District Manager - Outer London

As we continue our mission to make people happy through chocolate, we’re looking for a District Manager to join our Retail team on a permanent basis.

As Retail District Manager, you’ll drive sales and profitability across your geographical region covering Greater London, focusing on customer engagement and operational excellence as well as building and developing a strong team through excellent leadership.

As well as a competitive salary and a range of company benefits, you’ll receive 50% discount on all products, and a 70% discount for you and your guests when you stay at our Rabot Estate hideaway on the paradise island of Saint Lucia.

What You'll be doing...

Commercial

• Drive and maximise commercial KPIs across district, reviewing performance regularly and identifying improvement opportunities.
• Take full ownership and accountability for your District P&L, reviewing regularly and taking actions to improve as necessary.
• Deliver and contribute towards short and medium term plans to maximise performance.
• Lead teams through business change initiatives.
• Manage your District on the execution of all product promotions, campaigns and ranging.
• Continuously stay up to date with market trends and activities, ensuring we meet current and future customer needs.
• Support stores with commercial action plans as required, providing feedback and recommendations during store visits and business reviews.

People

• Lead, coach and support your team to deliver a great customer experience and to drive sales.
• Champion employee engagement through the effective creation and implementation of engagement plans.
• Manage and drive through your district all people KPIS (absence, holiday liability, attrition, Payroll).
• Create people development, recruitment and succession plans for your district.
• Ensure your District understands the part they play in the wider business and Retail strategies through the goal setting cycle and great district communication.
• Celebrating team success but equally providing constructive feedback where improvement may be required
• Manage and resolve HR issues, coaching Managers through their own HR issues, working in partnership with the HR team if escalation is needed.

Customer Engagement

• Champion and drive the customer engagement programme through your District.
• Keep abreast of customer comments and feedback, taking on board to proactively improve the customer experience.
• Keep aware of complaints/feedback through to resolution.

Operational Excellence

• Maintain operational excellence consistently dealing with improvement areas, guiding the whole team to maintain high standards.
• Promote the best level of visual merchandising ensuring consistency across the stores.
• To be accountable for safe working practice/Health and Safety in your district.
• To commercial drive efficient stock across your district.
• Continuously complete operational audits in the district as required.
• Successfully plan and organise to support Seasonal peaks.
• Ensure appropriate café training is in place and team are competent and confident at adhering to all necessary standards and ways of working.
• Make store portfolio recommendations for improvement.
• Build cross functional relationships with other departments in the business to enhance 'one-team’ performance and influence change.

Success Measures

• Achieve and exceed sales budgets by store.
• Achieve and exceed EBITDA performance.
• District operational standards including stock .
• Maintaining an engaged and motivated work force.
• Successfully manage all people related KPIs.

SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

Essential

• Proven multisite management experience.
• Commercially astute with demonstrable experience delivering KPIs and profitability.
• Established leadership and people management experience.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills.
• Excellent prioritisation, organisation and time management skills.
• Ability to understand the wider business and the part you play to deliver the strategy.
• Continuous improvement mindset.

Desirable

• A problem-solving approach.
• Continuous improvement mindset.
• Ability to work independently and with autonomy when needed.
• Build strong working relationships with colleagues across other departments.

About Us

We’re not just a chocolate company; we’re a family of chocolate lovers. From luxury gifts to our iconic Velvetiser™ and beyond, we’ve built a brand that’s all about crafting moments of indulgence. Our journey began as a humble mint company, but we soon found our passion for cacao and never looked back. Today, we’re proud to operate over 150 stores across the UK and continue to grow across categories, channels, and territories.

Patience, passion, and purpose drive everything we do – just like the perfect cacao pod, our success doesn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of hard work, innovation, and the shared dedication of our customers, colleagues, farmers, and suppliers.

To learn more about who we are and our People Pledge to equality, diversity, and inclusion, visit: hotelchocolat.com/uk/engaged-ethics/our-people.html