Global Supply Chain Director

Suitsupply is an upmarket retailer of men and women’s on-trend suits, shirts, knits, footwear and accessories. Joining them as Global Supply Chain Director gives the opportunity to take the helm in a fast-paced and high growth company.

About Suitsupply

Suitsupply helps men and women look their best every day. It all started when Fokke de Jong (Founder & CEO) launched Suitsupply in 2000 as a web shop. He was ahead of his time – the market wasn’t ready for a high-end, online tailor just yet. Instead, Fokke focused on international offline expansion and brand marketing. Today, Suitsupply is one of the fastest growing fashion brands worldwide. This is evidenced by their total turnover of over two hundred million Euros and a growth figure of around thirty percent (2016).

Suitsupply is a market leader in the fashion industry, and plans to build the very best omnichannel fashion brand. At Suitsupply, they believe it should be a seamless experience when customers switch from one channel to another. The product range, price, experience and service between the different sales channels must also be the same across channels. Above all, Suitsupply is committed to providing the very best customer experience throughout the entire customer journey.

Suitsupply has more than eighty stores and has a worldwide online presence. The company also offers service through channels like WhatsApp and Instagram. Thirty procent of total turnover is generated from the online channels. Suitsupply has been praised for their excellent customer service, extensive return policy and new features such as Garmentor and the possibility to save items in the app. Suitsupply has established itself as a frontrunner in the fashion industry.

“Suitsupply has not fully matured yet. Maturity implies a company is nearly finished growing, and for us, this is not the case. We are in the process of professionalizing and realizing an extensive integration between online and offline channels. This will result in even more growth.” – Fokke de Jong

Vacancy: Global Supply Chain Director

This is a new position. Due to international expansion, exponential growth, the intensified focus on category management and the further integration of the offline and online channels, the importance of effective supply chain management has increased. Therefore, Suitsupply is recruiting an experienced Global Supply Chain Director.

Until recently, Roos Fleuren (Chief Product Officer) was responsible for day-to-day supply chain management. Moving forward, she will focus on design, product development, category management, logistics and buying. The day-to-day supply chain management operations will be the responsibility of the Global Supply Chain Director. Furthermore, this new Director will focus on optimizing the current supply chain processes and will make impactful decisions for the future success of the company. The Global Supply Chain Director reports directly to Roos Fleuren.

Leadership in matrix organization

The Global Supply Chain Director manages a team of more than forty professionals in five specialized divisions. Direct reports are the Head of Omnichannel Fulfillment, Planning Manager, Project Manager RFID and Head of Logistics. Not all teams are complete yet. The Global Supply Chain Director will hire new professionals in line with the future growth of the company and builds a high performing team accordingly. They will orchestrate the success of the team and at the same time reach their ultimate potential on an individual level.

Besides -hierarchical management of the supply chain department, the Global Supply Chain Director is horizontally involved in guiding the supply chain experts (mostly Allocation and Planning experts) within four category teams: Suits, Shoes & Bags, Shirts and Casual & Accessories. They are involved in these multidisciplinary category teams to bring out the full potential of all categories, across all channels. The focus on category management is relatively new within Suitsupply. The Global Supply Chain Director encourages and supports team members to build best practices.

The supply chain of Suitsupply is incredibly complex due to its international and omnichannel character. Suitsupply has a vertically integrated business model – they have preferred supplier agreements with all suppliers and factories – which provides the Global Supply Chain Director with all means to optimize the international processes. The Global Supply Chain Director will deliver a well-balanced integral supply chain process for Suitsupply’s global retail operations.

Strategy with impact

The Global Supply Chain Director will develop and implement a top-notch supply chain management strategy with the aim to achieve the highest levels of customer service, efficient planning, on-time delivery and time reductions. The Global Supply Chain Director will make the supply chain even more precise, efficient, flexible and reliable than it is today. This will have a major impact on commercial results and the future growth of the organization.

Top-notch data management systems need to be implemented. The Global Supply Chain Director will decide on and roll out a system (ERP, SAP) to improve planning, forecasting and logistics.

Another project the Global Supply Chain Director is working on: RFID. RFID has already been implemented in a number of stores. This makes it possible to count and follow real-time, in-store inventory. The data provided by this system offers many exciting new opportunities to improve the current planning processes even further. These insights also help to drive fundamentally new methods for more accurate forecasting, fulfillment, warehousing and stock management.

Background

• +15 years professional experience in retail
• International work experience
• Data-driven organization
• Omnichannel retailer
• Vertically integrated business models

Experience

• Extensive experience with planning
• Implementing and executing global supply chain management strategies
• Logistics
• Warehouse management and inventory control
• Strategy setting and driving execution
• Managing large teams within a matrix organization

Personality

• Entrepreneurial mindset
• Ambitious and innovative
• Inspirational leader for the team
• Analytical and data-driven
• Hands-on
• Great communication skills

Reason to join

The opportunity to take international supply chain management for this fast-growing fashion omnichannel player to the next level. Make the company thrive and share in its success.