For a quarter of a century, the Jellycat family have brought joy, wonder and playful fun to people of all ages, in every part of the world. Utterly original and in a class of their own, they are currently among the most loved and collected toys of their kind. How has this gentle tribe endeared themselves to so many? Perhaps it is their whimsical expressions. Or the deliciously soft fabrics. Or the beautiful way in which they sit in your hand. Whatever it is, there is something magical and unmistakeable about each one of them.

The Senior Commercial Retail Manager is accountable for the successful optimisation, stabilisation, and handover of newly launched retail experiences and permanent spaces once they go live.

Operating as the central point of continuity post launch, the role bridges Brand intent and Commercial ambition into operational reality, embedding standards, resolving early stage issues, and ensuring retail teams, partners, and environments are fully set up for longterm success. This role does not hold commercial or sales accountability. Its focus is on experience protection, operational excellence, and hypercare leadership across global markets as we scale world class spaces.

The role combines strategic planning with hands-on execution, underpinned by strong operational acumen and people leadership to ensure the operational excellence and execution of Jellycat’s retail activations and permanent partner spaces across priority markets and experiences is second to none.

This role protects Jellycat’s most visible brand moments at the point they matter most — when customers walk through the door. By owning the transition from launch into live operation, the Senior Commercial Retail Manager ensures our experiences land brilliantly, stabilise quickly, and remain joyful, magical, and unmistakably Jellycat as they scale globally.

You'll be;

Launch to Live Hypercare Leadership:

• Owning the hypercare phase for all newly launched retail experiences, pop‑ups, and permanent partner spaces.

• Acting as the single point of accountability once experiences go live, ensuring stability, readiness, and consistency.

• Leading the structured handover from Brand and Commercial teams into ongoing retail operations.

• Establishing clear hypercare frameworks, timelines, and exit criteria for each launch.

Experience & Brand Protection:

• Ensuring Jellycat’s brand standards, storytelling, and experiential intent are delivered exactly as designed in live environments.

• Identifying and resolve any execution gaps between concept and reality.

• Protecting the customer journey across staffing, VM, flow, maintenance, and experiential detail in collaboration with the stakeholders.

• Acting as brand guardian during the post‑launch phase, ensuring no dilution as environments settle.

Operational Stabilisation & Excellence:

• Rapidly diagnosing and resolving operational issues during early trading periods.

• Working closely with retail partners, store teams, and suppliers to embed ways of working.

• Ensuring operational playbooks, standards, and training are fully understood and adopted.

• Overseeing health & safety, compliance, and operational readiness across live environments.

Cross‑Functional Bridge:

• Serving as the connective tissue between Brand, Commercial, Creative, Production, and Retail partners once spaces are live.

• Translating Brand intent into clear operational guidance for store teams and partners.

• Providing structured feedback loops into Brand and Commercial teams based on real‑world performance and observations.

People Leadership & Market Support:

• Providing direct leadership to retail resources across France and Germany, ensuring clarity of role and accountability during hypercare.

• Supporting the development of local retail capability to enable a smooth transition out of hypercare.

• Building a scalable support model, including UK based resources, to manage multiple concurrent launches.‑based resources, to manage multiple concurrent launches.

• Acting as a calm, credible senior presence during high pressure launch periods.‑pressure launch periods.

Continuous Improvement & Learning:

• Capturing post‑launch learnings to improve future experiences and activation models.

• Refining hypercare processes, tools, and standards to enable repeatable global rollouts.

• Sharing insights and recommendations to strengthen future design, build, and launch phases.

You'll have;

• Senior experience in retail & retail operations, experiential retail, or flagship store environments.

• Proven track record supporting complex retail launches through live trading and stabilisation.

• Experience working with premium, luxury, or design led brands.‑led brands.

• Strong understanding of how retail environments operate once customers enter the space.

• Gravitas and credibility to operate confidently in high profile, live retail environments.‑profile, live retail environments.

• Calm, solutions focused leadership style under pressure.‑focused leadership style under pressure.

• Strong people leadership across multiple markets.

• Exceptionally organised with obsessive attention to detail.

• Excellent project and issue resolution capability.‑resolution capability.

• Strong understanding of retail standards, VM execution, staffing models, and customer flow.

• Confident communicator able to translate creative intent into operational reality.

• High proficiency in Microsoft Office and operational planning tools.