Head of Retail Merchandising, Global

Location: Zurich

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Retail (office team)

In short

The Global Head of Retail Merchandising is a pivotal leader responsible for shaping and driving the global retail assortment vision, retail growth strategy, and commercial performance across all regions. This role ensures that retail product strategy is tightly aligned to brand ambition, consumer needs, and commercial targets—while building robust processes, talent capability, and cross-functional ways of working that scale with the business.

You will define the Retail Buy Planning framework (OTB, guidelines) and guide execution of the assortment strategy, providing coherence and signing off on plans. You will lead the Retail Go-to-Market (GTM) process and optimize in-season performance to maximize revenue and inventory efficiency. As a key strategic voice, you will champion the needs of DTC retail across marketing activation, VM, and operations to deliver a premium customer experience.

Your Mission

Store Segmentation: Develop clustering and tiering strategies to ensure the right product mix, depth and capacity for every store format and market
Product Advocacy: Champion specific DTC channel needs, while leading the multi-season consumer feedback process to strategically influence future assortment evolution and long-term brand vision.
Retail GTM Orchestration: Lead the entire Retail Go-to-Market (GTM) process, driving regional alignment across Merchandising, Marketing, VM, Training, and Operations to synchronize execution.
Process Optimization: Lead the creation of new tools/processes to ensure key milestones (Buying Recaps, Seasonal Kick-offs, Collection Reviews) are effective.
Allocation and Distribution: Secure optimize Allocation and distribution strategy for business achievements and optimized in store inventory
Strategic Advocacy & Cross-Functional Influence: Act as the strategic Voice of Retail for merchandising needs, influencing senior stakeholders (Product, Finance, Supply Chain) and regional leadership to ensure retail requirements (store design, VM, training) are prioritized.
Team Leadership & Capability Building: Mentor, grow, and develop the global retail merchandising function, establishing world-class tools, standards, and talent pipelines.

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Your story

Experience: 10+ years in global Retail Merchandising or Buying, with significant exposure to Go-to-Market (GTM) processes in a vertical retailer.
Retail Obsessed: Deep understanding of retail operations, store experience, and product’s role in the retail ecosystem. Demonstrated Successful scaling or transforming a global retail store fleet.
Strategic Leadership & Orchestration: Proven ability to translate brand vision, consumer insights, and market data into a clear merchandise strategy, while possessing the influence to lead without authority and align siloed functions (Marketing, Ops, Product) behind that unified retail vision.
Commercial Operator: Strong command of financial levers (OTB, margin, stock productivity) and highly analytical decision-making.
Influential Leader: Exceptional cross-functional collaboration and senior-level influencing skills.
Builder Mindset: Passion for systems, process creation, team development, and organizational improvement.

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About the Team

The Retail Merchandising team is supporting On, as one of the most exciting and fastest-growing global Premium sportswear brands, with our DTC retail stores operations and expansion. You will lead our Retail Merch team and work closely with key stakeholder teams including Commercial teams, Retail operations and Visual Merchandising.

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Maria

Retail Merchandising and Sales Planning Senior Lead

We think outside the box when we're hiring. Don't think about what you were doing before. Think about what we can improve every day. We're incentivized to make mistakes, to fix them, to be open about it and help each other.

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What we offer

On is a place that is centered around growth and progress. We offer an environment designed to give people the tools to develop holistically – to stay active, to learn, explore and innovate. Our distinctive approach combines a supportive, team-oriented atmosphere, with access to personal self-care for both physical and mental well-being, so each person is led by purpose.

On is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to creating a work environment that is fair and inclusive, where all decisions related to recruitment, advancement, and retention are free of discrimination.

Build the better you

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.