Director of New Business - Wholesale

Job Description

The Director of New Business will be responsible for identifying, developing, and securing new business opportunities. This role will lead the full acquisition and business development cycle from market identification and prospecting through relationship building, negotiations, account onboarding, and long-term growth.

The ideal candidate is a highly connected, entrepreneurial, and commercially minded with a strong network across the travel and hospitality retail space and a proven track record of closing new business, acquisitions, partnerships, or investment opportunities.

This individual will develop relationships with new accounts to identify businesses and assets that align with the company’s strategic growth objectives.

Key Responsibilities

• Identify, prioritize, and develop new business opportunities across travel retail, hospitality, hotels, resorts, airports, cruise, and travel-related businesses, while also pursuing broader wholesale opportunities and, where strategically relevant, direct-to-consumer channels and initiatives.
• Develop and execute a comprehensive new-business strategy focused on expanding the company’s presence across travel and hospitality channels and markets.
• Build and maintain a robust pipeline of prospective partners, customers, operators, and acquisition targets across domestic and international markets.
• Develop account-specific business proposals, presentations, assortments, and sales strategies tailored to the needs and objectives of prospective partners.
• Lead end-to-end contract negotiations and commercial terms, including pricing, margins, assortments, payment terms, inventory commitments, marketing tactics and launch strategies.
• Evaluate prospective accounts for strategic and financial viability, including revenue potential, profitability, margin requirements, inventory considerations, and operational requirements.
• Partner cross-functionally with Merchandising, Planning, Operations, Finance, and Marketing to develop launch strategies, initial assortments, inventory plans, sales targets, and successful onboarding plans for new accounts.
• Manage and report on the new business pipeline, including opportunity status, probability, timing, sales forecasts, expected revenue, and key next steps.
• Provide leadership with market intelligence and strategic recommendations, including competitive activity, emerging retail opportunities, account prioritization, and risks.
• Spearhead the creation and optimization of the new account toolkit— including line sheets, brand guidelines, training tools and onboarding collateral.
• Lead the end-to-end tradeshow strategy; evaluate industry events and define participation plans to represent the brand on-site in partnership with Marketing.

Qualifications

• 5–10+ years of experience in wholesale sales, business development, account management with an emphasis on travel retail and hospitality.
• Established network of senior relationships across hotels, hospitality groups, travel retail, airports, airlines, cruise, tourism, travel companies, or related industries.
• Demonstrated success opening and growing new wholesale accounts.
• Experience working with hotel owners, operators, travel retailers, airport concessionaires, hospitality executives, travel companies, or other industry stakeholders.
• Proficient understanding of the wholesale fashion business, including AUR, sell-through, margin, inventory, markdowns, assortments, and retail planning.
• Strong negotiation, presentation, and relationship-building skills.
• Highly commercial and results-oriented with a strong understanding of profitability.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work cross-functionally and influence internal and external stakeholders.
• Strong analytical and organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple opportunities simultaneously.
• Willingness to travel as required.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate is a highly connected, entrepreneurial, and commercially minded executive with a deep understanding of the travel retail and hospitality space, with a proven ability to identify and develop new business opportunities.

They bring strong relationships across hotels, resorts, travel retail, airports, cruise, and hospitality groups, and are comfortable engaging with owners, founders, buyers, operators, and senior executives at the highest levels of the industry.

They are equally comfortable developing a strategic relationship, identifying an acquisition or partnership opportunity, presenting a business case to senior leadership, negotiating commercial terms, and working cross-functionally to bring new opportunities to life.

The successful candidate will combine deep industry relationships, commercial instinct, strategic thinking, and transaction experience, with the ability to turn market opportunities and relationships into tangible revenue, strategic partnerships, and acquisitions.