Area Manager, Balsam Hill Studio

Balsam Brands is seeking an experienced, commercially minded Area Manager to oversee a growing fleet of Balsam Hill Studio retail locations across Hawaii and California.  This role is responsible for driving store productivity, operational excellence, visual execution, and customer experience across geographically dispersed locations. The Area Manager serves as both a strategic field leader and hands-on operator, partnering closely with Store Managers and cross-functional corporate teams to improve traffic capture, conversion, labor productivity, visual presentation, and overall store performance.  

The ideal candidate combines strong people leadership with sharp retail instincts and understands how staffing, visual merchandising, customer experience, and operational execution work together to drive revenue and profitability in premium, experiential, and tourism-driven retail environments.  

This role requires frequent travel, strong remote leadership capabilities, and the ability to maintain meaningful in-store presence across all locations.  

What You'll Do  

• Lead, coach, and develop Store Managers to drive strong sales performance, operational execution, customer experience, and team engagement across all assigned stores
• Drive, monitor, and influence store productivity metrics, including traffic capture, conversion rate, average order value (AOV), units per transaction (UPT), labor productivity, payroll efficiency, and overall store profitability in partnership with cross-functional teams
• Ensure stores consistently maintain premium visual merchandising standards, storefront presentation, cleanliness, product density, signage, and overall brand presentation by conducting regular walk throughs and visual audits
• Identify local traffic-driving opportunities through hotel partnerships, concierge outreach, tourism relationships, mall partnerships, local events, and community engagement
• Partner with the Headquarters People Team and recruiting partners on staffing strategy, including resume review, interviewing, hiring communication, onboarding, scheduling optimization, performance management, coaching, and succession planning
• Ensure stores consistently execute company operational standards, policies, inventory procedures, loss prevention practices, and safety requirements
• Support store managers with contractor scheduling for facility maintenance, payroll optimization, budget & expense approvals
• Travel regularly between Hawaii and California to support stores, teams, and new retail initiatives as needed

What You Bring to the Table  

• 5+ years of experience in multi-unit retail leadership, district management, area management, or similar field leadership roles
• Proven track record of driving sales growth, operational performance, and team development across multiple retail locations
• Experience operating in premium retail, experiential retail, tourism-driven retail, hospitality-adjacent retail, or customer-service-intensive environments preferred
• Strong visual merchandising instincts and experience driving sales through storefront presentation, customer flow, product storytelling, and customer experience execution
• Comfortable operating in fast-paced, evolving retail environments with a test-and-learn mindset
• Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills
• Digitally savvy with experience using point-of-sale systems, retail reporting tools, and Microsoft Office
• Comfortable with frequent travel and working across multiple time zones

Physical Requirements  

• Must be willing and able to travel frequently between Hawaii and California
• Ability to work onsite at store locations as needed
• May occasionally lift or move items up to forty pounds

Notes: This is a full-time, in-person position. Candidates must live on-island of Oahu. 

About Us: Balsam Brands is a global, omnichannel retailer with roots in holiday and home décor. We strive for excellence in everything we do and present a unique opportunity for those seeking to have a meaningful impact in a people-first company that values relationship building, authenticity, and doing the right thing. We have steadily growing teams in Boise, the Bay Area, Dublin, the Philippines, Canada, and Mexico.    

Balsam Hill Studio, an extension of our holiday brand Balsam Hill®, reimagines souvenir shopping, offering premium ornaments unique to each store's location. The Balsam Hill Studio retail store at Whalers Village in Lahaina, HI will feature unique, handcrafted ornaments specific to Hawaii. Presenting tourists with beautiful, curated options for mementos to remind them of their extraordinary adventures every holiday season for years to come. 

The company's mission is to create joy together. We empower our team and partners to love what they do, provide products and experiences that inspire meaningful moments with family and friends, and give back to our families and communities in impactful ways. When you join Balsam Brands, you'll find a culture of caring people doing challenging work and building a welcoming workplace. 

• Check out our flagship brand, Balsam Hill: www.balsamhill.com  

• Balsam Brands in Forbes: https://bit.ly/balsambrandsforbes2023 

• Balsam Brands on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/balsam-brands/ 
• Glassdoor: https://bit.ly/balsambrands-glassdoor 

Benefits Offered: 

• Competitive compensation; salary is reviewed yearly and may be adjusted as part of the normal compensation review process 

• Comprehensive Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage 

• Voluntary life and AD&D insurance 

• Voluntary short and long-term disability insurance 

• 401(k) with dollar-for-dollar company match up to $4,000 per calendar year 

• Paid holidays, PTO, generous team member merchandise discount, parking reimbursement 

The base pay range for this position is: $99,000 to $124,000. Please note that placement within the posted salary range is based on several factors, including geographic location, experience, skills, alignment with role requirements and other job-related factors. It is uncommon for offers to be made at the top of the range, as this typically reflects a candidate who exceeds all role requirements and brings significant, directly applicable experience. We benchmark our pay ranges against current external data sources and regularly review compensation for our team members. Balsam Brands is committed to providing our team members with an internally fair, externally competitive, and fiscally prudent total compensation package administered in a simple and consistent manner. 

At Balsam Brands, we strive to build a diverse, equitable, and inclusive team to fulfill our purpose to create joy together. Balsam Brands is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We encourage people from all backgrounds, ages, abilities, and experiences to apply. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, citizenship, marital or family status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy or caregiver status, veteran status, or any other legally protected status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations to participate in the job application and interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment.