US Key Account Director

REPORTS TO: Managing Director

LOCATION: US (flexible on location but likely to be frequent travel)

The US Key Account Director will take a key leadership role within the organisation and be pivotal in shaping the what the brand looks like in US retail. You will be responsible for all US retailer accounts, supporting launch and holistically owning the relationships ongoing. You will own the development and execution of account-specific strategies, joint business plans, sales forecasts, trade investment, retailer marketing programs, and growth initiatives. You will be a proven retail leader, combing strong commercial instincts and analytical nature, with the ability to nail execution.

What you’ll do:

• Set the retailer strategy, own the P&L, and manage the day-day relationship for Lisa Eldridge’s retailer accounts. Design and deliver the joint business plans ensuring you achieve our aligned goals on revenue, profitability, productivity and ranking.
• Build a strong, collaborative relationship with the retailers. Ensure we are the retailers’ favourite partner to work with, nailing the basics around account management, as well as delivering against the retailers’ priorities.
• Leverage a deep understanding of the retail environment to tailor our global brand plans to the retailer and ensure they resonate with that specific customer. Where necessary, build retailer-specific plans to enable us to deliver against growth targets.
• Lead planning and execution for product launches and marketing moments, coordinating timelines, sell-in, merchandising with various internal Lisa Edridge teams.
• Own revenue delivery, trade investment, and account profitability. Use retailer data to identify opportunities, risks and actionable insights that optimise performance. Perform frequent return on investment analysis to ensure spend is being used most effectively.
• Lead sales forecasting, partnering with the Supply Chain/Ops team to ensure sufficient inventory and seamless operations.
• Oversee VM updates to ensure product launches are delivered impactfully and the budget is managed efficiently, in partnership with the VM team.
• Support field sales resource to ensure that instore experience is aligned with our brand expectations and that we are delighting our customers anywhere/any time.
• Work with Managing Director to define future team structure, and to, in turn, build that team.

What you’ll have

• 7+ years’ experience in account/sales management for a prestige or luxury beauty brand
• Sephora account experience essential. Specialty/luxury retail experience (Violet Grey, Net-a-Porter Beauty, Bluemercury, or similar) strongly preferred.
• Comfortable wearing multiple hats and being very hands on in execution. Experience at a challenger/indie brand scale preferred.
• Strong commercial acumen with experience owning forecasts, budgets, trade investment, account profitability, and business analysis.
• Proven track record owning accounts holistically, combining commercial and marketing skill sets to lead product launches and marketing moments.
• Strong relationship-builder and confident negotiator.

About Lisa…

Lisa Eldridge is one of the world’s most celebrated make-up artists. Equally invested in creating educational tutorials for her loyal community as she is orchestrating her signature red-carpet look for celebrity friends or conceiving avant-garde concepts for catwalk and editorial, Lisa has established herself as the most recognised and trusted voice in beauty. An early mover in the digital world, best-selling author and driving force behind the creative direction of several luxury brands, Lisa is the beauty authority both novices and professionals turn to for guidance.

In 2019, decades of expertise and knowledge culminated in the launch of her eponymous brand. Representing Lisa’s impressive dexterity for colour alchemy both industry insiders and her loyal community describe her lip colours as ‘un-dupable’, while fashion bible, VOGUE describes the Seamless Skin Foundation: ’As close to a perfect foundation as you’re ever going to get’. A trusted disruptor at her core, Lisa continues to push the boundaries on colour, ingredients and techniques, guiding and inspiring her loyal community to experiment creatively and enhance their natural, unique beauty.