We’re Pentland Brands: a global family business behind some of the world’s most iconic active and lifestyle brands. We bring integrity, energy and ambition to our work, setting high standards and striving to deliver great outcomes without ego.
Design swimwear built for movement, confidence and performance in the water.
At Speedo, product has to do more than look good. It has to move with the swimmer, feel comfortable in the water and support performance, confidence and freedom of movement, whether someone is training, competing, learning or simply enjoying the swim.
The Head of Global Retail Experience leads the global vision and strategic direction for how Speedo shows up across retail, wholesale, partner and DTC environments.
Working closely with Brand Marketing, Product Marketing, Go-To-Market, Commercial, Digital, regional teams and the Store Design & VM Manager, this role defines Speedo’s retail experience principles and ensures the brand is expressed consistently across physical, digital and connected retail touchpoints.
The role is responsible for shaping a distinctive, scalable and consumer-first retail experience that strengthens brand impact, supports commercial performance and creates a more connected omnichannel journey.
What you’ll be doing:
Define the global vision and long-term strategy for Speedo’s retail experience across owned retail, wholesale, partner environments and DTC touchpoints.
Establish retail experience principles that guide how the brand shows up across physical, digital and connected retail environments.
Lead the strategic direction for Speedo’s global retail concept, ensuring it is distinctive, consumer-led, commercially relevant and scalable across markets and formats.
Own the strategic brief for new retail concepts, ensuring alignment with brand ambition, consumer journey needs and business priorities.
Partner with Digital and DTC teams to ensure retail storytelling, navigation principles and experience cues are reflected across priority online touchpoints.
Ensure seasonal brand narratives, product stories and campaign moments are expressed consistently across retail and omnichannel environments.
Define how global retail concepts and experience standards flex across owned retail, wholesale, distributor and partner environments while protecting brand integrity.
Use consumer insight, retail performance data, market feedback and qualitative learnings to inform retail experience strategy and ongoing concept evolution.
Provide senior oversight of major retail rollouts, new concepts, resets and flagship moments, ensuring execution reflects the intended experience and quality standards.
Lead and manage the relationship with external retail design agency partners, ensuring creative outputs deliver against Speedo’s retail vision and commercial needs.
Provide clear strategic direction to the Store Design & VM Manager, ensuring toolkits, layouts, VM principles and executional materials support the global retail experience strategy.
Partner with Brand, Product, GTM, Commercial and regional teams to ensure retail experience plans are aligned with wider business priorities and seasonal activation.
Act as the senior internal voice for retail experience, championing a connected, consumer-first approach across channels and markets.
What you’ll bring:
Significant experience in retail experience, store design, visual merchandising, retail marketing or brand environments, ideally within sport, lifestyle, performance or consumer brands.
Strong ability to set retail experience strategy, principles and frameworks across global or multi-market environments.
Experience developing or evolving retail concepts across owned retail, wholesale, partner or distributor formats.
Strong understanding of how physical retail connects with digital, DTC and omnichannel consumer journeys.
Confident working with creative agencies, design partners, internal teams and regional stakeholders to deliver high-quality retail experiences.
Strong visual judgement, consumer understanding and commercial awareness.
Experience guiding or managing store design, VM or retail marketing team members.
Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to influence senior leaders and cross-functional partners.
Comfortable operating in a global, matrixed organisation with multiple channels, markets and routes to consumer.
Strategic, collaborative and solutions-focused, with the ability to balance brand vision, commercial needs and practical market execution.
This vacancy is a newly created role as part of organisational changes. Final appointment will depend upon the outcome of consultation processes and affected employees will have priority for consideration.
Why Speedo?
Speedo is one of the world’s most iconic swimwear brands, built on a heritage of innovation, performance and a lifelong love of swimming.
From elite competition to everyday fitness, leisure and learning, Speedo creates product for every type of swimmer. It is a brand trusted in the water because it understands what matters: fit, movement, comfort, durability, confidence and performance.
Joining Speedo means becoming part of a team that cares deeply about helping people feel at home in the water, whether they are chasing a personal best, building confidence, training regularly or discovering the joy of swimming for the first time.
Perks & Benefits
We offer a competitive salary, discretionary bonus, hybrid working, flexible start and finish times, generous holiday allowance, product discounts, sample sales, enhanced family-friendly policies, healthcare support, gym and fitness discounts, cycle to work scheme and electric car scheme.
You can find full details of our benefits and perks on our UK Benefits page.
The Interview Process
We want our interview process to feel clear, straightforward, and supportive. If your experience and expectations look like a strong match for the role, here’s what you can expect next:
Talent Team Intro Call - A 30-minute video call with our Talent Team to get to know each other, talk through the role and your experience, and answer any questions you have.
Experience Interview - A more in-depth interview (usually online) with the hiring manager to explore your skills, experience and approach, and how these align with the role, our principles, and our ways of working.
Final Interview - A final in-person interview at our office, focused on deeper discussion and practical application, giving you the chance to meet more of the team and see Pentland Brands in action.
