Retail Operations 2025 Summer Internship (Full Time/Paid/Hybrid)

Compensation Details:

$22.00 per hour

Why should you join our team?

We live our values - W.E.L.I.G.H.T (Winning, Excellence, Love, Integrity, Gratitude, Humility, and Teamwork). Gratitude. Humility. Love. You don’t often see values like these in most corporate statements, but Ace is different. These things are important to us. They represent our commitment to the company, our employees, to Ace retailers and to the Ace brand.

Job Description:

Are you interested in becoming Ace helpful?

Ace has been named a Top Workplace in Chicago and we’re looking for the best people to help us fulfill our vision of being the best, most helpful hardware stores on the planet. We’re focused on the future, looking for new and better ways to compete in today’s marketplace. At Ace, we like to say that we have a soft heart, a steel spine — and we like to win. People are the foundation of what makes Ace great, and we’re always looking for ways to improve the employment experience for Ace team members. What we can promise you is that you will gain a sense of accountability and ownership by working hard to build Ace’s continued success, and your own. You’ll enjoy a competitive, fast-paced and friendly work environment. And, you’ll take pride in serving our Ace retail stores and their customers in neighborhoods across the country and around the world.

2025 Summer Internship Program

The Ace Internship program allows you to apply skills and knowledge you're learning in College today, while contributing in a hands-on environment to fit your career objectives, complement your academic work and enhance your learning. Here’s what you will take away from your experience this summer:

• Real hands-on experience in your assigned department/function with day-to-day projects, responsibilities, accountabilities and deadlines.
• Opportunity to partner with other interns over the summer on a Capstone project, presenting your findings and recommendations to Ace’s Leadership
• Q & A with Ace’s CEO and Senior Leadership team
• Resume Workshop to help you prepare for future opportunities
• Opportunity to volunteer through the Ace Hardware Foundation
• Teambuilding activities and more.

Your internship experience at Ace will give you the knowledge and skills future employers will look for! Want to hear more? Please review our Glassdoor comments from former interns!

About this Opportunity

We are looking for a collaborative business partner with exceptional critical thinking and problem-solving skills to support the growth and development of our 5,000+ domestic stores and to optimize the process to open our 170+ new stores. As the Corporate Retail Operations Intern you will research, develop and implement processes for one or more critical business capabilities to support our Field Team.   Our field team is made up of 225+ team members that are supporting the day-to-day activities of our stores.   You will have the opportunity to collaborate with leaders across sales, merchandising, supply chain, customer service, accounting, IT and other functional departments.  Your work will ensure that all Ace internal departments are aligned with our direction and strategy. You will partner directly with our Operations, Project Management and New Business teams to ensure that the processes you build are consistent, repeatable and scalable for our business.  Ultimately, you will gain broad experience in general business operations and exposure to multiple business functions.

The candidate will support our vision to be the most helpful field organization in Retail and investment opportunity of choice by:

• Research business capabilities needed to support project remodels or new store growth
• Connect cross-functionally with key stakeholders to complete projects
• Evaluate Retail Readiness site (support platform for the field teams) and provide input, ideas and partake in updates
• Participate in weekly team meetings and share work updates
• Develop standard operating procedures and documents
• Provide support to all teams within the department

The ideal intern will possess the following:

• Working towards a bachelor’s degree in Business, Management, Communication, Marketing, Retail, Sales or related fields
• Entering Senior year of college
• Inquisitive – research and interview
• Critical Thinker - consultant
• Logical – build process
• Strong oral and written communication skills
• Analytical and problem-solving skills
• Ambitious self-starter who has demonstrated the ability to contribute as an effective team member
• Excellent time management and organizational skills
• Demonstrated motivation and initiative to succeed
• Kn