Head of Customer Growth & Retention

Manière De Voir; New York (NY); On-site; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Manière De Voir is seeking a senior Head of Customer Growth & Retention in New York to drive lifecycle marketing, loyalty and app engagement across email, SMS, push and in-app channels.

You will own strategy, experimentation and execution to increase customer lifetime value, repeat purchase and profitability while partnering with Marketing, Creative and Product. This is a greenfield leadership role with a strong focus on building a high-performing team.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute a comprehensive customer-lifecycle strategy across all owned channels to increase retention, repeat purchase frequency and customer lifetime value, reducing time between purchases through personalised journeys, segmentation, automation and personalisation.
• Develop reactivation and winback strategies for lapsing and dormant customers, with differentiated strategies for new, active, high-value and at-risk cohorts, increasing owned-channel revenue and contribution and improving onboarding and the first-to-second purchase transition.
• Own the customer-growth experimentation and conversion roadmap across the website and app, optimising landing pages, PLPs, PDPs, basket and checkout, and building a structured testing programme with clear hypotheses, prioritisation and measurement.
• Improve conversion rate, revenue per session and digital commercial effectiveness, partnering with E-commerce, Product, Technology, Creative and Trading to implement improvements while balancing short-term revenue with customer experience and brand standards.
• Define and execute MDV's global loyalty and VIP strategy, designing commercially effective programme structures, qualification criteria, benefits and experiences that encourage profitable, incremental behaviour, and evolving the proposition using customer insight and data.
• Develop distinctive recognition and engagement strategies for MDV's highest-value customers to increase participation, retention and member contribution, partnering with the VP of Creative to ensure experiences reflect MDV's standards.
• Increase app adoption, engagement, retention and repeat purchase behaviour and grow the proportion of customer revenue generated through the app, developing effective push-notification and in-app messaging strategies and app-specific loyalty benefits, partnering with Product and Technology to continuously improve the app experience.
• Own the strategy for product-review collection, coverage, visibility and moderation, increasing the quality and volume of authentic reviews and integrating reviews and trust signals throughout the journey, and measuring their effect on confidence, conversion and returns.
• Establish a clear customer-growth measurement framework and reporting cadence, owning detailed analysis of cohorts, retention, repeat purchase, frequency and lifetime value, and translating data into commercial priorities, forecasts and business cases.
• Partner with Finance to measure contribution and validate impact, and with Operations and Customer Experience to reduce preventable returns and protect margin, ensuring initiatives are incremental and profitable and definitions stay consistent across teams.

Job description

Working arrangement: Full-time, office-based five days per week

Manière De Voir - French for "way of seeing" - is a premium, multi-gender fashion brand founded in 2013 by Reece Wabara.

Built on a digital-first model, MDV has grown to more than $65 million in annual revenue while remaining profitable every year since inception and taking no external funding. The brand is recognised for its minimalist, design-led fashion, positioned between luxury and the high street.

MDV operates four global stores across three continents: 354 Oxford Street and Battersea Power Station in London, 521 Broadway in New York's SoHo, and Fashion Avenue at The Dubai Mall. The business is supported by its US office at 599 Broadway in SoHo, established UK and US e-commerce operations, and retail, marketplace and wholesale relationships with Nordstrom, Farfetch and Ounass, alongside an upcoming partnership with Bloomingdale's.

MDV has reached an important stage in its development, with product, digital-commerce engine, international retail footprint and partner network established and further expansion planned. The opportunity now is to build a best-in-class customer growth function capable of turning MDV's growing global customer base into a loyal, high-value community.

The Opportunity

We are looking for a commercially driven Head of Customer Growth & Retention to build and lead MDV's customer growth function from New York.

Reporting to the VP of Marketing and working closely with the Founder and CEO, this person will own the strategy and commercial performance of lifecycle marketing, customer retention, loyalty, conversion optimisation and app engagement, with a mandate to increase customer lifetime value, repeat purchase and owned-channel contribution while improving the customer experience across MDV's website, app and lifecycle channels.

This is a senior functional leadership position with meaningful ownership and a greenfield team-building mandate. You will define the strategy, and design and recruit the team and capabilities required to deliver it, rather than inheriting a fixed structure.

Scope and Ownership

The Head of Customer Growth & Retention will own:

• Lifecycle strategy across email, SMS, push notifications and in-app messaging; retention, repeat purchase, reactivation and winback; customer segmentation, automation and personalisation.
• Website and app conversion-rate optimisation; loyalty and VIP programme strategy, economics and performance; app adoption, engagement, retention and commercial contribution.
• Product-review collection, moderation and merchandising; customer cohort, retention and lifetime-value analysis; CRM, customer-data and retention-technology roadmap.
• Development and leadership of the Customer Growth team, including its design and recruitment from the ground up.

The role will partner with - but will not own - Performance Marketing and paid customer acquisition.

