Area Manager, Malaysia

Brand: The North Face

Location: Malaysia
Function: Retail / Direct-to-Consumer
Employment Type: Full-time
Reporting Line: Senior Business Manager, HK • TNF

Role Purpose

The Area Manager, Malaysia is responsible for leading The North Face Direct-to-Consumer retail business in Malaysia, with accountability for commercial performance, operational excellence, consumer experience, and team effectiveness across the store portfolio.

This role acts as a key retail business leader, translating brand strategy into consistent market execution while identifying growth opportunities, improving store productivity, and building a high-performing retail organization. The Area Manager is expected to drive sustainable revenue growth, protect profitability, and reinforce The North Face brand standards through strong leadership, commercial judgment, and disciplined execution. The role requires approximately 60% of working time to be spent in retail stores, including store visits, frontline coaching, service and visual merchandising reviews, consumer observation, operational compliance checks, sales and inventory opportunity reviews, and follow-up on key commercial initiatives with store teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Retail Business Leadership: Lead the Malaysia DTC store network with accountability for sales growth, profitability, store productivity, consumer experience, and operational performance.
• Commercial Strategy and Performance Governance: Translate business objectives into actionable store plans, using KPIs, forecasts, markdowns, discounts, gross margin, retail comp, and marketing effectiveness insights to support disciplined business decisions and improve market results.
• Operational Excellence and Brand Standards: Ensure consistent execution of store operations, service standards, visual merchandising, compliance requirements, and brand experience across all retail locations.
• Assortment, Inventory, and Product Feedback: Partner with Retail Buying to provide field-based input on assortment and inventory actions, based on sales performance, consumer demand, market trends, and stock productivity. Provide structured product feedback from store teams and consumers, and participate in quarterly showroom and product review meetings to support seasonal buying decisions.
• Talent Leadership and Frontline Management: Build store team capability through hiring, coaching, performance assessment, discipline management, succession planning, and day-to-day frontline management, reinforcing service standards, selling capability, and operational consistency.
• Cross-Functional Alignment and Market Intelligence: Establish effective communication and operating rhythms across store teams, retail operations, and corporate functions, while monitoring competitor activity, retail trends, and consumer behavior to identify opportunities and inform market actions.

Key Success Measures

• Commercial Results: Delivery of sales, retail comp, gross margin, and profitability targets.
• Store Productivity and Consumer Experience: Improvement in conversion, average transaction value, units per transaction, labor productivity, service standards, brand experience, and customer satisfaction.
• Inventory, Assortment, and Product Input: Healthy sell-through, stock productivity, markdown control, effective assortment input, and timely product feedback to support seasonal buying and quarterly showroom reviews.
• People and Capability: Development of store leadership pipeline, succession coverage, frontline capability, consistent performance assessment, and effective day-to-day coaching and discipline management.
• Execution Discipline: Timely and consistent delivery of retail initiatives, visual merchandising standards, operational compliance, and cross-functional action plans.

Qualifications and Experience

• 6–10 years of retail multi-store management experience, preferably within sportswear, outdoor, lifestyle, apparel, or premium retail environments.
• Proven track record in leading multi-store retail performance, store operations, and frontline team development.
• Strong commercial acumen with the ability to interpret retail KPIs, sales trends, inventory performance, and consumer insights.
• Effective people leadership skills, including coaching, performance assessment, discipline management, and succession planning.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to drive action-oriented and solution-focused discussions.
• Comfortable managing multiple priorities under pressure while meeting deadlines and maintaining execution quality.

Competencies and Language Requirements

• Strong retail business leadership with the ability to manage store performance, frontline execution, and cross-functional alignment across multiple stores.
• Commercially driven, analytical, and comfortable using KPIs, sales trends, inventory insights, and consumer feedback to support decision-making.
• Strong people management capability, including daily coaching, performance assessment, discipline management, and team development.
• English: fluent in speaking, writing, and reading.
• Malay: fluent in speaking, writing, and reading.
• Chinese: fluent in speaking; basic to intermediate writing and reading capability.