Brand/creative Manager: Woman

**Job Advert**:
An exciting and challenging opportunity, based at our Support Centre in Kuils River, has just become available for a Brand/Creative Manager within the Ackermans Buying Team.

We are looking for a resilient, efficient, and influential individual who can add strategic value to our business by being responsible for the brand, creative, visual merchandising as well as product strategy to support the Woman standalone format objectives.

**Qualifications**:

- A relevant degree/qualification in Fashion OR Textile Design OR Clothing Production OR Product Development OR Merchandising or a related field.

**Knowledge, Skills and Experience**:
**Job Related Knowledge and Skills**:
**KNOWLEDGE required**:

- Comprehensive knowledge/understanding of SA’s retail clothing market, customers and competitors
- Knowledge of the retail merchandise cycle with regards to Buying, Planning and Marketing/VM
- Knowledge of specific company buying strategies
- People management practices, policies and procedures
- Relevant product knowledge with regards to styling constructionsand product components
- Understanding of relevant trends with a flair/eye for acceptable product for the relevant target market
- Have a key understanding of marketing strategies and the experience in social media and digital platforms as a communication channel

**SKILLS required**:

- **People skills**:

- The ability to:

- Be assertive, resilient, have tenacity and maintain high levels of drive and initiative
- Prioritise, work well under pressure and deliver to aggressive deadlines, including problem solving
- create a shared vision and to positively influence othersacross all levels within and outside the company
- give input into company-wide initiatives and translate these into actions required of Buying
- Excellent interpersonal, people management, team management & leadership skills
- Sound strategic thinking skills, as well as the ability to formulate functional objectives related to business strategy
- Communication skills (verbal & written)
- **Business related skills**:

- An excellent comprehension of the marketing strategies, branding, customer behaviour and principles relevant to value retailing, as well as a practical grasp of the South African advertising and media industry.
- A strong understanding of customer and market dynamics and requirements.
- Advanced Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint skills.
- Project Management skills, with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously

**EXPERIENCE required**:
**Essential**:

- A minimum of 5 years’ experience at a senior management level in a Buying/Marketing/Design role, which specifically includes responsibility for the formulation and execution of the product development and growth strategy.
- Previous senior managerial experience to understand the inner workings and product strategies and philosophies of a business in a rapidly changing global and local context
- Integral understanding of the clothing retail cycle and buying processes
- Experience in working across multiple business units and functions.

**Preferred**:

- Buying experience of which at least 5 years is at a senior level within clothing/footwear/homeware retail environment
- Trend and design experience in a value retailer
- Women’s apparel/fashion experience

**Key Responsibilities**:

- Responsible for enabling the end-to-end product lifecycle from trend/conception to in-store execution
- Formulate the brand development and growth, and business plans to support overall Company strategy
- To achieve and exceed the Company’s inflow margin and GP Rands, as signed off at the seasonal business plan meetings, as per the KPI indicators
- Ensuring that the correct suppliers are sourced and selected for the SBU and managed according to the correct merchandise procurement process to enable on-time delivery as per Company policies and procedure
- Identify and establish credible sources of trend and design input into the business, and translate these into customer appropriate fashion with a unique handwriting
- Track and analyse best sellers (locally and globally) to optimize assortment and drive sell-thru
- Develop and implement strong customer targeted content strategies for the Ackermans Woman brand and relevant marketing
- Collaborate with key stakeholders within Planning & Field Operations as well as relevant internal and external partners where needed to enable alignment and input into strategic objectives and execution
- Ensure assortment of the range across the Ackermans Woman stores are trend relevant, strong, cohesive and balanced
- Financial management in ensuring costs are managed within budget
- Developing and empowering the team by implementing sound people management practices, employee relations and a climate and culture of high performance.