Richard Fox.

Profile.

A Senior Retail Consultant with a rare blend of retail expertise gained via strategic and operational leadership roles in Stores, Central Store Operations, Buying & Merchandising and stand-alone commercial business units.

Brings a successful and comprehensive track record of driving sales, profit and market share growth across multi-channel retail. Category expertise embracing Home, Clothing, General Merchandise. Across formats from super stores, high street, e-commerce and outlet sales.

Takes an analytical approach to reviewing and assessing business performance, and brings entrepreneurial drive to identifying market opportunities, developing growth strategies and shaping operational execution plans to deliver enhanced sales and profitability.

Approachable, commercial and energetic: engages with Retail Business Leaders and their teams to provide credible consultancy support, business advice and compelling propositions and solutions. Delivered with flair, passion and energy to galvanise teams and drive action.

Career Overview.

Expertise & Credentials.

• UK Multi-channel Retail Expert with a rich blend of commercial, product, supply chain and sales expertise across Home, Clothing and General Merchandise and across multiple store and trading formats

• P&L Owner. Has successfully driven sales, margin, profit and market share across complex business units with £250 million + t/o

• Business Unit Leadership. Strong general management and leadership track record; creating strategic direction and executional excellence for multi-functional teams (up to 100+)

• Extensive Buying & Merchandising expertise. Maximises margin via product assortment & lifecycle, phasing calendar creation, space planning, option optimisation, merchandise planning, supplier negotiation, product availability, stock management, trading strategy, markdown management.

• Retail transformation. Has led strategic and operational change initiatives including set up of new on-line trading platform, format conversions, clearance of terminal stock

• Renowned Expert in Outlet businesses: from set up, to stock and trading strategy and format management to drive profit creation

• Inspirational and Engaging Leader: Approachable and energetic style. Delivers through the motivation, direction and development of high performing teams

Career Highlights.

• Defined, shaped and executed a brand new Growth Strategy for the M&S Outlet operations resulting in increased sales and profitability of plus 25% to budget. Delivered via through greater exposure to ‘made for’ ranges and a major supply chain re-organisation. Best performing retail format in 2021.

• Led the M&S end of season ‘Clearance Sales’ strategy and operations across all divisions. Steered a cross functional team to deliver a reduction in the £multi-million terminal stock pot by 40%, restricting time on sale from all year to 16 weeks

• Created a strategy to increase newness and ‘reason to shop’ for the customer and deliver a blend of fast-fashion and core ranging. Established a new buying and phasing calendar to replace the traditional 4x pa buying cycle with a more flexible monthly programme and increased speed of product to market

• Drove profitability across omnichannel Clothing and Home divisions by implementing a data-driven focus on option reduction to drive up buy-per-way, decrease terminal stock and remove slow moving products

• Led the strategic development and store deployment of the world’s first Radio Frequency Identification [RFID] system across General Merchandise to increase accuracy and reduce incidence of fraud saving £10m per year. Sales floor stock accuracy improved from 90% to 95%

• Developed and introduced a fully automated pricing system/markdown solution for ‘Sale’ merchandise in all stores saving £4m annually in labour costs and a further £1m in the cost of pricing errors

• Revolutionised the M&S Homeware assortment, leading to a +25% increase in sales over 3 years. Strategy included market range extensions; good, better, best structure, to take market share from supermarket retailers. Introduced new product ranges in Bed-Linen, Towels, Cushions and Home Fragrance

• Developed a culture of rapid response to sales and new trends across Buying & Merchandising, leveraging market analysis and developing new supplier relationships and SLAs. For example, adding significant sales revenue from a single range of TVs designed for the growing games console market

• Conceptualised and executed an innovative sponsorship programme with Pro-Golfers to promote the M&S golf clothing range, leading to increased sales and brand recognition

• Currently engaged in Coaching and Mentoring Executives and Managers in commercial performance, change management and personal development. Coaching clients across Retail and beyond