Senior Manager, Buying and Wholesale (12-month FTC)

Since its launch in 1993 with a collection of six essential handbags, Kate Spade New York has always been colorful, bold, and optimistic. Today, it is a global lifestyle brand that designs extraordinary things for the everyday, delivering seasonal collections of handbags, ready-to-wear, jewelry, footwear, home décor, and more. Known for its rich heritage and unique brand DNA, Kate Spade New York offers a distinctive point of view and celebrates communities of women around the globe who live their perfectly imperfect lifestyles. 

Kate Spade New York is part of the Tapestry portfolio – a global house of brands committed to stretching what’s possible.

A member of the Tapestry family, we are part of a global house of brands that has unwavering optimism and is committed to being innovative and wholly inclusive. Visit Our People page to learn more about Tapestry's commitment to equity, inclusion, and diversity.

Primary Purpose: The Senior Manager, Buying and Wholesale will lead the strategic and operational execution of product investment for Kate Spade New York across Europe for all categories. As a key driver of brand, product, and planning strategies, this role is responsible for driving in-season performance against financial targets across Retail and eCommerce, while executing assortment selection for Wholesale and Marketplace channels. 

The successful individual will leverage their proficiency in Buying & Planning to:

• Own the strategic and operational execution of product investment across Retail and Wholesale channels, driving in-season performance against sales, margin, and inventory targets across the region

• Lead the development and delivery of omni-channel buying and assortment strategies, ensuring alignment across Retail, Wholesale, and Marketplace channels to maximise consumer engagement and commercial performance

• Oversee all European wholesale accounts, building strong, long-term partnerships and leading commercial negotiations, account planning, and tailored assortment strategies based on regional and account-specific performance insights

• Define and execute seasonal and long-term commercial strategies (AOP, LRP, OTB), ensuring alignment with financial targets and evolving market trends, while identifying opportunities for growth and risk mitigation

• Lead end-to-end seasonal processes, including buy reviews, hindsight analysis, market execution, and milestone calendar management, ensuring strong cross-functional alignment and delivery excellence

• Drive weekly and seasonal trade cadence (e.g. WSRM, trade meetings), providing clear financial insights, performance analysis, and actionable recommendations to senior leadership

• Analyse product performance, customer insights, competitor activity, and market trends to inform trading decisions, shape future buys, and influence Global Merchandising strategies

• Partner closely with Inventory Planning and Finance to manage inventory health (WOH, turns), OTB, forecasting, provisioning, and returns, ensuring optimal stock positioning across channels

• Lead allocation and distribution strategy across Retail and Wholesale, aligning with floor sets, peak trading periods, and account requirements

• Oversee wholesale market execution, including assortment presentation, order collection, door strategy, and delivery tracking, ensuring best-in-class go-to-market execution

• Drive trading activities across both channels, including promotional planning, ATS swaps, and in-season optimisation to maximise sell-through and profitability

• Build and maintain strong cross-functional relationships with key stakeholders including Sales, Operations, Demand Planning, Finance, VM, Production, and Customer Experience teams

• Conduct regular market and store visits to identify opportunities, strengthen account relationships, and monitor competitive landscape and execution standards

• Champion best practices, operational excellence, and ways of working across the team, ensuring accuracy in systems (e.g. RPAS/Cora) and continuous process improvement

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team, fostering strong leadership capability, commercial acumen, and career growth

• Support innovation and growth initiatives, including Made-to-Forecast strategies, tiering frameworks, and regionally relevant product adaptations to unlock new opportunities

The accomplished individual will possess:

• Significant experience in retail merchandising, buying, or trading, ideally within fashion, lifestyle, or accessories

• Proven track record of delivering sales, margin, and inventory targets

• Strong understanding of omnichannel retail (stores & digital)

• Advanced analytical and financial acumen, with experience using planning tools (e.g. RPAS, Cora, Excel)

• Experience working within global, matrix organisations

• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills across multiple functions

• Demonstrated leadership experience with the ability to develop and inspire teams

• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with experience presenting to senior leadership

• Commercially driven, results-focused and strategic thinking with strong problem-solving ability

• Highly organised with strong attention to detail

• Proactive and adaptable in a fast-paced environment

• Collaborative with strong influencing skills

What Tapestry can offer you:

• Hybrid working (Tuesday - Thursday working from the office, Monday and Friday working remotely)

• Option to finish early on a Friday (Flex Fridays)

• 1 paid volunteering day per year and opportunities to volunteer with global projects

• Learning & development opportunities

• Internal mobility & career progression

• Regular social events - seasonal & cultural

• Equity Inclusion & Diversity initiatives which include employee resource groups & regional inclusion council

 
Other benefits include:

• 25 days holiday in addition to bank holidays

• Multi brand discount up to 50% off – Coach and Kate Spade.

