Head of Retail
Tekla · Copenhagen
We are looking for a Head of Retail to lead and grow Tekla's retail business as it accelerates internationally. This is a senior commercial role, with full responsibility for the performance, consistency, and growth of our stores, from the shop floor through to clienteling, retail marketing, and new store openings.
Reporting directly to the Commercial & Merchandising Director, you will have direct management and commercial responsibility for all owned stores, with real accountability for retail KPIs. You will work closely with partners managing stores in some markets, as well as our internal operations, marketing, and merchandising teams.
This is a unique opportunity to shape how Tekla scales retail. As our roll-out accelerates, new locations bring more complexity and a diverse mix of operating models. You will build the routines and standards that make this expansion consistent and commercially disciplined.
While our preferred location for this role is Copenhagen, we are also open to applications from candidates based in London. Please note that, in both cases, regular travel across stores and departments will be required.
Key responsibilities of the role include, but are not limited to:
Commercial performance and store management
- Hold direct management and full commercial responsibility for all owned stores and staffed department store spaces, currently Copenhagen and London, with a growing portfolio ahead.
- Extend the same commercial oversight to partner-operated locations, ensuring consistency in practice and driving performance even where day-to-day management sits with the partner.
- Own retail KPIs across every door, including revenue, conversion, footfall, AOV, and profitability, and manage each location towards its individual target.
- Build and embed weekly and monthly performance routines that drive both engagement and consistency across the retail portfolio.
- Lead, coach, and develop store teams, setting clear standards for service, engagement, and commercial performance.
Clienteling
- Lead and implement Tekla’s clienteling strategy across all stores, building the high-value customer base that underpins the retail model.
- Own the clienteling tool: adoption, daily workflows, and reporting.
- In collaboration with marketing, define and implement a clienteling calendar, to ensure high-value customers are engaged with in a meaningful way
- Define and track the clienteling KPI set, from appointments and outreach through to follow-up quality and revenue attribution.
- Ensure high-value client relationships are developed consistently, and to the same standard, across locations.
Retail marketing and activations
- In close collaboration with marketing, own the in-store events calendar as a primary driver of qualified traffic and brand engagement, spanning clienteling events, seasonal brand moments, and cultural programming.
- In collaboration with the PR & Community team, build local partnerships and community relationships in each market to generate reach, acquisition, and repeat engagement.
- Work with the trade team to ensure the stores are best leveraged as platforms to engage with architects and interior designers.
- Overall, use each store as a live platform for brand storytelling and customer acquisition, not only as a point of sale.
Store openings and expansion
- Coordinate store opening projects end-to-end, including site readiness, operational workflows, recruitment, and onboarding.
- Adapt the operating model to different setups, from HQ-managed to partner-operated and local-lead formats.
- Build scalable routines and playbooks so that each new opening is faster and more consistent than the last.
Retail operations
- Manage the retail operations function to ensure perfect synchronisation between the front and back end of the business, across stock, systems, POS, and fulfilment.
- Ensure consistency in tools, processes, and reporting across an increasingly complex, multi-format retail portfolio, and continuously sharpen our reporting to drive diagnosis and action across the network of stores.
- Partner with operations, technology, merchandising, and e-commerce to drive process and tool improvements as the business scales, and to deliver a seamless omnichannel experience for the customer.
We’d love to hear from you if you are/have:
- A retail leader with deep experience running stores, ideally across multiple regions or markets.
- Experience managing a clienteling tool and driving a clienteling strategy. This is essential to the role.
- A proven record of driving retail KPIs and building the performance routines that lift both engagement and results across multiple doors.
- Experience in retail marketing, including events, local partnerships, and activations that generate traffic and build the brand.
- Comfortable owning store opening projects, including recruitment and onboarding, across different operating models.
- Commercially disciplined and operationally strong, able to hold consistency across a portfolio of stores with different setups.
- Ideally, a premium or luxury retail background, with a genuine feel for service, experience, and brand representation.
- Genuinely drawn to Tekla's approach to product and brand; an appreciation for considered, quality home textiles matters.
Reviewing applications and conducting interviews will take place on an ongoing basis, with the aim for the successful candidate to join us as in January. If you have a genuine interest in connecting with clients through retail, an appreciation for Tekla’s approach and a commercial mindset, we encourage you to apply.