At Deckers Brands, Together, Every Step is a promise kept that every employee can bring their authentic self, is valued and supported, as a whole person, at work and beyond. Together, Every Step is how we continue to deliver exceptional business results, experience an amazing place to work, and have a positive impact on the communities and world around us.
Job Title: Director, Global HOKA Retail Visual Experience
Reports to: VP, Global Retail
Location: US Remote
Interested applicants must reside in one of the following approved states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin
The Role
As the Director of Visual Experience at HOKA, you will play a crucial role in enhancing the customer experience in our HOKA retail stores. We are seeking a creative leader who will be dedicated to understanding consumer insights, shopping behaviors, and customer journeys. Your mission will be to elevate the HOKA retail experience, ensuring that visual executions and store concepts serve as the cohesive elements that cater to customers across all channels. In addition to this, you will oversee experiential events and activations, crafting compelling product and innovation narratives, and driving demand and impact in the marketplace.
This role demands a deep understanding of the retail landscape, consumer trends, and brand positioning. It also requires strong cross-functional collaboration skills as you lead a team of professionals in store concept development, visual merchandising, and experiential design. You will immerse yourself in the business, continuously seeking opportunities to enhance the way we communicate our product stories and bring them to life, ultimately establishing connections with consumers and fostering brand loyalty, all while driving sales.
The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in brick-and-mortar retail and a track record of leading happy, well-balanced, collaborative, and productive teams.
Your contribution to Deckers' success will be measured by the improved quality of the consumer retail experience, all while meeting commercial requirements and retail objectives.
We celebrate diversity--of your background, your experiences and your unique identity. We are committed to ensuring an inclusive and equitable workplace where all of our employees can Come as They Are. We believe that when we bring our different perspectives to work, we are truly Better Together.
Your Impact
The primary functions of this role include, but are not limited to:
Retail Store Concept
- Spearheads the development and ownership of innovative retail store concept designs for the HOKA brand.
- Leads the creation of region-specific design solutions and ideations, tailoring them to unique regional requirements.
- Presents forward-thinking concepts, renderings, and proposals to foster innovation within the brand.
- Formulates and implements a comprehensive Design Playbook for distribution among consultants and internal teams.
- Adapts store design elements to keep pace with the evolving needs of the business.
- Evaluates and provides feedback on region-driven layouts and designs, ensuring all submissions meet the desired standards.
- Collaborates with Global Retail Operations to co-author detailed briefs for agency involvement.
- Works in close partnership with Global Merchandising to develop fixtures and store concepts that align with brand product strategies.
- Supplies Real Estate with high-level, intuitive documents to assist in the selection of potential project sites.
- Establishes vital fixtures in collaboration with Visual Merchandising partners, particularly for upcoming and emerging categories.
Visual Merchandising
- Establish and maintain a comprehensive set of Global Standards and Guidelines for HOKA Retail Stores, ensuring uniformity worldwide.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify and craft dynamic content that addresses current trends, products, customer challenges, as well as sales and marketing requirements. Review floor maps submitted by Visual Merchandising (VM) leaders for floor sets, launches, and New Store Openings (NSOs) in each region, offering feedback and guidance as necessary.
- Possess a profound understanding of HOKA brand plans for each season, working closely with global and regional merchandising teams to ensure the consistent delivery of an elevated and relevant consumer experience across all regions.
- Evaluate photographs from each region for every product launch and create comprehensive recaps to be shared with cross-functional, regional, and global partners.
- Formulate a strategy and oversee the development of a Visual Experience (VE) Dashboard to highlight key metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for retail teams.
- Develop and provide global visual direction that regional teams can use as a reference for executing directives and creating area-specific binders.
- Generate directional floor plans and flow documents for all types of stores.
- Contribute to the setup and merchandising of all new stores and pop-up locations.
Design
- Drawing inspiration and guidance from the Brand Creative Team, craft designs for Primary and Secondary window displays and interior prop elements for all seasonal launches and campaigns.
- Recognize and tailor designs to meet global requirements and intricacies, offering alternative solutions for good, better, and best buildouts for different store types while maintaining a balance between quality, aesthetics, and cost-effective/value engineering measures.
- Develop comprehensive Technical Packs for all seasonal launches and campaigns, encompassing all essential design specifications, material palettes, 3D models, DWG lockups/logos, and more.
- Create design renderings for directives, toolkits, and standard/guideline documents.
- Elevate the design of primary, secondary, and interior elements for flagship stores by emphasizing the best options.
- Identify and design special spaces, such as flexible areas, expanded hero moments, unique window displays, zones, and escalator/staircase features for all seasonal launches.
Who You Are
- Expertly and independently be able to navigate and manage special and high-complexity projects.
- Comfortable working through complexities of problem solving for unique site conditions (new stores, relocations, expansions, remodels, and special projects).
- Communicates effectively and with a global perspective; develops and maintains professional relationships with internal and external business partners and vendors.
- Provides and ensures that a high standard of creativity and execution is consistently delivered to all internal and external clients.
- Operates with a global, strategic, and tactical perspective in setting and achieving expectations.
- Promotes and cultivates strong interpersonal relationships through effective communication and collaboration, from a strategic global perspective.
- Builds constructive and effective relationships with industry vendors.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Ability to use independent judgment in performing all duties of the position.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills to interact with staff, colleagues, and executive management professionally and effectively.
- Knowledgeable in current trends.
- Innovative Leader around with people & processes.
- High degree of integrity with the ability to handle confidential and sometimes highly sensitive matters in the appropriate manner.
- Ability to travel required.
We’d love to hear from people with
• Bachelor’s degree in related field or equivalent experience
• Minimum of 10+ years of proven experience in Visual Merchandising and or/ Visual Design in a footwear/apparel environment.
• Proven project management experience leading complex global projects.
• Strong understanding of unique cultural needs and requirements with experience translating and appropriately tailoring global guidelines in a regionally relevant way.
What We'll Give You
- Competitive Pay and Bonuses - We’ve created a variety of competitive compensation programs to foster career development, reward success and to show our employees just how much they’re valued.
- Financial Planning and wellbeing - No matter what financial goals our employees have set, we want to help them get there. Our plans provide powerful ways to protect income, pay for expenses and invest in the future.
- Time away from work - Sometimes we need time away to be with family, focus on our health or just simply recharge. Our plans support our employees’ needs to get out, get healthy and come back stronger than ever.
- Extras, discounts and perks - Being a valued member of the Deckers Brands team means more than just a paycheck. From generous discounts to community-based programs, we offer a variety of cool extras
- Growth and Development - Deckers Brands was built on the idea of pursuing passion. That’s why we offer extensive opportunities and support for personal and professional development.
- Health and Wellness - There’s nothing basic about our comprehensive health and wellness programs and offerings. While at work and at play, we aim to support a healthy lifestyle.
$180,000 - $188,000
The salary range posted reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for this role in our Goleta, CA location. Individual pay will be determined by location and additional factors, including job related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary for your preferred location during the hiring process.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Diversity and inclusion are key to our success. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and our employees are people with different strengths, experiences and backgrounds who share a passion for our brands. We welcome qualified applicants regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, age, military or veteran status, mental or physical disability, medical condition and all of the other beautiful parts of your identity.
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