Senior Manager, Head of NSO Program Office

Wayfair • Boston, MA

4d

About The Position

Senior Manager, Head of New Store Opening (NSO) Program Office Job Summary: We are Wayfair; we deliver a best-in-class customer experience in the furniture and home space because of people like you, who are driven, determined, collaborative, and thrive in a fast-paced environment. In order to maintain our high level of delivery standards and meet our customer's needs, the Wayfair Leadership team plays a key role in improving Physical Retail's customer satisfaction and driving repeat business. We've been busy building a best-in-class logistics process that allows us to delight customers by ensuring we are in-stock, fulfilling in-store orders, and reducing product damage and shrink by leveraging our physical retail inventory management process. We are looking for talented hard-working individuals to join our growing team - your professional home awaits you at Wayfair! Essential Functions: The Senior Manager, New Store Opening Program Office plays a pivotal role in leading the seamless execution and continuous improvement of our end-to-end New Store Openings (NSO) program across brands and formats. . This position demands strong leadership, empowered decision making, exceptional organizational skills, and the ability to influence and drive progress in a highly cross-functional and dynamic environment.

Requirements

• 4-6 years of retail, visual merchandising, supply chain, operations, or logistics experience
• Demonstrated team leadership, and experience managing and influencing cross-functional teams in a large, corporate environment
• 4-6 years of creating strong processes, logistics, or an operational background with an ability to understand workflow and throughput in the operation
• Experience in a high-growth retail expansion environment (e.g. retail store expansion)
• Exceptional analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills
• Proven ability to motivate, influence and inspire yourself and others
• Track record of thriving in a fast paced and changing environment
• Possess strong leadership skills with the ability to train, coach and mentor associates with professional maturity.
• Technical acumen to learn necessary software; proficiency in Google Suites and/or Microsoft Office applications preferred.
• Ability to work flexible schedule, including nights, weekends, and holidays.

Responsibilities

• End to End leadership: This role is responsible for ensuring that all stores are opened on time and on budget. They are the end-to-end leader of all activities, milestones and timelines from the point that LOI is signed all the way to Grand Opening. They coordinate across both functional home office teams (corporate functions) and a separate NSO-dedicated field team that leads execution in the final weeks leading to store opening.
• Cross-functional Coordination: Functional teams must be pro-actively managed and held accountable to milestones and timelines. These include (non-exhaustive) merchandising, real estate and builds, finance, creative, recruiting, tech, IT, facilities, asset protection, visual presentations, and operations. This includes the creation of detailed NSO plans, a regular drumbeat of check-ins and updates to ensure progress is on track, proactive identification of risks and systematic escalations when NSO timelines or deliverables are not on track.
• Management of NSO team: The Head of the NSO Program will lead a team of cross-functional support resources responsible for executing program activities, organized by brand and function.
• Communication and Reporting: Leadership communication: The Head of New Store Opening Program Office will lead all company-wide and leadership updates and reporting on progress, highlighting wins, flagging risks, and proactively pulling in leadership to resolve challenges or unblock processes. This will include a monthly leadership update on progress across NSOs Cross-Functional NSO team communication: This role will ensure that clarity or roles and responsibilities across all functions, including clear delineation of what is and is not in the scope of responsibility for the NSO Program Office vs the individual functional teams.
• Decision-Making and Risk Management: Empowered escalation and accountability driving: This role must effectively drive responsibility and accountability across functional teams and stakeholders through influence, structured and rigorous processes / timelines, and a predisposition to clear, directive communication. In-the-Moment Decision Making: The role requires the ability to make agile, in-the-moment decisions that affect onsite work, adapting to daily conditions and unforeseen circumstances to maintain momentum and overcome obstacles effectively. Risk Identification and Mitigation: Proactively identifying potential risks or soon-to-be-risks, as well as necessary schedule adjustments, is crucial. The NSO Leader is responsible for flagging these to leadership and responsible teams promptly, facilitating early intervention and risk mitigation strategies. Identification of Ownership for New Elements: In a dynamic NSO environment, new or unidentified elements may emerge. The NSO Leader is tasked with identifying appropriate owners for these elements, ensuring that all aspects of the NSO are addressed and managed effectively.
• Documentation and Process Improvement: Process Ownership: A significant responsibility involves clear ownership and evolution of the core processes underpinning our new store opening activities - incorporating learnings through effective post-mortems and clearly documenting and communicating these as they come to light. This includes detailing lessons learned, best practices, and areas for refinement to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of subsequent new site openings.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees