Director of Retail (Hotel Emma)

Director of Retail

Purpose

The Director of Retail provides strategic and creative leadership for Hotel Emma's retail operations and branded merchandise programs. This position is responsible for defining the retail vision, curating distinctive product assortments, directing buying strategy, developing vendor partnerships, and ensuring every retail touchpoint reflects the character, history, and standards of the Hotel Emma and Pearl brands.

The Director serves as the organization's retail visionary and senior buyer, transforming retail into an extension of the guest experience through thoughtful storytelling, craftsmanship, discovery, and exceptional presentation. The position balances creative leadership with strong financial stewardship, ensuring established merchandise channels continue to grow while identifying new opportunities for revenue, engagement, and brand expression.

Primary Responsibilities

Retail Vision and Strategic Leadership

• Develop and lead the long-term vision for Hotel Emma's retail operations and branded merchandise programs.
• Establish an annual retail strategy that supports revenue growth, profitability, guest engagement, and brand recognition.
• Translate the Hotel Emma and Pearl brand identities into compelling merchandise, environments, activations, and guest experiences.
• Create annual buying, merchandising, marketing, and activation calendars.
• Establish clear performance expectations, priorities, and key performance indicators for the retail department.
• Maintain full accountability for departmental performance, standards, culture, and execution.
• Present retail strategies, opportunities, and performance updates to senior leadership.

Brand Buying and Merchandise Strategy

• Serve as the senior buyer and creative authority for retail merchandise.
• Direct the buying strategy for Hotel Emma merchandise, Pearl-branded merchandise, Larder retail, and other assigned retail programs.
• Maintain and strengthen established branded merchandise channels through disciplined assortment planning, product development, and inventory management.
• Ensure merchandise selections appropriately represent the distinct identities of Hotel Emma and Pearl.
• Develop seasonal, evergreen, limited-edition, and exclusive product collections.
• Identify opportunities for private-label, custom, co-branded, and locally produced merchandise.
• Establish category, assortment, pricing, and margin strategies.
• Evaluate product performance and make informed decisions regarding replenishment, expansion, markdowns, and discontinuation.
• Maintain a balance between commercially proven products and new, discovery-driven offerings.

Market Attendance and Product Sourcing

• Attend relevant markets, trade shows, design exhibitions, maker fairs, and industry events.
• Develop market plans and buying budgets prior to each buying trip.
• Identify emerging products, materials, brands, artisans, and consumer trends.
• Build relationships with designers, makers, publishers, artists, food producers, apparel companies, and lifestyle brands.
• Provide post-market recaps, recommendations, purchase plans, and product-launch timelines.
• Ensure market purchasing decisions are grounded in brand alignment, financial performance, guest relevance, and operational feasibility.

Retail Innovation and Brand Discovery

• Continually seek out emerging artisans, designers, craftspeople, food makers, publishers, and brands that align with Hotel Emma and Pearl.
• Position the retail program as a source of discovery rather than a traditional hotel gift shop.
• Identify products and collaborations that guests are unlikely to find through mass-market retail channels.
• Develop exclusive and first-to-market partnerships that reinforce the organization's position as a cultural and hospitality tastemaker.
• Partner with Culinary, Beverage, Marketing, Design, and Operations to create merchandise inspired by the property's history, people, programming, and guest experiences.
• Maintain an active pipeline of new concepts, collections, collaborations, and retail experiences.
• Continually refresh the assortment so returning guests encounter new reasons to shop and engage.
• Evaluate emerging retail trends and determine which innovations appropriately support the brand.
• Encourage experimentation while maintaining disciplined financial and operational review.

Brand Alignment and Creative Direction

• Protect and elevate the visual and narrative identity of all retail programs.
• Ensure merchandise, packaging, signage, displays, and guest communications are aligned with approved brand standards.
• Partner with Marketing and Design on creative direction for product launches, photography, packaging, campaigns, and digital content.
• Develop storytelling standards that communicate the maker, origin, significance, and connection behind selected products.
• Ensure merchandise feels authentic to its respective brand rather than generic, overly commercial, or trend-driven.
• Maintain consistency across physical retail spaces, activations, e-commerce, and branded merchandise programs.

Visual Merchandising

• Establish the overall visual merchandising direction for each retail environment.
• Develop seasonal display concepts, presentation standards, and visual merchandising calendars.
• Ensure daily merchandising execution remains fresh, intentional, organized, and commercially effective.
• Conduct regular merchandising reviews with retail leadership.
• Coach the Retail Manager and designated team members on product placement, display hierarchy, storytelling, replenishment, and presentation.
• Evaluate fixtures, signage, lighting, packaging, traffic flow, and product adjacencies.
• Ensure high-performing and strategically important merchandise receives appropriate visibility.

Vendor and Partner Relations

• Serve as the senior relationship owner for external retail vendors and brand partners.
• Develop long-term partnerships with vendors that support quality, exclusivity, reliability, and innovation.
• Negotiate pricing, terms, minimums, lead times, exclusivity arrangements, and custom-product opportunities.
• Maintain full access to and communication with relevant external partners.
• Establish clear expectations for quality, delivery, packaging, invoicing, and brand compliance.
• Resolve vendor performance issues promptly and professionally.
• Identify opportunities for collaborative products, pop-ups, trunk shows, launches, and guest programming.

