Watford, England, United Kingdom
A hardworking, ambitious Head of Sales with an extensive Fashion and Sports experience across both Brand and Private Label. A proven track record of creating and building brands, devising and implementing sales strategy, and exceeding performance expectations whilst building long term commercial partnerships. Strong strategic vision and customer centric with the ability to bring about the fundamental changes needed in response to changing market factors. Self-motivated and able to lead, inspire and motivate peers and direct reports with energy, passion and drive. Please feel free to connect with me directly, and I am always looking to broaden my professional network. I look forward to connecting with you. Expertise areas: Sales | Negotiation | Fashion | Product Development | EMEA Channel Management | Manufacturing | Apparel | Sales Strategy | Sales Forecasting | Account Management | Brand Creation | Brand Management | Retail - On and Offline | Business Strategy | Team Development | Multi-functional Leadership | P&L Management | Retailer Specific Category & Range Planning
Founded Sketch Agencies Europe, a boutique sales and distribution agency representing a curated portfolio of premium fashion and lifestyle brands across Europe. Leveraging extensive industry experience and a wide-reaching retail network, the agency specialises in brand development, market penetration, and strategic sales growth. Key Responsibilities & Achievements: • Lead the agency’s commercial and strategic direction, overseeing business development, operations, and financial performance. • Represent Mount to Coast, Lee (Kids) and Wrangler (Kids) across European territories — driving new business, retail expansion, and long-term distribution partnerships. • Successfully execute clearance deals for Dry Robe, maintaining brand positioning while maximizing commercial outcome. • Build and nurture relationships with key accounts, distributors, and partners across the EU. • Oversee all aspects of the sales cycle including forecasting, negotiations, pricing strategy, and market analysis. • Developing long-term vision and preparing for future team growth and portfolio expansion.
As one of the fastest growing companies in today’s junior and contemporary fashion markets, Capelli New York designs, manufactures and markets on-trend private label and branded fashion products for Women, Men, Teen, Tweens and Kids for many of the biggest fashion retailers globally. Founded in 1990 and based in New York City, the company’s coordinated product lines include fashion accessories, jewellery, hosiery, footwear, rainwear, athletic gear, fitness, sleepwear, home fashion, and novelty gifts. We operate with more than 3,000 employees across multiple continents including North America, Europe, and Asia, giving us a truly global presence and perspective. Because of our unique structure, we are able to respond to the latest fashion trends quickly, leveraging our position in sourcing raw materials, innovative design and product development teams, and manufacturing products in our four privately owned factories. As Head of Sales my responsibilities include; • Lead the strategic growth and direction of the Capelli New York business across the UK and EMEA. • Develop and implement key strategies, plans and drivers towards achievement of agreed targets and objectives within CNY’s business categories. • Implement strategy within the sales team, driving and managing sales, achieving and exceeding revenue/margin goals and requirements, and delivering growth in line with budgeted business targets. • Successfully open new accounts with leading retailers across Europe. This includes directly leading prospection and negotiation in person, customer relationship management in new markets and development into long term strategic partnerships. • Manage, inspire, motivate and develop the sales team members to ensure they effectively manage and develop the business areas. • Collaborate actively and communicate effectively with colleagues from Production, Marketing, Design/NPD, Supply Chain, Quality and Finance as well as any other key stakeholders within the CNY group.
