Francesca Jones

Art Basel is a renowned international luxury art fair that takes place in Basel, Paris, Miami, and Hong Kong, attracting over 20,000 high-net-worth art dealers and enthusiasts at each event. In my role, I supported and developed the retail strategy for their new concept stores, working closely with the Creative Director and Head of Retail.

The challenge was managing short selling windows of just 4-5 days, spread across various international markets, making the buying strategy even more crucial. The customers are difficult to convert - with international high-net-worth and local visitors, requiring a focus on relevance and freshness in the product offering to drive sales.

• Developed and implemented buying strategies, including sales forecasting, KPI setting and inventory planning tailored to market trends and customer data - all in line with the brand vision and the Creative Director's vision.
• Applied best practice buying and merchandising operations, prioritising branded and gallery products to reduce business risk.
• Worked on new product development under the Art Basel brands.
• Exceeded gross margin and sales targets, contributing to the success and growth of the new retail initiative (at the Paris fair).
• Built strong relationships with suppliers, artists, and internal teams, driving success through collaboration.
• Supported the PR and Commuincations teams on getting press products for social media and model shoots.
• Worked with international galleries to sell Art Basel-branded products, testing new revenue streams for the fair.
• Worked with arhitects on shop fit and visual merchandising layouts. Looking at customer hot spots and heat maps.
• Partnered with department stores and retailers, such as Dover Street Market and High Snobiety to execute pop-up events during the fairs.

Working directly with the company MD on building a sales plan and stratgey for growth. Supported in driving digital business success directly and via their key accounts. Worked closely with management team to develop B2B and B2C strategy and brand development strategies for own label (Created Brilliance, Gorgeous Gold). My key focus with BJB was to grow and elevate Created Brilliance, I managed and supported the rebrand - this covered NPD, creating new brand creative and the launching of a new website:

• Buying & Merchandising: Working on a go to market strategy for B2B Key accounts and B2C via online channels. Expertise in selecting, purchasing, and managing new product development, undertaking competitor analysis, briefing external designers and ensuring alignment of product ranges for both wholesale accounts and direct online sales.
• Sales Optimisation: developed and implemented strategies that maximised sales for both direct and wholesale channels, through strengthening product ranges, tailoring promotions and forecasting stock more accurately - tapping into key retail seasonal campaigns and better profiling the customer.
• Marketing Campaign Management: Working closely with marketing agencies on digital marketing campaigns aimed at targeting different customer demographics both for direct sales and for wholesale customers, ensuring the best ROI for the business on PR and marketing spend.
• Managed retail operations and inventory management. Maintained data in CMS for B2C and B2B for marketplace retailers such as Shop Direct, Zalando and the Otto Group.
• Trade Shows & Popups: Space planning and organising B2B and B2C events, working closely with external suppliers and internal teams to plan on-budget events.
• Data Analysis & Insights: constantly analysing sales, traffic, and customer data to glean insights for strategic decision-making.
• Internal stakeholder management: Working effectively with cross-functional teams in the organisation and external agencies. As the team is lean, it meant clear communication channels were essential.
• New business development: Identifying new market opportunities in existing accounts and pitching face to face to customers and new segments such as Duty Free.

Kat Maconie is a London-based footwear and accessories brand founded in 2009, known for its bold, artistic designs and architectural heels. In 2023, the brand was acquired by Timeless Group through its investment division, Luxutte Capital.

I identified market gaps and potential commercial opportunities, focusing on B2B wholesale accounts. My recommendations led to the brand's expansion into jewellery, where I worked alongside the design and buying teams to create a go-to-market strategy. I further set out a Critical Path and helped on sourcing far east factories.

• Spearheaded strategic growth initiatives, managing accounts worth EURO 8M, resulting in +20% growth across the UK, Scandinavia and Benelux regions.
• Worked closely with Head of Sales & Marketing on putting together a brand strategy to elevate the brand and limit market usage to protect long term integrity.
• Drove new product development for a wide range of product categories, Apparel, Accessories, footwear, Jewellery, Handbag and Accessories and Eyewear. This was done through undertaking market / customer competitor analysis and making suggestions based on reasearch. This included oversight of budgets, branding integrity, managing timelines, briefing design teams and management reporting.
• Partnered with renowned high-fashion brands such as Burberry, Alexander McQueen, Sophia Webster, Anya Hindmarch and Gina. Working closely with product development and marketing teams to develop runnway and mainline collections featuring Swarovski crystal.
• Lead Global Account Management, working closely with counterparts internationally in China, Paris, Switzerland and Germany - regularly visiting factories and often working together to pitch in and develop projects to both old and new clients.
• Working closely with two internal designers to deliver on budget commercial client projects.
• Maintained client records in Swarovski CRM systems, ensuring streamlined data processes for maximum efficiency and business information sharing.
• Project Managing new product launch campaigns for the UK market, working cloesley with head office in Wattens (Austria) to meet the market needs.

