Sr. Group Director, Retail Enablement & Client Development

Sr. Group Director, Retail Enablement & Client Development  

At CHANEL, we are focused on creating an inclusive culture that nurtures personal growth, contributing to collective progress. We believe the uniqueness of each individual increases the diversity, complementarity and effectiveness of our teams. We strongly encourage your application, as we value the perspective, experience and potential you could bring to CHANEL.  

About the Job  

CHANEL is looking for a Sr. Group Director, Retail Enablement & Client Development to join our Fragrance & Beauty Retail Excellence team in New York. This senior leadership role is responsible for building the capabilities and connections that turn Retail strategy into action across Owned, Lease and Multi-Brand Retail.  

The role brings teams and capabilities together with an enterprise mindset to strengthen the client experience and enable the business. This leader will keep the client and retail teams at the center of decisions, translating insight and business needs into clear priorities, scalable ways of working and measurable outcomes.  

The Sr. Group Director will shape the F&B clienteling and omni agenda, influence cross-functional roadmaps and investment priorities, and drive alignment with the teams accountable for technology delivery. The ideal candidate combines a strong retail and client-centric mindset with strategic judgment, innovation, financial acumen and the ability to create momentum through influence and shared accountability.  

 
What impact you can create at CHANEL:  

• Shape the Retail client-development, clienteling and omni agenda across Owned, Lease and Multi-Brand Retail  

• Champion an elevated and consistent client experience, with a focus on luxury service, personalization, brand standards and lasting client relationships  

• Translate client insight, field feedback and commercial priorities into a clear Retail point of view, business requirements and activation needs  

• Influence cross-functional roadmaps, investment priorities and sequencing so Retail and client needs are represented in enterprise decisions  

• Build the business case for priority omni, client and Retail capabilities, defining the business value, field outcome and measures of success  

• Drive Retail readiness and adoption for agreed capabilities by aligning owners across process, communication, education and change management  

• Build a practical innovation agenda focused on improving the client and advisor experience, simplifying work and creating measurable business value  

• Create a disciplined test-and-learn approach with clear hypotheses, owners, success measures and criteria for scaling, adapting or stopping initiatives  

• Integrate workforce, financial, process and technology choices to improve productivity, resource allocation and execution  

• Lead workforce and capacity planning, staffing models, productivity analysis and resource-allocation recommendations across Retail  

• Strengthen financial planning, controllable-expense visibility, profitability discussions and ongoing budget governance  

• Drive market process improvement and establish consistent, scalable ways of working across distribution models  

• Guide the Retail point of view for client and Retail tools, including business requirements, prioritization, adoption, user experience and data governance  

• Act as a senior connector across Retail, DCX, Marketing, Education, Commercial Development, Finance, Planning and Technology  

• Establish clear ownership, governance, decision points and accountability across the Retail Enablement portfolio  

• Develop a high-performing leadership team that operates with strong judgment, ownership, innovation and client focus  

You are energized by…  

• Keeping the client and Retail teams at the center of business decisions  

• Shaping client-development and omni strategies that improve the end-to-end client experience  

• Identifying white space and turning new ideas into practical, testable solutions  

• Influencing senior, cross-functional partners and aligning teams around shared outcomes  

• Connecting the dots across client insight, people, process, finance and technology  

• Building clear business cases and helping leaders make informed investment choices  

• Navigating complexity and balancing the different needs of Owned, Lease and Multi-Brand Retail  

• Creating structure, accountability and scalable ways of working in evolving environments  

• Coaching senior talent and creating impact through others  

• Balancing near-term business needs with longer-term capability building  

What you will bring to the team...  

• A distinctly retail and client-centric mindset, with a strong understanding of how service, clienteling, people, process and technology shape the client experience  

• Experience shaping or enabling client-development, CRM, loyalty, omni or relationship-based selling strategies  

• A passion for luxury Retail and a commitment to elevated service, personalization, brand integrity and excellence at every point of sale  

• Senior leadership experience in complex Retail environments, ideally spanning owned Retail and wholesale or partner-led distribution  

• A track record of identifying opportunities, building business cases and influencing investment or enterprise priorities without relying on direct authority  

• Experience leading innovation, transformation, process improvement or technology-enabled change from opportunity definition through adoption and value realization  

• Strategic and commercial judgment with strong financial acumen  

• Ability to translate ambiguity and complex business needs into clear priorities, decisions and operating mechanisms  

• Strong communication and executive presence, with the ability to align senior cross-functional stakeholders around a shared outcome  

• Data-driven decision making, disciplined prioritization and a practical test-and-learn mindset  

• Ability to lead through influence and shared accountability without personally executing every initiative  

• Proven ability to lead senior talent, delegate effectively and scale impact through others  

Position Logistics:  

• 15+ years of overall professional experience, including significant leadership experience in Retail, client development, Retail operations, strategy, business transformation or a related field  

• Demonstrated experience working across multiple Retail environments or distribution models  

• Experience partnering across Retail, Client Experience or CRM, Marketing, Education, Finance, Planning, Commercial Development and Technology  

• Luxury, beauty or another high-touch client-service environment strongly preferred  

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree a plus  

• Hybrid role based out of our New York City corporate offices, with the ability to visit points of distribution and travel as business needs require  

What skills you will learn?  

