Retail Operations Manager

Agora Talent; Slough; On-site; GBP 55,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

Agora Talent partners with a premium global consumer brand to hire a Commercial Operations Lead. This role sits at the heart of the growth, bridging Operations and Commercial as the function scales rapidly.

You’ll build the operational engine from the ground up—working with the Commercial team to ensure demand can be supplied compliantly, cost‑effectively and at pace. The role combines hands‑on process design with strategic leadership.

Qualifications

• 2–5 years' experience in operations with commercial exposure.
• Experience building processes from scratch in fast-growth environments.
• Strong analytical skills and data-driven decision making.

Responsibilities

• Own commercial demand forecasting in collaboration with the Commercial team.
• Flag supply risk early and resolve it before it hits B2B relationships.
• Build scalable processes across commercial operations using the ERP to drive OTIF fulfilment.
• Develop and maintain operational data and reporting for senior leadership.
• Create SOPs to scale execution with growing volume and partner base.
• Drive margin improvement through warehousing, fulfilment, freight and logistics optimisation.
• Own the operational aspects of the commercial P&L with Finance.

Skills

Operational grounding

Commercial instinct

Data & reporting

Unit economics

Leadership

Tools

ERP

Job description

Retail Operations Lead | Retail & Wholesale

? London | Office-based

? £55k-£70k

Agora Talent is partnering with a fast-growing, premium global consumer brand to hire a Commercial Operations Lead to sit right at the heart of their next phase of growth.

This is a genuinely unique role that bridges Operations and Commercial. Our client's Commercial function- spanning marketplaces, retailers, wholesalers and distributors - is scaling quickly, and this role exists to build and own the operational engine that makes that growth possible.

This isn't a traditional retail ops role where you inherit and run existing processes.

You'll be building the processes, workflows and operational capability from the ground up -working hand-in-glove with the Commercial team to make sure the demand they're generating can actually be supplied, compliantly, cost-effectively and at pace.

The toolkit needs to be operations. The mindset needs to be commercial.

What you'll be doing

Reporting to the Operations Lead, with a dotted line into the Commercial Director, you'll:

• Own commercial demand forecasting in collaboration with the Commercial team, feeding it into supply chain planning
• Flag supply risk early and resolve it before it hits B2B relationships
• Build scalable processes across commercial operations, using the ERP to drive OTIF fulfilment
• Build and maintain strong operational data and reporting, and be able to discuss it commercially with senior leadership
• Create and refine SOPs so execution quality holds as volume and partner count grow
• Bake retail and wholesale compliance (routing guides, labelling, EDI, chargebacks) into process rather than firefighting it
• Drive margin improvement through warehousing, fulfilment, freight and logistics optimisation
• Own the operational aspects of the commercial P&L, working closely with Finance
• Build a deep understanding of unit economics across retail and wholesale partners to inform pricing and terms
• Own commercial operations end to end — keeping Commercial and Operations aligned and moving
• Transition quickly into a leadership role as the function, and your team, grows

What we're looking for

We're looking for someone with 2–5 years' experience who combines strong operational grounding with real commercial instinct. You might currently be working within:

• Retail / Wholesale Operations
• Supply Chain / Logistics
• Commercial Operations
• A fast-growing startup or scale-up

You'll be:

• Someone with direct experience of physical product in a retail, B2B or wholesale environment
• Commercially aware — able to think beyond the task at hand to cost and service trade-offs
• Comfortable building from scratch, without a playbook, in a fast-paced environment
• Strong analytically, confident with data, reporting and unit economics
• Highly organised with excellent attention to detail
• Ownership-driven, resilient and execution-focused
• Ambitious, and genuinely motivated by fast progression into a leadership role

This role will suit someone who wants to own a vertical outright -working directly with senior leadership across Operations, Commercial and Finance from day one.

You'll have significantly more ownership, exposure and progression than an equivalent role in a traditional corporate environment.