The Manager of Visual Merchandising Operations is responsible for the end-to-end delivery of merchandising initiatives — including seasonal updates, new store openings, retailer expansions, and fixture enhancement programs — across ILIA’s international markets. This UK-based role operates within a global structure, supporting open-sell environments, department stores, travel retail, and independent retailers, while contributing to global merchandising initiatives and process improvements as the brand scales. This is an exciting role for a highly organised operator to join our team and support the expansion of our retail footprint. It requires strong ownership across multiple markets, time zones, and stakeholders. The role partners closely with teams in Los Angeles and New York, requiring strong autonomy, proactive communication, and the ability to manage complexity within a fast-moving global organization.
This position manages the full fixture lifecycle from planogramming and assortment creation through display production, vendor management, rollout execution, and repair and maintenance. It serves as the central liaison across sales, finance, creative, vendors, and retailers to ensure alignment across all phases of development and execution. It is also responsible for OpEx and CapEx budgeting and tracking. Approximately 10% travel is required for vendor meetings, prototype reviews, store audits, and installation support to ensure merchandising fixtures and retail presentations are maintained to brand standards.
The ideal candidate is a highly organised, detail-oriented visual merchandising operations manager with strong cross-functional coordination and communication skills, operational acumen, and experience managing budgets, vendors, display production, and merchandising execution in a fast-paced global environment. They play a key role in ensuring seamless delivery of merchandising initiatives across ILIA’s markets outside of the US.
This role is remote and is open to candidates based in the United Kingdom. Candidates must be open to 10% travel both domestic and international. Percentage of travel may vary based on business need.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT (45%)
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Owns end-to-end delivery of merchandising projects including seasonal updates, new store openings, retailer expansions, and fixture enhancement programs.
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Maintains merchandising timelines and retailer schedules, tracking milestones and dependencies through execution.
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Serves as the central coordination point across sales, finance, creative, vendors, and retailers throughout project delivery.
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Manages vendor execution and display production, ensuring alignment across timelines, production progress, creative briefs, technical drawings, and prototypes.
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Develops vendor and creative briefs and creates project decks for kickoffs, alignment, retailer updates, and execution readiness reviews.
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Creates and manages project tracking in Asana, including tasks, timelines, dependencies, and status reporting.
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Oversees shipping, store openings, installation scheduling, rollout execution, and after-market fixture repair and maintenance (repairs, replacements, and issue resolution).
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Ensures merchandising execution aligns with brand standards across rollout and installation phases.
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Identifies and resolves project risks related to timing, production, and execution.
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Coordinates cross-functional reviews and approvals to ensure all required assets and displays are ready on time.
VISUAL MERCHANDISING OPERATIONS (45%)
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Creates seasonal Illustrator-based planograms representing newness, discontinuations, and product fit.
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Creates Excel-based assortments for each gondola fixture and format per update.
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Develops vendor and creative briefs defining display and graphic requirements.
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Creates retailer pricing guides and cost models for OPEX/CAPEX forecasting and budgeting.
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Tracks retailer spend (POs, invoices, accruals, project costs) with monthly reporting; partners on value engineering as needed.
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Schedules gondola installations, moves, removals, and repairs with vendors and retailers to support fixture lifecycle updates.
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Maintains merchandising databases including door counts, fixture inventories, and competitive displays.
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Creates forecasts and orders for packaging comps, testers, and product support materials.
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Ensures VM documentation and Google Drive systems are organized and up to date.
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Develops merchandising guidelines, processes, and tools to improve operational efficiency and consistency across markets.
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Supports global VM initiatives and ad hoc merchandising projects as needed.
IN-MARKET RESPONSIBILITIES (10%)
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Approximately 10% of the role requires travel to support in-market execution and quality control across vendors, stores, and installations.
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Attends vendor prototype meetings to validate fixture quality and production accuracy.
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Conducts store visits and installation checks to validate execution against approved planograms, fixtures, and graphics; logs execution and fixture issues.
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Documents required fixes, communicates issues to vendors and internal teams, and captures in-market insights to inform merchandising updates and continuous improvement.
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5+ years of experience in visual merchandising operations within beauty, preferably across open-sell retail environments and department stores.
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Strong technical knowledge of POS display and graphic production, including materials, fabrication methods, prototyping, and dielines.
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Experience managing external vendors through production and execution of retail displays.
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Experience managing forecasting and budgets, including OPEX and CAPEX expenditure.
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Proven ability to manage multiple concurrent projects while maintaining accuracy, deadlines, and quality standards.
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Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and problem-solving capability.
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Drives execution independently, identifies gaps in workflows, and proactively implements improvements to processes and delivery.
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Strong communication and collaboration skills with the ability to partner cross-functionally across leadership, sales, finance, and creative teams.
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Highly proficient in Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator), Excel, Asana, Smartsheet, Google Workspace, and MS SharePoint.
What we would like to offer...
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Competitive salary
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Bonus Opportunity
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Private Medical Benefits
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Annual Leave
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Flexibility & Wellness Stipends - Monthly stipends to support remote work & self-care
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ILIA Products - Quarterly stipend to replenish your favorite products and try new ones]
About ILIA
ILIA makes clean skin-centric beauty. We see skincare and makeup as one and believe that skin should look like skin. With transparency as our guide and color as our vehicle, we challenge the conventions of clean beauty to create something radically new, through safe, groundbreaking formulas that protect + revive the skin. Headquartered in Laguna Beach, California, ILIA brings together a strong group of innovative thinkers, rule-breakers and creative problem solvers. We pave the way forward as the leading clean makeup brand in what is being called the Clean Beauty Revolution. Fast paced growth provides constant learning, collaborative teamwork, and the desire to be the best at what you do. We celebrate taking risks and doing what hasn’t been done before.
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