Financial Leadership

• Develop and manage the annual retail budget, revenue plan, cost-of-goods targets, payroll plan, and expense strategy.
• Establish revenue, gross-margin, inventory-turn, average-transaction, and sell-through goals.
• Review financial performance regularly and adjust purchasing, pricing, labor, and marketing strategies as needed.
• Maintain strategic oversight of purchase orders, receiving, invoice processing, inventory reconciliation, and financial controls.
• Ensure purchasing commitments remain aligned with approved budgets and anticipated demand.
• Partner with Finance to maintain timely, accurate, and transparent reporting.
• Protect the strength of established revenue channels while identifying responsible opportunities for future growth.
• Develop financial business cases for new products, collaborations, activations, and capital investments.

Inventory and Operational Oversight

• Establish inventory-management standards across all retail categories and locations.
• Oversee monthly inventories, reconciliations, receiving practices, transfers, damages, returns, and shrink controls.
• Ensure accurate use of Yellow Dog, Shopify, point-of-sale systems, and other retail platforms.
• Establish pars, reorder points, open-to-buy guidelines, and purchasing controls.
• Monitor aged inventory and create responsible plans for movement, repositioning, or markdown.
• Ensure all invoices, purchase orders, receiving records, and supporting documentation are completed accurately and on time.
• Maintain strong coordination between Retail, Finance, Receiving, Marketing, Food and Beverage, and other operational partners.

E-Commerce and Shopify

• Direct the recovery, ongoing management, and long-term strategy of Shopify.
• Ensure the online assortment reflects the quality and storytelling of the physical retail experience.
• Oversee online product selection, inventory synchronization, photography, descriptions, pricing, fulfillment standards, and promotional planning.
• Identify opportunities to expand reach beyond the on-property guest.
• Develop an integrated approach to in-person and digital retail.
• Monitor online sales, conversion, average order value, fulfillment performance, and customer feedback.

Marketing and Business Development

• Develop the annual retail marketing strategy.
• Lead the Larder retail marketing strategy in partnership with Marketing and Food and Beverage leadership.
• Partner with Marketing on campaigns, product launches, seasonal stories, social content, email communication, and public relations opportunities.
• Identify products and collections with strong storytelling and media potential.
• Develop programs that encourage hotel guests, local guests, Pearl visitors, and online customers to engage with retail.
• Integrate retail thoughtfully into hotel programming, culinary events, beverage experiences, holidays, and community initiatives.

Activations and Experiences

• Develop and direct retail activations that drive engagement, storytelling, and commercial performance.
• Oversee pop-ups, artisan showcases, product launches, trunk shows, seasonal markets, book signings, tastings, and collaborative events.
• Establish activation goals, budgets, operating plans, marketing support, and measures of success.
• Ensure activations feel integrated with the guest experience rather than functioning as stand-alone sales events.
• Evaluate activation performance and use findings to improve future programming.

Team Leadership and Development

• Lead, coach, and develop the retail leadership team.
• Create a culture of creativity, accountability, curiosity, collaboration, and exceptional hospitality.
• Establish clear roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authority.
• Delegate operational responsibilities while maintaining full departmental accountability.
• Conduct regular one-on-one meetings, performance reviews, and leadership-development conversations.
• Partner with the Retail Manager to ensure associates receive effective onboarding, product education, service training, and ongoing coaching.
• Develop succession plans and identify growth opportunities for high-performing associates.
• Ensure the team understands not only what is being sold, but why each product belongs within the collection.

Guest Experience

• Ensure retail service reflects Hotel Emma's standards of genuine care, thoughtful storytelling, and personalized hospitality.
• Develop service expectations for product knowledge, special orders, shipping, gifting, and issue resolution.
• Review guest feedback and respond to opportunities in a timely manner.
• Create memorable retail moments that deepen the guest's connection to Hotel Emma, Pearl, San Antonio, and the makers represented.
• Ensure all retail environments remain welcoming, organized, clean, visually compelling, and operationally ready.

Qualifications

• Seven or more years of progressive leadership experience in luxury retail, lifestyle retail, hospitality retail, buying, merchandising, or premium consumer brands.
• Demonstrated experience developing merchandise strategies and managing significant retail revenue.
• Strong buying background with experience attending markets and managing vendor relationships.
• Exceptional understanding of brand identity, product curation, storytelling, and visual merchandising.
• Proven financial acumen, including budgeting, forecasting, inventory planning, pricing, margin management, and performance analysis.
• Experience leading multiple retail channels, merchandise programs, or branded collections.
• Experience with Shopify, Yellow Dog, Toast, or comparable retail and inventory platforms preferred.
• Experience developing private-label, exclusive, or custom merchandise preferred.
• Excellent leadership, communication, negotiation, organizational, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to influence and collaborate across Marketing, Design, Finance, Operations, Culinary, Beverage, and executive leadership.
• Ability and willingness to travel regularly to markets, vendor meetings, and industry events.
• Flexible schedule, including occasional evenings, weekends, and holidays.

Working Conditions and Physical Demands

• Ability to lift and move merchandise weighing up to 50 pounds.
• Ability to stand, walk, bend, kneel, reach, and remain active for extended periods.
• Ability to work in retail, office, storage, receiving, market, and event environments.
• Schedule will reflect operational demands, market travel, activations, and seasonal business needs.
• Occasional long or irregular hours may be required.

Measures of Success

The Director of Retail will be evaluated based on:

• Retail revenue and profitability
• Performance and continued development of branded merchandise programs
• Gross-margin performance
• Inventory productivity and accuracy
• Product assortment quality and brand alignment
• Growth of exclusive and private-label merchandise
• Vendor and artisan partnership development
• Market-buying effectiveness
• Visual merchandising execution
• Shopify and e-commerce performance
• Activation performance
• Guest satisfaction and engagement
• Team development and retention
• Financial and operational accountability
• Strength and consistency of retail storytelling
• Pipeline of retail innovation and future concepts