Key Responsibilities

Customer Lifecycle and Retention

• Develop and execute a comprehensive customer-lifecycle strategy across all owned channels to increase retention, repeat purchase frequency and customer lifetime value, reducing time between purchases through personalised journeys, segmentation, automation and personalisation.
• Develop reactivation and winback strategies for lapsing and dormant customers, with differentiated strategies for new, active, high-value and at-risk cohorts, increasing owned-channel revenue and contribution and improving onboarding and the first-to-second purchase transition.
• Own the customer-growth experimentation and conversion roadmap across the website and app, optimising landing pages, PLPs, PDPs, basket and checkout, and building a structured testing programme with clear hypotheses, prioritisation and measurement.
• Improve conversion rate, revenue per session and digital commercial effectiveness, partnering with E-commerce, Product, Technology, Creative and Trading to implement improvements while balancing short-term revenue with customer experience and brand standards.

Loyalty and Customer Value

• Define and execute MDV's global loyalty and VIP strategy, designing commercially effective programme structures, qualification criteria, benefits and experiences that encourage profitable, incremental behaviour, and evolving the proposition using customer insight and data.
• Develop distinctive recognition and engagement strategies for MDV's highest-value customers to increase participation, retention and member contribution, partnering with the VP of Creative to ensure experiences reflect MDV's standards.

App Growth and Engagement

• Increase app adoption, engagement, retention and repeat purchase behaviour and grow the proportion of customer revenue generated through the app, developing effective push-notification and in-app messaging strategies and app-specific loyalty benefits, partnering with Product and Technology to continuously improve the app experience.

Reviews and Customer Trust

• Own the strategy for product-review collection, coverage, visibility and moderation, increasing the quality and volume of authentic reviews and integrating reviews and trust signals throughout the journey, and measuring their effect on confidence, conversion and returns.

Customer Analytics and Commercial Performance

• Establish a clear customer-growth measurement framework and reporting cadence, owning detailed analysis of cohorts, retention, repeat purchase, frequency and lifetime value, and translating data into commercial priorities, forecasts and business cases.
• Partner with Finance to measure contribution and validate impact, and with Operations and Customer Experience to reduce preventable returns and protect margin, ensuring initiatives are incremental and profitable and definitions stay consistent across teams.

Partnership with Marketing and Creative

• Partner with the VP of Marketing to connect acquisition, conversion, retention and lifetime value, providing customer-quality and LTV insight, and with Performance Marketing on audiences, landing-page conversion and onboarding, evaluating campaigns against downstream behaviour rather than first-order revenue.
• Develop clear customer and lifecycle briefs for the VP of Creative and Creative team, respecting Creative's ownership of direction and execution, and sharing customer insight to improve marketing and creative effectiveness.

Leadership and Cross-Functional Partnership

• Build and lead a high-performing Customer Growth and Retention function, setting clear objectives, operating rhythms and standards of execution, and developing the capabilities, technology and partnerships required to support the strategy.
• Act as the senior voice of the existing customer within the marketing organisation, working closely with leaders across Marketing, Creative, E-commerce, Product, Technology, Trading, Retail, Finance, Operations and Customer Experience to build a culture of customer obsession, accountability and continuous experimentation.

First 12-Month Mandate

During the first 12 months, the Head of Customer Growth & Retention will be expected to:

• Build the Customer Growth function, team, operating cadence and measurement foundations across lifecycle, retention, loyalty, CRO and app engagement, materially improving first-to-second purchase conversion, 90/180-day cohort repeat purchase, existing-customer contribution and contribution-based lifetime value.
• Establish an incrementality-led owned-channel programme and a commercially prioritised roadmap for lifecycle, loyalty, CRO and app growth, supported by credible holdout testing.

Principal Measures of Success

Success in this role will primarily be measured through:

• Cohort repeat purchase rate at 90, 180 and 365 days.
• First-to-second purchase conversion.
• Time from first to second purchase and overall purchase frequency.
• Contribution-based customer lifetime value.
• Incremental contribution generated through owned channels.

What We're Looking For

• Eight or more years across customer growth, lifecycle marketing, CRM, retention or digital commerce, including at least three years building and leading high-performing teams.
• Proven success within a high-growth premium fashion brand (required), with a track record of increasing lifetime value, repeat purchase and profitable revenue, and deep expertise in lifecycle strategy, segmentation, automation and personalisation.
• Experience launching or materially improving loyalty and VIP programmes, with strong knowledge of conversion optimisation, customer journeys and experimentation across web and app.
• Experience using customer data, analytics and technology to inform commercial decisions, scaling a premium/luxury US brand from a relatively small base, and working across creative, technical, operational and commercial teams.

Leadership Profile

• Commercially rigorous, analytical and highly accountable, able to move confidently between strategy, data and execution.
• Customer-obsessed, with a strong understanding of premium brand positioning, comfortable building a function and operating with significant autonomy.
• An effective communicator capable of influencing senior stakeholders; entrepreneurial, resourceful and energised by a high-growth environment.

Compensation and Benefits

Base salary: $200,000-$250,000, depending on experience.

Annual bonus: Performance-related opportunity of 20%-30% of base salary, tied to agreed customer-growth, retention, profitability and company-performance objectives.

Employment visa sponsorship is available for candidates who meet the role requirements.