Adviser to Chief Information Officer — Omnichannel Retail

The mandate

The investment committee cannot agree whether unified inventory, customer identity or store execution should lead the omnichannel sequence. Each programme has dependencies on the others, yet the proposed transformation funds all three before operating readiness is demonstrated.

Two monthly days include an architecture-operating review and committee attendance. A vendor selection or release-gate pack receives acknowledgement within two business days and a response within five.

The nine-month appointment ends at target-roadmap approval and first release gate. A three-month renewal is available by joint CIO and committee-chair decision; the adviser has no line authority, programme-director duty, procurement vote or executive responsibility.

Three non-conflicting appointments may run alongside this role. Work for a competing national retailer, commerce-platform vendor, systems integrator or loyalty provider must be disclosed, and supplier referral fees are prohibited.

Why the board wants this voice

Digital teams optimise journeys while stores and merchandising confront the operational exceptions. The board wants a technology operator who has delivered unified commerce without treating it as a software installation. That experience is missing inside the committee.

What you will own

• Test roadmap dependencies across inventory accuracy, promise logic, order orchestration and store execution.
• Challenge identity designs that create service friction or weak consent evidence.
• Press management to quantify store workload and exception handling for each journey.
• Shape gates around inventory reliability, adoption, fulfilment quality and rollback.
• Examine platform proposals for data ownership, extensibility and peak resilience.
• Guide debate on where process standardisation must precede technology spend.
• Advise the committee on a sequence that delivers provable customer and margin value.

Candidate qualifications

• 22–28 years in retail CIO, digital or enterprise-technology leadership.
• Direct responsibility for a national omnichannel programme spanning stores and e-commerce.
• Evidence of improving inventory availability and fulfilment economics through operating change.
• Knowledge of order management, customer identity, commerce and retail integration architecture.
• Board-investment experience on multi-year retail transformation.
• Independence from vendors and integrators likely to bid.