Responsibilities included; • The development and creation of strong key account partnerships and long term strategic growth plans across Kontoor’s UK’s Key Account base – TK Maxx, BooHoo, Costco, Very, Next, Brand Alley, John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, M and M Direct, Asda & Matalan. • P&L Responsibility £14,000,000 (2022) • Own & Lead the digital and key account plan, ensuring complete execution, and aligning season initiatives to the overall GTM strategy, including pre-line meetings. • Managing & Delivering KPI’s - Drive at once & Pre-book business, Margins, Profitability • Drive in-store brand presence, ensuring excellent brand consumer awareness, and connection in line with our consumer segmentation strategy. • Develop and Implement Full Strategic Road Maps – Forecasting / 3-5 Year Plans / Marketing Budgets / Growth Plans • Manage relationships across key internal departments – Credit / Finance / CS / Planning • Maintain in depth market knowledge and analysis, in order to establish pricing strategy, and quantify the key opportunities for growth areas within each retailer and channel. Key Achievements • Navigated the Covid-19 pandemic – worked closely with retail partners in rephrasing orderbooks and managing cancelation requests. • Successfully opened and negotiated trading terms with BooHoo, Next PLC, M and M Direct, John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, Costco and Asda – of which received significant coverage on LinkedIn and in Retail Week. • Ambassador for implementation and roll-out of aWorkbook (Remote Sell-In Tool during pandemic) • Increased Asda Superstore distribution from 15 doors (SS21 launch) to 50 doors for FW21. • Increased John Lewis distribution from 5 doors (SS22 launch) to 10 doors for FW22. • Top salesperson in EMEA on in 2022 on Prebook Business (+104% vs target) and rewarded a place to attended Denim City, Amsterdam as part of a 2 Day recognition event for performance.
The Lab London was founded in 2015, with nothing but ambition and a creative vision in my front room. Over 6 years, it developed into a lifestyle brand that was adopted by influencers and many followers including Harry Styles, Little Mix and the Beckhams. • Global wholesale strategy, managing all internal sales staff, agent, subcontractors and distributors. • Developing every collection from concept and mood board to range planning and building, managing sourcing strategy and price negotiation. • Managing the critical path from product development, sales, production shipping and delivery. • Key account management, seasonal budgeting and sample management, developing and growing the business, through staff training, incentives, pop ups and trading the business. • Key sales planning with trade show and international showroom partnerships. • Managed both the E-commerce and Retail store seasonal buying. • Successfully negotiated and brokered commercial agreements and collaborations with Starter Black Label, New Era, Urban Classics and Mix-Mag • Managing the partner businesses, overseeing commercial contracts, integration and seasonal buys, budgets and sample management. • Launched accessories into key department stores and stores. • Managing a head office staff consisting of Design, Production, Retail, E-commerce, Operations and Wholesale functions. • System Integration. • Concession and Pop up management. • Worked closely with both PR and marketing functions in organising and curating both retail marketing events and seasonal launch parties, sourcing talent, venues and sponsorship. • Warehousing 3PL management and EAN Set up. Key Achievements • Social Media reach of 50,000 (Instagram) • Grew the Farfetch business by 60% from 2016 to 2017 • Doubled the business turnover 2016/17. • Featured within The Daily Mail, Heat, Closer magazines fashion pages
• Responsible for new account openings & overall management of multiple key strategic accounts including; Fanatics, The John David Group (JD Sports), Sports Direct International (Debenhams, House of Fraser & Sports Direct) Harrods, Selfridges, ASOS, H&M, GAP & BooHoo. • The development of buying and planning collections and their execution, business terms and performance reviews, the selling process. • Development and implementation of the companies UK sales strategy across both Nike & US Sports league licenses held (NBA/NFL/NHL/NCAA) • Day to day management of 4 sales agents & 2 admin staff, ensuring new business development activities are carried out consistently by the team across all product categories and that they are both meeting and exceeding KPI’s set. • Delivering sensible and sustainable growth within each key retailer. • Identifying opportunities within the UK then European marketplace and presenting them to the MD and production team to see if these can be executed. • Identifying and acquiring key sports licenses. • Work closely with key retailers marketing teams to build marketing plans for each commercial year. Key Achievements • P&L responsibility $7,000,000 (£5,680,000) • Successfully opened several key retail accounts widening the UK & Irelands NBA/NFL/NHL distribution - BooHoo, Intersport, Tottenham Hotspur/NFL, TK Maxx, Lifestyle Sports (Ireland) & Primark (incremental $2,350,000 p.a) • UK & Ireland +52% YoY (2017 vs 2018) • Identified and acquired NCAA licence for EMEA and obtained listings within BooHoo and New Look • Successfully negotiated apparel licenses with The FA, Chelsea & Manchester City until 2023. • Selected to be part of the NFL’s Externship Programme, educating NFL players on the commercial side of the NFL (June 2019)