Director of Reverse Logistics & Returns

Focus•Houston, TX

About The Position

Metropolitan Warehouse & Delivery Corp. is seeking an experienced, entrepreneurial leader to build, develop, and directly manage its national reverse logistics organization. The Director owns the strategy, financial performance, team structure, hiring, training, and day-to-day execution of returns, refurbishment, liquidation, and recovery programs across the network. The role leads site-level returns teams and labor, establishes operating standards and accountability, and serves as the business owner for requirements, testing, deployment, and adoption of the new Returns Management System (RMS). The ideal candidate combines hands-on furniture operations leadership with the ability to build a profitable, scalable service offering. The Director will build standardized programs for furniture returns, inspection, grading, repair, refurbishment, re-boxing, resale, liquidation, recycling, and disposal. They will develop regional processing and disposition strategies, establish external recovery partnerships, define RMS requirements, and lead process validation, testing, training, change management, and deployment. The role also partners with IT, Sales, and Finance on system integrations, commercial offerings, and profitability models. The position directly leads returns operations and teams across participating facilities, including staffing, training, scheduling, labor productivity, performance management, quality, safety, and daily execution. The Director recruits and develops site leaders and associates, establishes consistent reporting lines and operating procedures, and owns labor planning, operating costs, service levels, and site performance reviews. Travel is required up to 30%. During the first 90 days, the Director is expected to assess current operations and economics; define the organization, staffing model, and leadership structure; and establish strategy, baseline KPIs, RMS requirements, and a pilot roadmap. Within six months, the Director is expected to recruit and develop the core team, take direct operational accountability for prioritized sites, launch standardized processes and initial recovery partnerships, and advance RMS deployment and commercial offerings. Within 12 months, the Director is expected to lead a scalable national returns team, expand RMS-enabled programs across the network, and demonstrate measurable revenue, recovery, service, and labor-productivity gains.

Requirements

At least 7 years of progressive reverse logistics, returns, furniture operations, or related supply chain experience.
Direct experience with furniture, home furnishings, or bulky goods.
Proven experience launching or scaling returns and recovery programs, including refurbishment and liquidation.
Knowledge of furniture damage assessment, inspection, repair, re-boxing, and disposition economics.
Demonstrated people leadership, including hiring, building and managing operational teams, workforce planning, and multi-site performance accountability.
Strong financial, commercial, project management, and cross-functional leadership skills.
Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline or equivalent experience.
Ability to travel as needed.

Nice To Haves

Furniture retail, manufacturing, e-commerce, 3PL, or white-glove delivery experience.
Experience in e-commerce, open-box resale, outlet, or secondary-market programs.
Multi-site rollout, system UAT, process improvement, and vendor partnership experience.

Responsibilities

Build and execute the enterprise reverse logistics strategy, business case, organizational structure, staffing plan, operating budget, governance, and network rollout roadmap.
Build standardized programs for furniture returns, inspection, grading, repair, refurbishment, re-boxing, resale, liquidation, recycling, and disposal.
Design regional processing and disposition strategies that minimize freight and handling costs and maximize product recovery.
Establish liquidation, secondary-market, refurbishing, recycling, and disposal partnerships; negotiate performance and commercial arrangements.
Define end-to-end RMS business requirements for authorizations, receipt, condition assessment, disposition, repair, inventory status, recovery value, billing, and reporting.
Lead process mapping, functional validation, user acceptance testing, training, change management, and business sign-off for RMS deployment.
Partner with IT on integrations with WMS, customer systems, transportation, finance, and BI reporting.
Partner with Sales and Finance to create service packages, rate structures, proposals, customer-specific programs, and profitability models.
Direct returns operations and teams across participating facilities, including hiring, training, scheduling, labor productivity, performance management, quality, safety, and daily execution.
Coordinate with site warehouse leadership on shared resources and capacity.
Recruit, coach, and develop site supervisors, associates, and future program leaders.
Establish reporting lines, escalation paths, performance expectations, and consistent SOPs across the network.
Own labor planning, staffing models, operating costs, service levels, and site-level performance reviews for managed reverse logistics programs.
Travel up to 30%.
Assess current operations and economics, define the organization and staffing model, and establish strategy, baseline KPIs, RMS requirements, and a pilot roadmap during the first 90 days.
Recruit and develop the core team, assume direct operational accountability for prioritized returns sites, launch standardized processes and initial recovery partnerships, and advance RMS deployment and commercial offerings within the first six months.
Scale RMS-enabled network programs and demonstrate measurable revenue, recovery, service, and productivity gains within the first 12 months.