Regional Operation Director (South)
1. Field based, regional travel from home location
2. Highly competitive total reward package
This role presents a rare opportunity to lead growth initiatives across our Southern region, comprising c230 Pet Care Centres.
About the role
As our Regional Operations Director, your purpose is to provide clear strategic direction for the nine Area Management teams, within the South, by translating our strategy into a meaningful vision with clear deliverables that support continuous improvement and business growth.
Embodying our passion for our people and our consumers, you are a seasoned retail leader and ideally have a background within stores, understanding intrinsically customer, colleague and store performance metrics. You will be adept at seeking out and analysing insight from across our business to support the evolution of our consumer experience, continuing to develop and grow our teams and drive profitability.
Owning responsibility for a significant sales budget, you will be a strategic leader, able to ensure future-vision focus whilst embracing the agility to join operational teams and ‘do the do’ when required. You will have the ability to translate strategic plans and outputs into simple messaging, which is clear and understood across the different stakeholder groups, including retail, commercial and marketing colleagues.
You will drive change initiatives, translating our transformation activities including the RTP four pillars, into transparent action within your PCC’s.
Working closely with the regional support team and our support office colleagues, you personally own the performance, engagement and development of our Area Managers and will spend time with them regularly in pet care centres coaching for excellence. Continually evolving, you are a leader of change across the business.
Your territory spans the entirety of the South, from southern Midlands (Malvern) to Cornwall (Penzance), and includes the Isle of White and Guernsey.
About You – what we would like you to bring to our role and teams
You will have demonstrable experience in delivering growth within the retail sector, ideally gained within supermarket store operations, with exceptional leadership and strategic planning skills alongside the agility to take a hands-on approach, leading from the front as required. A calm, energetic, confident and engaging leader, you will establish trust and credibility with your team, inspiring followship and a culture of affective challenge. You will communicate with kind, rich candour, creating a feedback culture which supports confidence and drive for excellence with your teams, whilst ensuring the focus on delivery of sales and excellence in all customer interactions.
An engaging and credible leader, you will have the agility and influencing skills to move across a variety of stakeholder groups. Your commercial expertise will bring purpose and engagement, driving operational experience and excellence in your region.
An overview of some of the core deliverables and focus for the role
3. Sales Delivery – Accountable for the sales (and cost lines) plan delivery across your region, driving growth and purposeful commerciality
4. Standards and Service Execution – A relentless drive for high standards across all areas of accountability, ensuring a consistent consumer experience regardless of location
5. Strategic Visioning – Able to see the bigger picture and articulate the direction of travel to your region with strong and engaging communication
6. Leading through Change – Ensuring the focus and re-focus on strategic priorities, leaning in to ensure understanding and adoption of change and communicating with clarity to create ownership in action across your teams
7. High Performing Team – A highly engaged and motivated team that feels set up to succeed within a culture of high support, high challenge and with low colleague turnover
8. Relationship Management – Robust relationships across the Area Management population, both within your Region and beyond. An honest and strong two-way relationship with your direct peers to ensure a consistent Retail voice is represented to the rest of the business
Skills and Behaviours
9. A proven track record operating at a senior leadership level for a leading UK/International retailer(s) or multi-site service provider. Ideally you will have held roles as Area or Regional Managers previously
10. Outstanding interpersonal skills with an ability to build trusting and robust relationships, both in person and remotely
11. Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal and an awareness and ability to adapt communication style for varying audiences
12. A data focused mindset, gaining insight to drive and execute commercial opportunities and taking actions to mitigate risks
13. Proven leadership skills with a high support, high challenge approach to develop and drive a high performing team culture
14. A natural coach and developer of people, inspiring your broader teams through a natural drive and energy to support, creating fun and positivity
15. Evidence of executing exceptional standards focusing on a consumer first approach to service and standards in a high service environment
16. Ability to empathise with pet owners, understanding the emotional relationship pets play in consumers lives
Pets just see people. They aren’t biased and they don’t discriminate. We take our inspiration from pets, and we value and respect difference in all its forms. Our aim is to reflect the diversity of the communities we operate in, and every colleague can help us achieve this. We encourage our people to be themselves so even if your skills and experience don’t perfectly align, if you think you can make a unique contribution through your values and behaviours, we want to hear from you!