Group Vice President - South

About the role

Westchester, Illinois, USA. The Group Vice President (GVP) develops and implements corporate strategies to achieve the store's financial, operational, and customer-service goals while addressing each Group, Region, and Store's unique challenges. The GVP will drive accountability for financial planning, omnichannel sales, expense management, goal setting, territory allocation, Follett Strategy, and Program activations and implementation as well as stakeholder relationships. In addition, the GVP will be the corporate representative for Follett to our campuses and be accountable for communicating account performance and opportunities, industry trend data, implementing Follett solutions and growth initiatives such as Follett Access, Follett on Demand, and campus integrations of Follett Discover and collaborating to execute. As a leader of teams, the GVP will motivate, coach, train and strengthen Regional and Store Managers as team leaders, retail operators, and business owners, serve as a resource and provide expertise on key customer issues, team staffing, and management, store operations and company policies and procedures, and ensure that our locations are meeting/exceeding the Operational Standards and that all operations are being executed in accordance to company policies, procedures, and applicable laws.

Responsibilities

• Providing leadership and oversight for a number of regions.
• Providing strategic vision in support of company objectives.
• Regularly communicating with school contacts regarding Follett business issues, stores, and industry trends.
• Establishing a budget with sales/profit goals for each region and store and monitoring each region and store budgets to measure sales/profit performance, monitor cash flow, track inventory, and ensure compliance with company policies and procedures.
• Managing and supervising regional managers including staffing, selection, training, and performance management.
• Making salary recommendations and when necessary disciplining and discharging assigned staff.
• Communicating with regions to provide updates using a variety of formats including conference calls and regional meetings.
• Working with Home Office departments to ensure company initiatives, store policies, procedures, and standards.
• Acting as an advocate for one Home Office department completing quarterly meetings and reports with the corresponding advocate.
• Visiting stores to inspect their merchandise presentation, ensure loss prevention procedures are enforced, policy adherence, and verify customer service excellence.
• Suggesting improvement and resolving any problems that may require high-level decision-making.
• Providing feedback to ensure correct product assortments, promotions, and planning for events.
• Working closely with business contacts, store transitions, and home office departments on new store openings and store closings.
• Being accountable for the group's budget.
• Analyzing monthly stores' and regions' financial performance.
• Identifying any trends and adjusting budgets and store plans accordingly.
• Planning the annual budget and forecasting course materials and other department sales, profits, expenses, setting targets for course materials sales, and reviewing regularly.
• Planning the coordination of marketing Follett for new contracts and renewals to a school in conjunction with the Marketing representative.
• Meeting with key members of the academic community on campuses to remain informed of new developments, assess FHEG's reputation, and promote Follett as a leader in the college bookstore industry.
• Attending campus events.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree is required. Master's is preferred.
• 5+ years of managing Regional/District Manager level, including multi-unit management experience.
• 10+ years of management experience leading a team of 150+ total employees, including training, developing, and coaching.
• Strong financial acumen and retail industry experience are required in this role.
• Strong organizational, interpersonal, communication, and problem-solving skills.
• High energy, self-motivated, with a positive attitude that is contagious to others.
• Ability to multi-task as well as stay on task and concentrate with constant activity.
• Self-motivated and inspired to produce results.
• Must be able to make business decisions based on financial reports.
• Exceptional business etiquette and the ability to effectively conduct presentations and influence top management are paramount.
• Road warrior -- visit stores and audit stores' performance.
• Ability to solve problems and demonstrate critical thinking skills.