Head of Digital International Franchise

Established in 1981 with a single store in the Northwest of England, the JD Group is a leading omni-channel retailer of Sports Fashion, Outdoors and Gyms with our colleagues working in stores across several retail fascias in many markets around the world. JD Sports Fashion Plc was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1996 and has been a FTSE100 publicly quoted company since 2019 and continues to grow in the UK and internationally. We want to be the leading global omnichannel retailer in the sports and outdoor industry. To be a part of this successful company and help us to achieve this you will have the desire to ingrain our strategic goals of being a people-led, innovative and customer-focused organisation which provides operational excellence whilst identifying new areas of growth as part of our day to day objectives. Head Of Digital International Franchise Responsible to : Franchise Director Department : Franchise Overview: You will be part of JD Sports expansion in international markets. The purpose of this role is to drive our Franchise partners to successfully launch and grow JD Sports online presence in their country. While working with multiple departments and countries, you will be managing the whole loyalty and ecommerce lifecycle and be responsible for the launch, technology development, digital marketing and commercial trade. Strategic Objectives: Working closely with the Franchise GM, Ecommerce, Finance, and IT, the Head of Digital will drive the end to end dig

ital strategy across Launch, Technology, Digital Marketing, Loyalty, Trade, and Finance to enable partners to successfully activate and scale JD’s digital ecosystem in every market. As the primary digital contact within the Franchise division, the role ensures partners have the frameworks, platforms, and commercial guidance needed to maximise launch performance and sustain long term growth. Acting as a digital brand guardian, the Head of Digital educates, supports, and empowers partners to deliver a consistent, insight driven, and commercially strong representation of JD across all digital channels. By building scalable processes, digital playbooks, financial models, and technology standards, the role ensures each partner can embed locally while operating with global excellence, ultimately accelerating their ability to grow at the pace expected of the JD Group. Key Roles and

Responsibilities:

Lead and orchestrate the end to end launch of all digital platforms (ecommerce, app, CRM, loyalty, digital trade tools) in new Franchise markets, ensuring seamless deployment, market readiness, and alignment with JD’s global digital ecosystem. Own the digital commercial strategy across Ecommerce Trading, Digital Marketing, Loyalty, and Omnichannel, identifying growth opportunities, analysing performance trends, and challenging partners to achieve best in class results. Drive market insights and localisation strategy, ensuring all digital plans reflect loc

al customer behaviour, competitive landscape, regulatory needs, and cultural context while maintaining JD’s global standards. Continuously review digital trading performance and benchmark against JD Group markets, identifying optimisation levers across conversion, media efficiency, customer retention, UX, and product performance. Shape the digital technology roadmap for Franchise markets, partnering with Tech and Data teams to prioritise upgrades, integrations, analytics enhancements, platform improvements, and new capabilities that support revenue and scalability. Lead the digital go to market strategy with partners across all channels: Ecommerce Content, Online Merchandising, Digital Trade, CRM & Lifecycle Marketing, Paid Media, Affiliates, SEO, CRO, and UX — ensuring full adherence to JD global best practices. Build and maintain strong cross functional relationships with internal teams across Retail, Marketing, Digital Trading, Product, IT, Finance, Property, and Visual Merchandising to enable cohesive digital operations and commercial planning. Use exceptional leadership, communication, and influencing skills to align global and local stakeholders on digital priorities, ensuring successful delivery of strategic initiatives and continuous improvement programs. Troubleshoot operational challenges hands on, driving improvements across systems, processes, digital workflows, and partner capabilities — embedding JD’s global Centres of Excellence where applicable. Champion d

igital operational excellence across all markets, ensuring consistent brand experience, strong visual execution, and customer first digital journeys across web, app, CRM, and loyalty touchpoints. Own the development and evolution of the JD Digital Franchise Portal, acting as the gatekeeper of global standards, training materials, playbooks, and market specific guidance that support scalability and best practice adoption. People and Talent Management: Build strong, trust based, and effective cross functional relationships across the wider JD organisation, ensuring Digital partners seamlessly with Ecommerce, Tech, Data, Marketing, Retail, Finance, Property, and HR to deliver unified market launches and ongoing digital excellence. Support and empower Franchise partners to build, develop, and coach high performing digital teams across ecommerce trading, CRM, digital marketing, analytics, product content, and digital operations. Act as an inspirational and visionary digital leader with the ability to coach and mentor both internal teams and partner organisations

Skills & Experience Significant experience (typically 5+ years) in senior Digital, Ecommerce, or Omnichannel roles, ideally within retail, fashion, or consumer brands. Strong understanding of franchise models, international markets, or multi territory operations, with experience supporting partners or distributed teams. Proven commercial acumen with the ability to interpret data, build business cases, optimise P

&L levers, and influence financial decision making. Demonstrable experience in project leadership, managing complex multi market digital deployments from planning through execution. Excellent communicator and presenter, able to influence senior leaders and inspire cross functional teams across cultures and markets. Experienced in building strong relationships across Digital, Marketing, Technology, Finance, and Operations in fast paced environments. Strong understanding of the JD Brand, digital retail landscape, consumer journey, and global brand governance. Willingness to travel internationally as required to support market launches, performance reviews, and team capability building. We know our colleagues work tirelessly to make JD Sports the success it is today and in turn, we offer them some amazing benefits including staff Discount On JD Group and other brands within the organisation and personal development opportunities to learn and develop at work. Thank you for your time #JD