Head of Category, Skincare

Head of Category, Skincare – Space NK, London

Role Overview:
The objective of the Head of Category is to lead a multi‑disciplinary team of buyers and merchandisers to deliver the customer and commercial growth and profit targets for your portfolio. The Head of Category reports into the Category Director.

• Attract New Customers through our Brands
• Increase Space NK Brand Awareness & Appeal
• Make it Easy for the Customer to Shop
• Retain Customers & Grow their Spend
• Achieve Scale to deliver Profitability

• End to End Responsibility of Category Commercial Performance
  • Owner of all customer and commercial KPIs
  • Lead Monday trade reporting meeting with category team on all key metrics
  • Report to Category Director and other senior management team on category KPIs
• Budget, Forecast Development & Reporting
  • Develop annual budget + targets for category KPIs
  • Deliver intermittent re‑forecasts as required for business purposes
  • Cascade KPIs and targets (including re‑forecasts) to category team
• Product Assortment Development
  • Responsible for commercial performance of product portfolio
  • Oversight of Buyers to ensure product assortment is delivering maximum customer and commercial output
  • Identify new trends, brands, products, and range gaps; work with brand partners & identify new brands to bring newness in to address
  • Execute Market Week with all brands to review performance and product pipeline
  • Ensure all ongoing brands in portfolio have a joint business plan in place including customer, sales, and margin targets and two‑way support plans
  • Manage underperforming brands and products through range actions, stock initiatives, marketing initiatives, or e‑commerce / store led initiatives
  • Develop strategic brand relationships, securing incremental support and investment
• Customer Journey
  • Oversight of Category Co‑Ordinator within category team to ensure they continuously deliver improvements of the onsite customer journey
  • Analyse and optimise customer journey within category pages and PDPs
  • Identify opportunities for improvements (assets, navigation, descriptions, placements) within owned category pages; this includes but is not limited to PDPs, PLPs, customer navigation, home page placements, or other landing pages
  • Ensure new product launches, brand launches, or other collection / landing pages are developed, merchandised, tested and launched accurately and on time
  • Develop and report on brand commercial performance during Market Week to identify asks for further improvement (e.g. assets, samples, offers)
  • Collaborate with digital marketing, content, and technology departments to identify these opportunities and execute tests and/or site improvements
• Weekly OTB Sign Off
  • Review department WSSIs weekly with category Merchandiser including all metrics
  • Review OTB weekly to ensure intake flow into the business is in line with target
• Stock Efficiency & Stock Health Management
  • Oversight of category Merchandiser to ensure stock is managed efficiently and effectively to deliver a positive customer experience within the stock investment targets
  • Ensure category stock ownership is in line with target
  • Identify availability challenges and risks and develop solutions to improve availability – by brand, by channel, by SKU grade
  • Identify areas of overstock or excess within each channel and develop strategies to move or exit underperforming stock
  • Work with stores, warehouse, finance to execute stock initiatives
  • Partner with e‑commerce team to identify quick win actions to impact stock health
  • Execute audits with brands to review stock performance and identify asks and targets
  • Report on supplier compliance and lead claims process
• Marketing, Promotional Planning & Reporting
  • Create single category view of product and brand pipeline post Market Week – collaborating with category team and prioritising commercial and customer metrics
  • Pitch A‑launch priorities to Category Director, Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Marketing Officer in 2x per year pitch process for marketing prioritisation
  • Collaborate with Marketing department to develop business Trading / Marketing Calendar including promotional and marketing plans
  • Create briefs required for any…