• Deepen enterprise leadership experience across Owned, Lease and Multi-Brand Retail  

• Build greater expertise in shaping luxury client-development and omni enablement strategies  

• Expand the ability to influence investment and roadmaps across a complex, cross-functional organization  

• Develop broader experience connecting workforce, financial, process and technology decisions to client and business outcomes  

• Advance innovation leadership through disciplined test-and-learn methods and scaled capability building  

Compensation: 

The anticipated base salary range for this position is 170,000 through 206,000. Base salary is one component of the total compensation for this position. Other forms of variable pay [may/will] be offered for this position. Other components [may/will] include bonus potential, benefits, and/or perks. 

Benefits and Perks: 

Wellbeing resources include dedicated paid time off for wellbeing (Please select appropriate time off for your role: 2-week August Office Closure OR Wellbeing Days in Retail) and a Wellbeing fund  

Family and care giving benefits (inclusive of parental leave, fertility support, MilkStork, and Care.com Membership) 

Generous paid time off policies to include vacation, holiday, sick and volunteer days  

401K and other incentives  

Robust healthcare offerings; medical, dental, vision, MDLIVE (virtual care), One Medical, Flexible Spending Accounts (Health Care & Dependent Care), Health Savings Account and Employee Assistance Program 

Life insurance, Accidental Death & Dismemberment, Short Term Disability, Long Term Disability, Health Advocate, International Business Travel Accident & Medical, and Commuter Transit & Parking 

Additional Information: 

Chanel is a private company whose values are grounded in creating the conditions for people to perform at their best and feel fulfilled and confident in their work. We offer a unique work environment where individuals are encouraged to better understand the brand, the business, and motivations, so that together we can unlock the possibilities of growth. This is reflected in: 

Diversity and Inclusion: 

At CHANEL, we are intentional in promoting Diversity & Inclusion. We foster respect, empathy and dignity for all.  We believe strongly that the diversity of our people across the full spectrum of human differences is essential to our organisation and the connections we have with each other and our clients.  

We offer Employee Resource Groups in the US that are voluntary, open to all, employee-led groups formed around a shared identity or lived experience, whose aim is to foster a diverse, inclusive, and equitable community aligned with the values and missions of the communities they support. 

Chanel Community: 

CHANEL Community empowers our employees to channel their passions, talents and sense of purpose to contribute to and learn from our communities. 

Employees are encouraged to take time off annually to volunteer through CHANEL Community. CHANEL also matches employee donations to select charitable organizations. 

Sustainability: 

CHANEL Mission 1.5° is our climate action plan. It is focused on transforming the business in line with the ambitions of the Paris Agreement on climate change to limit the average global mean temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. 

Employees are encouraged to contribute to our US Sustainability efforts at the corporate level and within the divisions, through organized taskforces and initiatives. 

Arts and Culture: 

We are committed to extending our legacy of cultural engagement. Global support includes the CHANEL Culture Fund, which supports a select group of leading art culture institutions across the globe, and the CHANEL Next Prize for the next generation of creative talent.  US support currently includes Annual sponsorship of the MoMA film program, Tribeca Film Festival programs and Through Her Lens, Support of the Academy Gold Fellowship for Women and Sponsorship of the BAAND Together Dance Festival at Lincoln Center. 

Fondation Chanel: 

Since 2011, Fondation CHANEL’s mission is for women and girls to be free to shape their own destiny.  Through multi-year partnerships with financial and technical support, Fondation CHANEL is committed to improving the safety and autonomy of women and adolescent girls around the world, impacting over a million women and girls in its first 10 years.     

For more information, please navigate to the Fondation Chanel website here   

Career and Leadership Development:  

We have dedicated in-house teams focused on supporting the onboarding of employees, developing leadership skills via custom programs like Imagine Chanel People, Heart of Leadership and group and individual coaching, and blended online and live classes offered on our Bloom platform and by skilled trainers, such as Shape Your Career, to develop career building skills. 

*Chanel, Inc. benefits and perks are dependent on eligibility and subject to modification by Chanel at any time.