, learning and development opportunities and exposure to different assignments within your role or through internal mobility. Our Group offers diverse career paths for those who are extraordinary, every day.

We recognise the value that you bring, and we strive to provide a competitive benefits package which includes health care, child education contribution, remote and flexible working policies as well as exclusive employee discounts.

About the Company

The Chalhoub Group is the leading partner for luxury across the Middle East since 1955. As an expert in retail, distribution and marketing services based in Dubai, the group has become a major player in the fashion, beauty and gift sectors regionally.

By blending its Middle East expertise and intimate knowledge of luxury, Chalhoub Group is building brands in the region, by offering service excellence to all its partners and a unique experience to its customers through its passionate teams.

With a growing workforce of more than 9,000 people, implemented in 14 countries, as well as the operating of over 470 retail outlets, the group's success is attributed to its most valued asset of highly skilled and dedicated teams. Professionalism and passion are what fuel the Chalhoub Group's competitive edge in today's market.

By being committed to implementing sustainable practices into their business, the Chalhoub Group has been awarded in 2013 the CSR Label from the Dubai Chamber of Commerce.