Senior Sales Director (GM), Fashion and Family Footwear

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About the position

This position serves as the commercial and cross-functional leader for the New Balance Fashion & Family Footwear channels in the United States. The Senior Director is responsible for managing all aspects of wholesale sales across the Fashion Lifestyle and Family Footwear (Shoe Chains) channels, including retailer partnerships, Go-To-Market leadership, consumer-right product assortments, forecasting, and coordination of account marketing strategies. This role oversees two direct reports and works closely with merchandising, marketing, planning, and operations to deliver sales, profitability, and retailer partnership objectives.

Responsibilities

  • Proactively lead the development and implementation of a multi-year strategic plan with mutual performance objectives, financial targets, and critical milestones.
  • Design and execute the overall sales strategy aligned to New Balance’s strategic priorities, growth targets, consumer needs, and shape of the marketplace for the channels.
  • Ensure channel strategies reflect fashion-led trends and female-focused distribution opportunities, and identify white-space opportunities to drive deeper consumer connections.
  • Oversee the execution and implementation of the Go-to-Market calendar and process.
  • Coach, motivate, and develop the Sales team, as well as extended commercial cross-functional teams in merchandising, marketing, planning, and operations to ensure alignment and timely execution of strategic plans.
  • Foster a high-performance culture focused on accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
  • Support succession planning and talent development across the channel.
  • Establish productive and professional relationships with senior-level contacts at key Fashion and Family Footwear retailers, such as Nordstrom, Journeys, Famous Footwear, Rack Room, DSW, Shoe Station, and Kohl’s.
  • Lead high-stakes negotiations around pricing, terms, marketing investments, and joint business planning.
  • Monitor channel performance across KPIs (revenue, margin, inventory, sell-through).
  • Lead forecasting, budgeting, and reporting processes in partnership with planning and finance.
  • Oversee actions to manage inventory and profitability levels to maintain brand health and achieve margin goals.
  • Assess, clarify, and validate the team and partner needs on an ongoing basis.
  • Serve as a member of the NA Commercial Leadership team, collaborating on strategic topics that aid in the delivery of New Balance’s commercial goals.
  • Collaborate with product merchandising teams to ensure long-term product strategy aligns with target consumer and account strategies.
  • Collaborate with planning and merchandising to develop sell in, sell through, and inventory goals for the channel.
  • Develop reporting metrics to measure ROI and sales performance against goals.
  • Coordinate involvement of cross-functional teams to deliver multi-year plans and seasonal milestones.

Requirements

  • Requires bachelor’s degree or equivalent; MBA a plus
  • 15+ years of related sales, product management, or merchandising experience with a track record of achieving sales objectives.
  • Deep understanding of fashion-led retail, the Family Footwear channel, and female-focused distribution.
  • Ability to embrace managing conflict and quickly providing solutions for escalated issues.
  • Exceptional negotiation skills with the ability to influence internal and external stakeholders
  • Strong leadership, organizational, and communication skills
  • Experience leading large teams and managing multiple business units
  • Excellent project management and strategic planning capabilities.
  • Retailer and consumer mindset.
  • Frequent domestic travel, approximately 30% of the time.
  • This role is based at our Boston headquarters.

Nice-to-haves

  • MBA a plus

Benefits

  • New Balance offers a comprehensive traditional benefits package including three options for medical insurance as well as dental, vision, life insurance and 401K.
  • We also proudly offer a slate of more nontraditional perks – opportunities like online learning and development courses, tuition reimbursement, \$100 monthly student loan support and various mentorship programs – that encourage our associates to grow personally as they develop professionally.
  • You’ll also enjoy a yearly \$1,000 lifestyle reimbursement, 4 weeks of vacations, 12 holidays and generous parental leave, because work-life balance is more than just a buzzword – it’s part of our culture.
  • Temporary associates are provided three options for medical insurance as well as dental and vision insurance and an associate discount.
  • Part time associates are provided 401k, short term disability, a yearly \$300 lifestyle reimbursement and an associate discount.
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