• UK High Street & Global Travel, Cultivated strong relationships with 8 major retail accounts, resulting in a +15% sales growth within the first year driven through better product development strategies and planned seasonal promotions.
• Successfully launched new retail shop-fits in duty-free zones and planned seasonal marketing campaigns tailored to specific customers.
• Managed international sales agents and ditributions network teams, focusing on growing regions like the Middle East and United States.
• Worked on new product development and marketing strategies with design teams to to tap into different commercial opportunities, an example of this was creating a christmas "hero product" bauble that had a freindship bracelet within. This campaign seasonal promotion develivered £100K additional revenue to the business over 6 weeks.
• Managed a team of two Account executives and five international sales agents.
• Led brainstorming sessions to generate creative ideas and solutions for new marketing initiatives and design teams. These decisions were always customer and data driven.

• Managed £15 million turnover for 35 sports and outdoor luxury brands. The role was highly analytical and weighted heavily to more a merchandising role.
• Brands included Nike, Adidas, Barbour, Dubarry, Hunter, and Holland & Cooper. I worked on Harrods exclusive ranges and launch events.
• Provided weekly sales and sell through reports and presentations to Buying and Merchandising Directors. Highly competent in the in-season trading to ensure that the category remains profitable and stock turn was high - building excellent relationships and channels of communication with vendors was key.
• Participated in international buying appointments and events to select new products.
• Collaborated with Marketing, Visual Merchandising, PR and CRM teams on new launch campaigns and sales events.
• Managing Capex and shop floor space planning in line with store sales targets and brand positioning.
• Negotiating favourable trading terms with suppliers.
• Planning OTB spend and seasonal forecasts and promotional activity.
• Worked closely with CRM and eCommerce teams to optimise sales to key customer segments and to manage stock sell-through.
• Full control of Buying & Merchandising forecasts and planning.

12 Month Maternity Cover

• Managed an annual turnover of approx £5 million across multiple product categories including childrenswear, toys, clothing, homeware, core gifting, Christmas and books.
• As maternity cover I was given the opportunity to implement my own 12 month buying and merchandising strategy to refresh the retail offer. Managing the P&L and setting forecasts inline with available visitor information.
• Undertaking purchasing and project management of "Christmas at Kew", "Bicester Village popup" to drive secondary sales.
• Revitalising product categories through increasing the own label category mix from 30 to 50% to generate higher margins and create a more branded and cohesive look to the collections.
• Working closely with licensees on new product development and developing ethical products that met the high sustainability standards.
• Working closely with Head of Retail, Ecommerce team and Sales Manger.
• Implemented best practice merchandising - such as building sales tools to manage inventory and to trade the business commercially.
• Managing and mentoring a team of two Buyers.

Cocosa over the time I was there changed their strategy from being a full price retailer to a discount retailer. Due to this reason I chose to stay for 1 year.

• Launched new branded homeware categories, accounting for 30% of annual turnover (£200K).
• Successfully collaborated with design-centric brands like Timorous Beasties for exclusivity.
• Managed supplier relationships, ensuring product selection and timely delivery to meet market demand.

• Supporting Buyer on Handbags, Handbag Accessories, Shopping Bags, Jewellery, Toiletries, Homewares and Toys - achieving circa £20 million in annual turnover (Retail Sales). The role was specifically private label.
• Successfully launched a best-selling design and multi-category range, generating £175k in sales within the first season of launch.
• Efficiently managed critical paths and range plans with 90% of products sourced from international suppliers.
• Monitored daily and weekly sales performance to optimise product placement and to drive in-season sales.
• Worked closely with internal teams, such as, merchandising, international wholesale airport retail teams, marketing and eccom
• Nurtured relationships with key suppliers, fostering satisfaction and loyalty.