Head of Special Projects

The successful candidate previously worked at PwC.

This company was supported by Gaby, Client Success Manager.

An in-depth description of the role

About the Company

Monica Vinader is an exciting and fast-growing British jewellery brand.  In the 10 years since Monica and her sister Gaby founded the brand, it has successfully opened up a new category bridging the gap between costume and fine jewellery growing into a £50m revenue business.

The business is supported by Private Equity partners (Piper and Winona) who have brought investment enabling the continued growth of the business, including a further roll-out of its own and franchised stores, expansion of its wholesale distribution, particularly in the US, as well as continued investment in our e-commerce channel.

The customer experience offered in our Retail stores and our eCommerce site is a key to our success and we place the consumer at the heart of our values.  The business currently has boutiques and franchises in London, New York, Dubai, Singapore, Korea and Hong Kong, plus a rapidly growing global department store footprint. 

Our mission is to be the leading accessible luxury brand, by delivering outstanding quality, design and customer service. We hire individuals who are customer-obsessed, technically savvy and excited about the prospect of working in a fast-paced direct to consumer business with a thriving web business and stores across the globe.

About the team

Founder and CEO, Monica Vinader, grew up surrounded by arts and objects from her parents’ antiques business, an influential force that has guided her entrepreneurial spirit and eye for design. After graduating from art school in London, Monica immersed herself in the jewellery world and worked her way up before deciding to go set up the business, creating bespoke pieces from her converted forge in Norfolk.  As the business has scaled, Norfolk remains at the heart of the design process, where she and her creative team develop all of the collections.

Gaby Vinader, founder and MD has complementary skills to Monica and is an experienced business leader with an MBA from Insead who worked at BCG and subsequently spent 8 years at Amazon during its transformation from bookseller to global retailer.

Richard Colbert, CFO joined the company last year bringing Luxury and Retail sector experience in senior UK and International roles at L’Oreal, Coca-Cola and Asda.

About the Role

The Head of Special Projects (similar to a Chief of Staff) is a new role being created to support the Exec team, particularly the CFO, to provide additional resource to the Senior Management Team particularly on projects that cross multiple functions. Capable of taking initiatives from idea fully through to delivery, the role requires well rounded commercial and marketing acumen, great communication skills and sound understanding of core business processes with an ability to identify and resolve “pain points” to maximise the potential of the business.  

This is an ideal role to gain rapid hands-on operational insight and experience, and to be ready for a business leadership position in the next role. 

The nature of the role means that your accountabilities are fluid. You will be coordinating the execution of key initiatives, with specific responsibility for delivery of one or two key projects, ensuring cross-function coordination and delivering and reporting on results.  Example of past special projects include:

• Business Development – identification and contact with future trading partners 
• Review, adapt and install upgraded S&OP processes in readiness to be a £150m business
• Review of consumer insight in markets to optimise marketing implementation
• Working with a wholesale partner to deliver a best in case Personalisation solution for their eCommerce Platform

Other key accountabilities are likely to include:

• Oversight of key business processes and communication flows
• Prioritising decision and action plans, and assisting with the preparation and dissemination of research, data analysis, presentations and communications
• Readiness and flexibility to step in to cover any resource shortfall across the business which may occur as the opportunities develop

About you

This role would suit those from a consultancy and MBA background, although talented individuals with a general business background would also be welcome. Our values are to be Customer Obsessed, Caring, Fast Paced, Exceptional and Commercial. The cultural fit and attitude of the Head of Special Projects will be critical for the successful candidate, alongside:

• High level of intellect and natural curiosity
• Versatile and agile
• Driven, enterprising and dynamic; comfortable working at a rapid pace
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• An active listener, who has the humility to take the views of others into account
• Possess an exceptional EQ to build and maintain trustworthy relationships
• Action oriented, with strong delivery focus
• Strong organisational skills
• Strong analytical skills
• Able to take a pragmatic, common sense approach
• Demonstrate potential to take on Senior Leadership roles in the near future

Additional requirements: 

• Ability to document your authorization to work in the United Kingdom
• Regular travel to our global offices – Norfolk office, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore.  Future roles could be based in any of these locations so a readiness to relocate globally is required.

What we offer

• Basic Salary £70-85k with 10% Bonus
• 24 days holiday + Bank Holidays
• Flexible working around core hours
• A fast-growing, ambitious company with significant opportunity for progression into the senior leadership team.

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