Chief Operating Officer — Premium-Brands Portfolio

The mandate

The portfolio combines products made through scarce specialist capacity with faster-moving lines sourced from broader networks. Demand enters through wholesale buys, boutique plans, e-commerce signals, client reservations and major launches, each with different timing and certainty. The operating system has responded by accumulating forecasts and exceptions rather than making explicit allocation choices. High-value items can remain in the wrong market while clients wait elsewhere, launch inventory is expedited after late commercial changes, and slower lines consume materials or production slots needed by stronger propositions.

The Chief Operating Officer will rebuild the connection between demand, capacity, allocation and client promise. The remit includes integrated planning, sourcing, production and atelier coordination, logistics, inventory, customer fulfilment, operational excellence and external manufacturing governance. Brand and commercial leaders continue to own creative and market choices; finance owns the group plan; quality retains authority over release. The COO must turn their commitments into one feasible operating view and ensure constraints are decided at the right level.

This urgent replacement is not a mandate to make premium operations resemble mass production. Scarcity, handwork, controlled distribution and long development cycles can be sources of value. The board wants those choices protected while removing the unmanaged delay, excess and intervention that do not benefit the brand or client. Efficiency will be judged by precision and flow, not simply by utilisation.

Scope and operating context

The role is based onsite in London and carries responsibility across approximately 1,475 employees and material partners in the United Kingdom and the wider international region. The network includes specialist internal workshops, selected external makers, component suppliers, distribution centres, repair or after-sales services and logistics providers. Several capabilities depend on small populations of highly experienced people whose knowledge cannot be replaced quickly.

Planning must reconcile very different product behaviours. Some pieces are produced against known client demand, others are allocated in constrained drops, and more repeatable categories replenish to stores or wholesale accounts. Common data and governance are needed, but one forecast method would be misleading. The COO will establish segment-specific rules for commitment, reserve, replenishment, allocation and ageing.

The portfolio's channel structure creates sensitive trade-offs. A flagship boutique may require breadth to present the brand, a wholesale partner may have contractual expectations, and digital demand may reveal a faster route to the end client. Allocation decisions must consider strategic relationship and consumer service alongside immediate margin, with criteria clear enough to prevent influence from becoming the default planning method.

First-year agenda

In the first hundred days, the COO will trace several representative products from demand signal to client delivery. The work will expose when assumptions enter, how capacity is reserved, where components or approvals constrain flow, who may change priorities and how inventory is reallocated. It will quantify waiting time, work in progress, expediting, cancelled demand, ageing and after-sales consequences without reducing specialist craftsmanship to an industrial average.

The executive will then establish a planning architecture by product and channel archetype. Wholesale commitments, boutique requirements, digital signals, reservations and launch scenarios will have defined evidence and decision dates. Capacity views will distinguish total theoretical hours from qualified, schedulable capability. When demand exceeds supply, an agreed forum will allocate using transparent commercial and brand principles and record the consequences of the choice.

Launch readiness needs a firmer contract. Creative changes, material availability, technical qualification, campaign timing, market assortment and logistics capacity will be reviewed together before public commitment. The COO will not seek to eliminate late creative judgement, but its service, cost and displaced-capacity consequences must be visible to the executive who accepts it. Launches that are not ready should be narrowed or moved rather than protected through uncontrolled expediting.

Inventory will be managed as a portfolio of different obligations. The plan should distinguish presentation stock, client commitments, repair parts, seasonal product, reusable components and genuinely aged finished goods. Actions may include reallocation, controlled product conversion, revised buy quantities or retirement, always respecting product integrity and channel agreements. Broad discounting is not an acceptable substitute for planning.

By the end of year one, the business should operate a dependable weekly constraint and allocation process, a monthly portfolio plan and clearer measures of client promise. Selected product families should show shorter and more predictable flow, lower avoidable expediting and healthier stock. The board should also have an explicit view of where investment in specialist skills, tools or capacity is required to protect future growth.

Leadership responsibilities

The COO will run the operating forums that turn brand and commercial demand into choices. They must ensure teams arrive with reconciled facts, alternatives and owners, and that decisions persist unless evidence changes. Repeated overrides by seniority or urgency will be made visible rather than absorbed silently by planners.

The executive will protect and develop specialist capability. Workforce plans must address apprenticeship, skill certification, succession, seasonal demand and the physical conditions required for quality work. Where external makers provide essential expertise, commercial relationships should support continuity and responsible standards rather than extract short-term cost at the expense of capability.

Quality, authenticity and traceability are inseparable from operations. The COO will ensure component provenance, custody and release controls remain effective across internal and partner sites. They will sponsor decisive response to counterfeiting or diversion signals within the operating chain and maintain after-sales services consistent with the promises attached to premium products.

Measures of success

The board will review fulfilment against confirmed client promise, plan stability, allocation ageing, launch readiness, lead-time distribution, first-pass quality, work in progress, premium freight and inventory health. Capacity measures will focus on qualified throughput and constraint relief, not headline utilisation. Financial outcomes will include gross-margin protection, working capital and cost removed without damage to service or craftsmanship.

Channel leaders should report greater confidence in commitments and fewer opaque allocation outcomes. Operational health will also be seen in reduced manual escalation, documented decision ownership, retention and progression of critical skills, supplier continuity and faster recovery when a constraint changes. A temporary service gain created by excess stock will not be accepted as lasting improvement.

Candidate profile

Candidates should bring at least 28 years of operational leadership in premium consumer goods, luxury, specialist manufacturing, fashion, beauty, jewellery, high-value retail or a comparable environment. They must have led international planning and fulfilment across more than one channel and handled capacity that could not simply be purchased or automated at short notice.

The board will seek evidence of allocating scarce product fairly and commercially, protecting craftsmanship while improving flow, and changing a launch when readiness evidence did not support the original promise. Candidates should understand supplier dependency, inventory segmentation, after-sales obligations and the reputational consequences of poor fulfilment. Experience with both internal production and specialist partners is preferred.

The successful COO will be exacting without being reductive. They must earn credibility with creative leaders and master craftspeople, explain operating trade-offs to a board, and make decisions without treating every exception as failure. A visible presence in workshops, distribution and client-serving environments is expected.

Compensation and appointment terms

The expected annual base is GBP 350,000–520,000, with an incentive and long-term participation linked to sustained portfolio and operating outcomes. Final positioning will reflect the appointee's scope, specialist-sector relevance and current package. Necessary relocation or treatment of forfeited remuneration will be considered separately and documented.

Confidentiality

The portfolio remains unnamed because the transition, capacity constraints and launch pipeline are commercially sensitive. Detailed network, product and leadership information will be disclosed to shortlisted candidates following identity, conflict and confidentiality checks. Applicants should omit brand names, client orders, supplier identities and unreleased product details from their examples.