Global Customer Director
Role overview
Reporting into the MD of JD Sports, the Global Customer Director will be responsible for spearheading all customer experience, customer engagement and customer growth initiatives across the group, whilst building a more customer-centric, insight-led culture across the global organisation. They will do this by defining scalable, data-driven templates and strategies that enable local adoption across digital, B&M, marketing and trade. Serve the total omnichannel enterprise by aligning closely with Tech, data and product teams, and regional stakeholders—without owning in-market execution.
Accountable for designing and delivery of customer-facing experiences, loyalty ecosystems, and working with our tech function on UX standards, whilst establishing a deep understanding of customer behavior, sentiment, and ROI of actions to inform business decisions, and utilising these data metrics to enable our customer growth through activating data and tools to personalise, monetise, and drive additional customer and revenue growth
Responsibilities:
* Strategic Leadership:
o Develop and execute a comprehensive global consumer strategy that supports JD Sports Group's business objectives (by Market)
o Provide strategic direction and thought leadership in consumer experience, customer engagement and customer growth, influencing senior stakeholders, guiding decision-making processes and supporting any monetisation ambition.
o Develop & maintain effective & collaborative relationships around the business at all levels.
o Review and make recommendations on the JD Group operating model for its overarching customer offering
o Innovate and actively seek new & impactful approaches to how we engage with our customers through keeping in touch with industry developments, news & innovations
o Communicate insight and finding at a group level to influence strategic business decision making & planning.
o Ensuring best practices are engrained in the wider team functions covering Loyalty, Customer Strategy, Insight & Analysis, Marketing Effectiveness, Personalisation and Monetisation
* Prioritisation and management of ad hoc and high-level strategic projects for JD Group, which deliver clear direction for the business based on short- and longer-term risks and opportunities
* Creation of projects and initiatives in conjunction with business goals and manage prioritisation with wider teams
* Serve as the voice of the customer at the executive level, ensuring that customer insights and feedback influence company strategy, execution, and development.
* Build a culture of customer obsession throughout the organisation, empowering teams to prioritize customer needs and collaborate with respective functions to deliver excellence
* Develop a program to identify and grow customer advocates within a global retailer in a competitive space
* Function Leadership:
o Leading the insight function to spearhead JD Sports Group's consumer insight strategy, leveraging data to inform and shape our marketing efforts and overall business strategy across various JD markets globally. This role is critical in understanding our brand, market and customer health.
o Leading the marketing effectiveness function to build a Marketing Analytics & Measurement roadmap to be deployed within the organisation. They will have under their responsibility AdTech and MarTech standards deployment, Analytics (including Media, Content, Audience & Site), Media efficiency and measurement (including Competitive analysis, Brand Equity tracker, MMM, MTA…). With the deployment of standardised process & metrics, the customer director will be responsible for ensuring all funnel media & marketing performance insights are driving business outcomes through marketing effectiveness.
o Leading the loyalty function who is responsible for direct ownership, global influence and strategic guidance to develop and execute a comprehensive loyalty program and customer strategy. This role will oversee loyalty product management in coordination with a cross-functional loyalty squad within an agile tech environment and are the final escalation point within the team to ensure a seamless delivery of the program. The primary focus will be on enhancing customer lifetime value and driving sustainable profit growth across JD group through the vision, strategy and execution of highly personalized, innovative and compelling Loyalty programs.
* Team Management:
o Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team to think globally and be at the forefront of customer innovation
o Foster a collaborative and innovative team culture, ensuring alignment with the company's vision and values.
o Manage resource allocation, performance evaluations, and professional development initiatives.
o Translating the requirements of the business and understanding the resource demands you will require for your team, to adequately build a target operating model in line with these demands
o Reviewing the most cost effectiveness model for this resource through either permanent or temporary staffing, or 3rd party suppliers
* Customer Base Model
o Develop the requirements and roadmap for customer base profiling and advanced segmentation and audience framework development
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o Define the requirements and customer definitions and segmentations (eg life-stage) to underpin acquisition and retention strategies and business forecasts
o Define and prioritise specific analytical and predictive model requirements into the data science roadmap ie. churn. CLTV, x-sell etc; working with the business to define outcome-based use cases.
* Consumer & Market Insights & Analytics:
o Provide regular intelligence on our market performance, brand health and customer profiles (socio-demographics, attitudes, interests, behaviours, trends and preferences) of both our current and target audiences, by market and fascia.
o Design and implement the research methodologies (quantitative and qualitative) and associate programmes to gather all the market, brand and customer insights across all JD markets.
o Establish and monitor key performance indicators at a customer, brand and market level.
o Provide the ongoing analysis & interpretation of the insights; building clear stories and narratives that help drives action and shapes future thinking.
o Manage the resource allocation, and establish the processes and ways of working to prioritise insight demands, based on available budgets and resources
o Identify, select and manage any 3rd party agencies/tech partners and their performance against defined SLAs.
* Cross-Functional Collaboration:
o Work closely with marketing, commercial (trading), property, merch and other key departments to integrate consumer insights into business strategies.
o Collaborate with regional teams to ensure the relevance and effectiveness of local consumer insight initiatives.
o Drive the adoption of consumer-centric thinking across the organization.
* Innovation & Continuous Improvement:
o Champion the use of advanced analytics, machine learning, and other innovative approaches to enhance consumer insight capabilities.
o Continuously evaluate and improve research methodologies, tools, and processes to ensure best-in-class insight generation.
Skills & Competencies:
o Exceptional leadership and team management skills with the ability to inspire and motivate a diverse team.
o Strong analytical and critical thinking skills, with the ability to interpret complex data and translate it into actionable strategies.
o Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to influence and engage senior stakeholders.
o Strategic mindset with a customer-centric approach to business.