Vans: Director, Retail Marketing, Global Brand

Vans•Costa Mesa, CA

About The Position

The Global Brand Retail Marketing Director is accountable for driving a cohesive brand expression and consumer journey across all VANS brick & mortar retail doors, including all retail experiences and wholesale partner co-branded retail activations. This leader must creatively bring the brand to life in all physical environments, ensuring a consistent, compelling, and commercially effective consumer experience across all VANS retail doors. This role owns the global retail marketing and visual merchandising strategy, translating brand narratives and seasonal priorities into impactful in‑store storytelling, standards, and execution frameworks. While global in scope, this role will be primarily focused on leading AMER regional retail marketing & execution, which is the largest and most important retail channel globally. Reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer, you will lead the global retail strategy and execution of all retail marketing initiatives for VANS brick & mortar and wholesale channels – setting strategy, design standards, visual merchandising principles, and toolkits centrally. This role must enable fast, high‑quality in‑market execution that drives traffic, conversion, and deepens consumer connections with the brand.

Requirements

Deep expertise in visual merchandising, retail storytelling, and physical brand experiences.
Ability to translate brand strategy into commercially effective in‑store execution.
Strong planning and operational skills across seasonal retail calendars.
Comfort working within defined standards, governance, and decision rights.
Strong understanding of the "who," "what," "where," "when," and "why" behind shopper purchasing behavior throughout the entire shopping journey.
Knowledge of the consumer needs, wants, and motivations of the end-user of footwear, apparel, & accessories.
Strong cross‑functional leadership and stakeholder management skills.
Ability to influence regional teams and partners without direct authority.
Understanding of retail KPIs and how VM, consumer styling, usage occasions, and retail marketing drive performance.
10–12+ years of experience in retail marketing, visual merchandising, or brand experience roles.
Proven experience leading global and multi‑region retail marketing and VM strategies.
Strong understanding of DTC retail, wholesale environments, and marketplace execution.
Experience operating within structured GTM and seasonal planning models.
Experience in lifestyle, apparel, footwear, or culturally driven consumer brands.
Exposure to experiential retail and store concept innovation.

Nice To Haves

Formal education in a related field is great to have

Responsibilities

Define the role of retail within the broader brand and integrated marketing ecosystem, ensuring alignment to global brand strategy and seasonal priorities by setting the global retail marketing and visual merchandising strategy across VANS retail and wholesale environments.
Develop, execute and ensure the implementation of evergreen and seasonal go to market processes for retail, providing clear direction to cross functional partners on in store priorities, storytelling, and design needs to ensure aligned execution.
Lead the development and execution of seasonal retail marketing strategies & priorities that elevate the in-store experience across full-price, outlet, and wholesale partner environments.
Translating global brand narratives and campaign priorities into compelling in‑store storytelling—across floor sets, windows, and experiential moments—that supports key product moments, franchise focus, and commercial objectives.
Establish global VM standards, principles, and guidelines while developing scalable, modular toolkits that ensure brand consistency across store formats and regions, reduce duplication, and enable rapid regional execution.
Work closely with the field visual merchandising team who reports into the Retail organization.
Partner closely with VANS Retail, Wholesale, and Marketplace teams to ensure retail marketing and VM support channel‑specific needs while maintaining a cohesive brand experience.
Support wholesale partners with clear retail execution frameworks, tools, and assets aligned to global brand standards.
Work in lockstep with Brand Management, Creative, Integrated Marketing, Digital, and Product Merchandising teams to align retail execution to the global GTM calendar.
Define and track retail marketing and VM effectiveness, including traffic, conversion, sell‑ePS (revenue per square foot), and execution quality - Using insights and regional feedback to optimize future retail concepts and standards.
Lead and develop a global retail marketing and VM organization with strong creative, commercial, and operational capabilities.