• Private healthcare with health assessment (Bupa)

• Bupa rewards - Financial wellbeing support and wellness discounts

• Private dental cover

• Free 24/7 support for family building, fertility and menopause with Maven

• Eyecare vouchers

• Employee assistance programme

• Enhanced employer pension contribution

• Gym discount

• Interest free season ticket loan

• Cycle to work scheme

At Tapestry, we are committed to building a diverse & inclusive workforce. We know that having a wide range of perspectives and experiences makes us more innovative and brings us closer to our consumers. If you are interested in this role but do not believe you meet all the set criteria, that’s ok. We are happy to work with individuals who have the drive, passion, agility and willingness to learn. So, take a chance and apply; you may just be who we are looking for. We would be delighted to hear from you.  
Our Competencies for All Employees
Courage: Doesn’t hold back anything that needs to be said; provides current, direct, complete, and “actionable” positive and corrective feedback to others; lets people know where they stand; faces up to people problems on any person or situation (not including direct reports) quickly and directly; is not afraid to take negative action when necessary.
Creativity: Comes up with a lot of new and unique ideas; easily makes connections among previously unrelated notions; tends to be seen as original and value-added in brainstorming settings.
Customer Focus: Is dedicated to meeting the expectations and requirements of internal and external customers; gets first-hand customer information and uses it for improvements in products and services; acts with customers in mind; establishes and maintains effective relationships with customers and gains their trust and respect.
Dealing with Ambiguity: Can effectively cope with change; can shift gears comfortably; can decide and act without having the total picture; isn’t upset when things are up in the air; doesn’t have to finish things before moving on; can comfortably handle risk and uncertainty.
Drive for Results: Can be counted on to exceed goals successfully; is constantly and consistently one of the top performers; very bottom-line oriented; steadfastly pushes self and others for results.
Interpersonal Savvy: Relates well to all kinds of people, up, down, and sideways, inside and outside the organization; builds appropriate rapport; builds constructive and effective relationships; uses diplomacy and tact; can diffuse even high-tension situations comfortably.
Learning on the Fly: Learns quickly when facing new problems; a relentless and versatile learner; open to change; analyzes both successes and failures for clues to improvement; experiments and will try anything to find solutions; enjoys the challenge of unfamiliar tasks; quickly grasps the essence and the underlying structure of anything.
 
Our Competencies for All People Managers
Strategic Agility: Sees ahead clearly; can anticipate future consequences and trends accurately; has broad knowledge and perspective; is future oriented; can articulately paint credible pictures and visions of possibilities and likelihoods; can create competitive and breakthrough strategies and plans.
Developing Direct Reports and Others: Provides challenging and stretching tasks and assignments; holds frequent development discussions; is aware of each person's career goals; constructs compelling development plans and executes them; pushes people to accept developmental moves; will take on those who need help and further development; cooperates with the developmental system in the organization; is a people builder.
Building Effective Teams: Blends people into teams when needed; creates strong morale and spirit in their team; shares wins and successes; fosters open dialogue; lets people finish and be responsible for their work; defines success in terms of the whole team; creates a feeling of belonging in the team.    

Tapestry is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer and we pride ourselves on hiring and developing the best people. All employment decisions (including recruitment, hiring, promotion, compensation, transfer, training, discipline and termination) are based on the applicant’s or employee’s qualifications as they relate to the requirements of the position under consideration. These decisions are made without regard to age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic characteristics, race, color, creed, religion, ethnicity, national origin, alienage, citizenship, disability, marital status, military status, pregnancy, or any other legally-recognized protected basis prohibited by applicable law.
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