Retail Excellence Processes Lead

In short

The On mission: to ignite the human spirit through movement. Inspired by athletes and driven by Swiss engineering, we create performance footwear and apparel that is loved by millions of people in over 60 countries. Our Retail experience is a critical embodiment of our Brand. It’s where our community can physically touch, feel and experience the innovation and design that drives us.

We are looking for a Retail Excellence Processes Leader, to join our team in Zurich.

This is a unique opportunity for a Leader who brings end-to-end Retail Excellence — combining operational discipline, deep understanding of Premium retail flows and seamless execution from Back of House efficiency to Front of House productivity, with the scope of elevating our customer experience. You will be the Global engine transforming operational complexity into efficiency and innovation, shaping the foundation of our Premium, scalable and future ready Retail ecosystem.

Your Mission

As the Retail Excellence Processes Leader, you will be the architect of scalable Retail Excellence processes at a Global level, building the operational foundation that powers a Premium in-store experience, minimizing staff complexity to maximize excellence in customer experience.

This role merges Global mindset to Local execution, acting as an essential bridge between our Regions and Central team, translating our brand vision into high-performance retail processes that empower our teams and delight our customers.

You will design and harmonize Global retail excellence scalable operational standards and procedures that enable best practices for store operations, BOH organization, FOH implementation and cross-functional collaboration to enhance efficiency and service excellence.

A key part of the role is to act as voice of Retail Business with Central Tech and Digital teams during the Programs design, acting as essential business counterpart for Tech and adept to coordinate cross Regions excellent adoption of high-impact initiatives within our Global Retail Ecosystem.

Your Responsibilities

Build the Global Retail Process Framework & Continuous Improvement

• Deploy a unified global operating model, harmonizing and designing retail processes and procedures across Regions and store formats taking into account Local specificities.
• Drive the Retail Operations Excellence roadmap — identifying opportunities to optimize workflows and prioritize processes.
• Foster a culture of Pilot–learn–refine, embedding continuous improvement principles in every layer of retail execution.
• Partner with Retail Technology, Digital and Logistics teams to introduce smart tools and data-driven solutions that streamline operations and unlock team potential.
• Translate customer journey insights into operational excellence guidelines that directly improve the in-store experience.

Enhance the Back-of-House and Elevate the Front-of-House

• Reimagine Global BOH operations as a performance enabler: optimize space management at a store cluster level, stockroom processes, team scheduling and task management systems monitoring the regional execution and maintenance.
• Define Service Level Agreements and Policies to provide seamless Operational discipline.
• Ensure operational improvements translate into FOH initiatives to maximize zone - performances.

Coordinate Global Excellence for a Regional Execution

• Act as the strategic bridge between Global Retail Excellence and Regional Operations Leadership Teams, ensuring alignment in priorities, in-store adoption and performance metrics.
• Coordinate the adoption of cross-regional initiatives, facilitating the exchange of best practices and learnings to accelerate performance improvement.
• Monitor adherence to global retail standards while supporting regional adaptation.

Drive Change / Innovation Improvements

• Champion the evolution of retail excellence by initiating and scaling transformative process innovations, turning complexity into simplicity through data-driven insights, automation and staff-centered design to future proof our Global Customer First Retail ecosystem.

Lead Change Through Adoption

• Act as a thought leader and trusted advisor to regional and global retail stakeholders.
• Inspire a global community of Retail Excellence ambassadors through transparent communication, strong engagement, and recognition of success.
• Partner with HR and Training to embed operational excellence principles into training, onboarding, and leadership development programs.

Drive Measurable Impact

• Measure and optimize: Define success metrics, track results and adapt strategies to maximize business impact and customer satisfaction in collaboration with our business analytics function.
• Support on defining success metrics and KPIs to measure efficiency, monitoring staff productivity and service execution consistency.

Your story

• 7+ years of experience in Retail Operations in Global Premium Retail Companies.
• Proven track record of leading complex, cross-functional projects in a fast-evolving retail environment, keeping a superb premium customer experience in mind.
• Deep understanding of the Retail operational activities, with a Tech solutions-driven efficiency tools proposal and ability to set adoption standards.
• Exposure to multiple Regions, with an understanding of cultural and operational specificities.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, including senior leadership.
• Outcome-driven mindset with experience in defining priorities.
• Bachelor’s degree in Innovation, Business, Economics or related field (preferred).

Preferred Skills:

• Experience in store.
• Customer first attitude.
• Familiarity with retail analytics, CRM, digital tools.
• Strong communication, storytelling and presentation skills.
• Passion for innovation, customer experience and continuous improvement.
• Discipline on delivering excellence in every aspect of execution.
• Ability to translate insights into strategic opportunities.

What to expect

We want to set everyone up for success, so here’s the lowdown on how we hire. Our process is a two-way street – bringing you into our culture, while helping us learn how you think.

Our full process can last about eight weeks from application to offer, because we care about getting it right. These steps explain how we usually do things.

Before you get started, feel free to consider if you want to work with us. Strange question? Well, we give people a lot of space to navigate their day-to-day and that style isn't for everyone. We want you to be passionate about what you do and be sure this is the right fit. Because when skills and passion combine – it creates that 'Wow' moment.

• Step One

  It starts with you...

  You'll start by submitting your application to a specific role. We try to keep this step as simple as possible. We do get a lot of applications, but we review them all. If you're a good fit to the role, a recruiter will follow up with you directly. If you didn't receive a reply, or were unsuccessful this time around, we encourage you to look for other possible matches at On.

• Step Two

  Interview with a recruiter

  What ignites your spirit? This is where we’ll start getting to know all about you and what makes you tick – and it’s your first chance to get a feel for our culture. Chatting with a member of our talent team, you’ll learn more about On and how we work. We’ll learn about what motivates you and what you could bring to the team.

• Step Three

  Interview with a hiring manager

  Ready to dig into the details? This second interview will be held with your future manager and will focus on the specifics of the job. Together you’ll delve into your unique skills and experiences and how they could be relevant at On. It's also a time to assess how you might feel working side-by-side. Bring any questions you have about the job, the team or anything else you might like to know – this is an open forum.

• Step Four

  The Case Study

  What's your style? This task will help us understand how you think, face a challenge and give insight into your novel ideas. Designed to give everyone their best shot, your case study is based on something you might typically experience on the job. This is your chance to show us what you’ve got. So express yourself. Be you.

• Step Five

  The Experience Day

  Your first taste of the Oniverse. This is a time to meet some of the people you'll be working closest with. In person or virtually, you'll get a feel for the day-to-day at On and the people who make it happen. You'll chat with a few potential teammates - the conversations will be as equally driven by the role and your experience as by our values. We believe how you do things is just as important as what you do.

• Step Six

  The Result

  Are we a good fit? We’ll get together internally to share our feedback and decide if we’re a match. We know that job searching is a big time investment, so it’s not a decision we take lightly. It’s also time for you to reflect on the experience – are we the right place for you? No matter the outcome, we’ll give you meaningful feedback.

Step One:

It starts with you...

You'll start by submitting your application to a specific role.

We try to keep this step as simple as possible. We do get a lot of applications, but we review them all. If you're a good fit to the role, a recruiter will follow up with you directly. If you didn't receive a reply, or were unsuccessful this time around, we encourage you to look for other possible matches at On.