Senior Design Director, Visual Merchandising & Store Design

HOURGLASS COSMETICS — Senior Design Director, Visual Merchandising & Store Design (Hybrid Role) 

Connected by creativity and driven by purpose. Hourglass Cosmetics is a vegan and cruelty-free beauty brand, redefining luxury cosmetics with high-performance products, innovative formulas, and award-winning franchises. Recognized by Forbes, Fast Company and Time Magazine as one of the most inventive beauty companies, Hourglass leads the industry with its breakthrough products and its commitment to animal welfare. Founded in 2004, Hourglass is globally available in 32 markets and over 4,600 doors including Sephora, Ulta, Neiman Marcus, Selfridges, Space NK and more. Hourglass became part of the Unilever Prestige division in 2017. Discover more about the Hourglass brand story and mission on our website hourglasscosmetics.com.

The Senior Design Director, Visual Merchandising & Store Design (VM/SD) will lead the global 3D design team and play a key role in the development of brand architectural and visual merchandising concepts across retail formats. Reporting directly to the SVP Global Brand Image, Visual Merchandising & Store Design, this role will help shape and evolve Hourglass’s physical expression worldwide. Will closely collaborate with cross functional teams, regional partners, external vendors and consultants to ensure all store design and display initiatives are executed on-time, on-budget and uphold and protect the Hourglass aesthetic. As we continue our global expansion, this role will guide the growth of the global 3D design team with a strong focus on talent development and mentorship. The Sr Design Director will also collaborate with the Director of Brand Event Design to identify synergies between global event experiences and permanent retail environments, ensuring a cohesive and impactful brand expression across all touchpoints. In conjunction, will be responsible for driving process improvement and guiding the 3D design team in developing scalable design standards that enhance efficiency and accelerate speed to market. This is an exciting opportunity to help shape the future of our physical brand expression while leading a talented team to support our global growth journey.

WHAT YOU DO:

• Lead the Global 3D VM/SD Design team with multiple direct reports across Global HQ and regional offices.
• Work closely with SVP Global Brand Image, VM & SD on global design evolution and strategic visual merchandising initiatives. 3D render concepts for review and approval.
• Oversee conceptual design development and ensure seamless and holistic integration of visual merchandising initiatives within architectural concepts.
• Help define future design and merchandising initiatives to support evolving needs of the brand.
• Create 3D renderings of architectural design and visual merchandising proposals for review and approval. Iterate design options as required to meet project objectives and planned budgets.
• Own the review and approval process for projects designed locally by regions and external partners. Responsible for communication and project management to ensure concepts are approved by SVP and are consistent with brand standards from preliminary submission to final shop drawings and execution.
• Present and clarify complex aspects of designs to regional partners with the goal of shared understanding and solid alignment. Communicate concisely to review issues and design solutions with regional teams and external vendors.
• Evaluate success of store designs and new merchandising displays.
• Drive the development of scalable design guidelines and help to establish and enforce global brand standards.
• Review project briefs to ensure retailer guidelines, budgets, and commercial objectives are clear.
• Lead weekly reporting on status of projects. Actively communicate project risk.
• Have a clear understanding of global project budgets and ensure designs fit within cost parameters. Work closely with regional partners and vendors to value engineer designs when needed.
• Review vendor technical drawings, construction documents and manage the prototype approval process for final production sign-off. Must be familiar with and capable of redlining technical drawings and DD sets from a variety of internal and external global teams.
• Work collaboratively with global VM/SD colleagues to drive process improvement, achieve best practices and standardization across regions. Identify opportunities to improve communication and project workflow.
• Collaborate with the 2D Director VM/SD to optimize the visual selection and final asset delivery process for new SIS doors, identifying opportunities to streamline workflows and improve efficiency in the selection and approv