Vice President, Retail

Ampersand Brands is a growing portfolio of beloved confectionery brands, including Hammond’s Candies, the iconic hand‑crafted candy maker, and Lolli & Pops, a premium retail and gifting brand with a national presence. The company is backed by strong growth ambitions, combining innovation, brand storytelling, and operational excellence to expand its reach and solidify its position as a leading player in the U.S. confections industry.

The Vice President, Retail for Ampersand Brands will lead all retail operations and in‑store strategy, driving profitable growth across existing and future store footprints for Lolli & Pops and Hammond’s Candies retail business. They will be accountable for creating a seamless, elevated, customer‑centric experience in every physical touchpoint, aligning merchandising, store operations, visual presentation, and local marketing with the brand’s premium identity.

They will work in close partnership with executive leadership to scale the business while maintaining brand consistency, operational discipline, and excellence in execution.

• Define the long‑term retail vision and roadmap (new stores, formats, market entry, store concepts) aligned with the brand’s mission and growth targets.
• Own the retail P&L, budgeting, forecasting, and performance metrics.
• Translate corporate strategy into retail KPIs, goals, and incentives.
• Lead annual planning, investment in store expansion/refurbishment, capital allocation for stores.

• Oversee site selection, lease negotiations, store openings, and rollouts.
• Develop protocols for store remodels, relocations, store closure decisions, and lifecycle management of stores.
• Monitor and optimize the performance of existing stores: same‑store sales growth, productivity, cost controls, store‑level profitability.
• Evaluate potential new store formats (e.g., kiosks, pop‑ups, express, experiential flagship) and pilot new approaches.

• Drive standardized operational processes across stores (opening/closing, inventory management, scheduling, loss prevention, staffing).
• Oversee retail operations leadership (District/Area Managers, store managers) and build capability in people, training, coaching, accountability.
• Ensure high levels of store readiness, maintenance, visual merchandising, store presentation, fixtures, brand standards.
• Lead the integration of point‑of‑sale, store systems, workforce management, omnichannel operations (e.g., buy‑online‑pickup‑in‑store, returns).

• Ensure that the in‑store brand experience (store aesthetics, product presentation, customer service, visual merchandising) aligns with the premium brand identity.
• Collaborate with marketing and brand to localize campaigns, in‑store activations, events, promotions, and seasonal rollouts.
• Gather and leverage customer feedback, store‑level insights, mystery shopping, and data to continuously enhance the in‑store experience.

• Partner with merchandising / product teams to align assortments, private‑label product launches, in‑store exclusives, and promotions according to store strategy.
• Ensure effective inventory flow into stores, replenishment strategies, allocation, markdowns, and performance analytics.
• Work closely with e‑commerce, digital, supply chain, product, marketing, finance and real‑estate teams to ensure omnichannel synergy, unified brand expression, and optimal inventory flow.
• Play a key role in acquisition integration (e.g., integration of Hammond’s retail/wholesale retail channels, product lines) and scaling synergies.

• Build and lead a high‑performing retail operations organization (store management, regional leadership).
• Develop training programs, leadership pipelines, performance evaluations, incentives, and retention strategies.
• Foster a culture of accountability, operational rigor, customer empathy, and brand‑driven behaviors.

• Use store‑level metrics, dashboards, KPIs (traffic, conversion, transactions, AOV, margin, shrinkage, labor productivity) to drive decisions.
• Implement strong…