Director of Stores (South)

We are looking for an accomplished retail leader ready to make a real difference. Specsavers is seeking a Directors of Stores for UK South to join our Retail Leadership Team. 

Your Purpose

In this pivotal role, you’ll play a key role in shaping the future of our store network, inspiring and empowering our General Managers, and ensuring our stores are places where colleagues thrive and customers feel genuinely cared for.  You’ll be responsible for driving performance, nurturing a high-performance culture and championing our people agenda across a diverse and dynamic multi-sire environment.
As Director of Stores for UK South, you’ll be at the forefront of delivering commercial success and elevating the customer experience.  Working collaboratively with cross-functional partners, you’ll foster innovation, develop robust talent pipelines, and ensure our stores remain agile and market-leading. Your leadership will be instrumental in implementing strategic initiatives, supporting business growth and embedding a culture of continuous improvement. You’ll play a vital part in leading change, promoting diversity and inclusion and ensuring our values are reflected in everything we do. 

Your Role:

• Lead, coach and develop General Managers, setting clear objectives and fostering high engagement.
• Champion succession planning and career growth opportunities across the retail talent pipeline.
• Drive the Diversity & Inclusion and wellbeing agenda for your direct reports and store partners, promoting a healthy, inclusive and supportive working environment.Role modelling this in your leadership.
• Sponsor divisional pilots and trials to test and refine innovations before national rollout.
• Promote a Total Care approach, ensuring exceptional experiences for every customer.
• Collaborate across teams to identify and implement initiatives that enhance the customer journey.
• Ensure General Managers are owning the delivery of performance metrics against the annual plan at store, regional and divisional levels.
• Drive trading mindset and capacity management initiatives to optimise store performance through the General Managers.
• Lead local competitive response strategies to ensure our stores remain agile and market leading.
• Identify and act on opportunities to grow market share and enhance customer loyalty.
• Bring retail initiatives and change programmes to life through clear communication and consistent execution.
• Provide thought leadership on strategy, contributing to the evolution of our customer, people and growth ambitions.
• Collaborate with leadership peers to address performance challenges and unlock growth opportunities.

What you’ll bring:

• Proven senior leadership experience in a multi-site retail environment.
• Exceptional ability to lead through change, influence cross-functionally and drive strategic initiatives.
• Deep understanding of retail operations, customer experience and talent development.
• A strong track record of delivering commercial results through people and customer-centric strategies.
• A warm, collaborative and values-led approach that reflects the Specsavers culture.
• Strong change management skills and ability to demonstrate where you have implemented change effectively and added further value to well established processes and working practices
• Track record of pushing sales from good to great, managing costs and maximising profitability
• Experience in financial planning and forecasting, budget and income management

Location: Remote based with frequent travel to regional stores.

If you can see yourself being part of this journey, then we would love to hear from you.