Vice President, DSW.com

General Summary:

With more and more customers starting their journey digitally, DSW is seeking a leader to accelerate our pivot to engaging more consumers directly. This leader will be a critical part in thrusting DSW’s digital business to the next level. Reporting to the Chief Digital Officer, this role will help maximize our direct-to-consumer business, forecasting and delivering on volume and revenue targets by engaging and optimizing our customers.

This key role will develop short-term and long-range strategic plans and drive execution for all direct-to-consumer and digital activities for the DSW brand. This leader will have P&L accountability for DSW.com as well as operational targets for broader DSW Group. This role will directly manage key functions like category management, site merchandising, site content and operations, dropship, etc. This role will work closely with other teams including UI/UX, product management, analytics, marketing and merchandising.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities: 

• Develops and implements the digital strategy and roadmap for the DSW brand to drive unique, sustainable and long-lasting relationships with DSW’s customer segments through a differentiated and compelling end-to-end experience:
• This leader will have a P&L responsibility and will be accountable for results as well as broader long-term strategy – as such, the incumbent will need to be able to diagnose headwinds and tailwinds impacting the business and derive action plans to meet/beat targets across cross-functional teams.
• Establishes brand differentiation and sustains success through continuous analyses of market trends, competitive influences, and performance of digital outlets, including demographic analyses and gap analyses.
• Collaborate with Marketing, Product Management and other teams to deliver high-quality customer growth to develop and execute high-quality experiences across the customer lifecycle (awareness, consideration, conversion, engagement, retention). 
• Develops user flows to align marketing off-site tactics with a seamless, intuitive, and brand-building on-site experience. The incumbent will leverage qualitative and quantitative data to prioritize work for the UX/UI, Creative and Product team, assessing risk and tradeoffs
• Drives innovation for DSW through researching new revenue models, such as subscriptions, ‘rundles’, bundles with external and complementary products, including emerging DTC commerce revenue models to capture new customers and meet evolving customer expectations.
• Provide leadership to the Digital teams, building capabilities and supporting them in their development while nurturing a collaborative and dynamic culture

Required Skills and Competencies: 

• Excellent customer experience intuition. You obsess about customers and can translate customer needs into crisp, detailed business strategies and tactics. You are able to develop innovative solutions that are grounded in a deep understanding of customer needs
• Data-centric and analytical. You have experience using data and metrics to back up assumptions and assertions of business value. You also leverage your strong analytical skills and ability to dive deep to develop a nuanced understanding of your product and customers, and to create effective strategies. You also have a demonstrated ability to make high quality/high impact decisions in the absence of data and figure out how to gather data (through experiments, tests, etc) to support your decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to innovate, build, launch, and lifecycle-manage successful products that customers love.
• Superb communication and influencing; aptitude to influence cross-functional teams without formal authority; proven ability to lead and motivate across multiple disciplines in order to accomplish a common goal
• Deep knowledge of online commerce solutions; proven track record for building competencies and driving DTC brand/product business with a customer-centric perspective and marketing/product development orientation
• Attention to detail executing complex projects with cross-functional dependencies; ability to prioritize and focus while effectively managing multiple and shifting priorities in a fast-paced environment
• Courageous leadership style – willing and able to take calculated risks to push to future state

Competencies

• STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP – Deliberately communicates overall business strategy and connects it to the work of the functional team. Anticipates future trends and implications accurately. Leverages market knowledge to anticipate, capitalize on and drive change. Articulate credible pictures and visions of possibilities that will create sustainable value. Creates competitive and breakthrough strategies that show a clear connection between vision and action. Is willing to champion an idea or position despite dissent or political risk. Tackles tough issues, sharing sensitive messages or unpopular points of view effectively. Influences inside and outside of functional area for positive impact on business performance. Owns the development of successors and individuals who have potential for further development.
• LEADING & MOTIVATING – Serves as a champion and driver of DSW Values and culture. Attracts and selects the best talent to meet current and future business needs. Motivates and inspires others through rewards, authentic connections and meaningful recognition. Fosters diversity and an inclusive workplace where individual differences are valued and leveraged. Seeks new ways to evolve and challenge self. Develops team through delegation, challenges outside of the comfort zone and effective coaching and feedback. Shares ideas in a compelling manor that gains commitment. Champions change for positive impact on business results.
• MANAGING FOR RESULTS – Establishes models and enforces accountability. Gets the most out of available resources and secures rare resources others cannot get. Anticipates and balances the needs of multiple stakeholders. Persists in accomplishing objectives. Pushes the team to elevate goals as results are achieved. Transforms functional area to achieve maximum results. Seizes opportunities and connects business insights to increase profit and revenue.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of senior level experience in managing high-performing teams.

• 5+ years of experience in growing digital businesses 

• Bachelor’s Degree or MBA from leading institution preferred