Centre Director - Westgate Oxford

We are Landsec. We identify and shape places that create opportunity, enhance quality of life, and bring joy to the people connected to them. This is how we’ve created the UK’s leading portfolio of urban places and one of the largest real estate companies in Europe. Our £10 billion portfolio is built around premium workplaces, the country’s pre-eminent retail platform, and a residential pipeline that will redefine urban life.

The role will be based at Westgate Oxford. There will be the need for occasional travel to other retail sites around the country and London Victoria as and when required.

The world of retail is continually evolving and changing. While the way people shop is changing, our guests still expect great service and an exceptional experience when they visit our centres. The brand partners we work with expect us to provide a brilliant platform for them to deliver excellence and generate revenue. At Landsec, we have ambitions for ourselves too. We want to exceed expectations and be the preferred partner for the businesses we work with. We aim to be a leader in the field of retail and mixed-use schemes. The Centre Director plays a pivotal role in helping us achieve that success.

You will be able to draw on your experience, knowledge and commercial acumen to provide insight and support, whilst creating value by driving sales and income. Your ability to build and nurture exceptional working relationships across a variety of settings goes without saying. You’ll be comfortable operating within a matrix management structure, whilst also working effectively with local MPs, Council Leaders, charities and public service teams. You’ll thrive in situations where you need to adapt and evolve, taking others on that journey with you. Most importantly, we want someone who is a true advocate for our company values and who consistently demonstrates them in every interaction.

The Team: You will directly line manage a team that will consist of a Deputy Centre Director, an Operations Manager and an Office Manager. In addition, you will have indirect line management responsibility for Service Partner employees and Contractors.

Principle Accountabilities:

• Leading and managing the Centre Team (consisting of Landsec employees, Service Partner employees and Contractors) providing them with day-to-day operational direction.
• Working as a proactive member of the internal organisation within Landsec, leveraging the strength and expertise of specialist teams to ensure the Centre delivers operational and strategic excellence on a day-to-day basis.
• Ensuring the execution of brilliant basics by the Centre Team, creating a safe and secure environment for guests and Brand Partners.
• Driving a high-performance team culture across the Centre, creating an environment where everyone is engaged and wants to deliver an exceptional experience for our guests and brand partners.
• Establishing and maintaining strong, collaborative relationships with key internal and external stakeholders, leveraging and influencing them for the benefit of the Centre and Landsec.
• Advocating for the Centre, continually driving for success, identifying improvements and implementing solutions that drive growth.
• Implementing the centre strategy from an operational perspective, feeding into the asset planning process and business plan.

Brand Partners:

• Build relationships with Brand Partner teams to understand their business and optimise sales.
• Maintaining a detailed understanding of Brand Partner metrics, analysing the information to provide insight and support as appropriate.
• Proactively seeking regular feedback from Brand Partners.
• Involving Brand Partners in engagement programmes.
• Demonstrating partnership and collaboration with local brand partners, testing and trialling commercial initiatives.
• Demonstrating leadership/collaboration with Brand Partners to achieve high retail standards.

Guest Experience:

• Managing the overall guest experience at the Centre, identifying dependencies and areas for improvement, ensuring effective feedback mechanisms are in place and resolving issues.
• Achieving exceptional Guest experience metrics.
• Communicating the successful elements of the Centres guest experience.
• Constantly evolving the Guest experience roadmap for the Centre, showing specific areas of focus and delivery.
• Ensuring the Centre is accessible to all our guests and that it not only achieves, but maintains Disability Confidence status.

Commercial Drive and Performance Measurement:

• Setting sales targets and income reporting versus actual.
• Effective management of the Centre budget and KPIs including; target versus actual, service charge and controllable costs in the budget.
• Demonstrating how the collective Centre Team are growing sales and income.
• Orchestrating teams involved in supporting commercial growth and sales of their Centre.
• Conducting lessons learned, listening to constructive feedback and applying solutions, processes and practices to make sure the Centre delivers an exceptional experience for guests and Brand Partners.
• Effectively communicating knowledge and understanding of Centres business strategy and financial performance to a wide range of internal and external stakeholders, adapting the message to suit the audience.
• Maintaining effective working and commercial relationships with Service Partners.
• Involvement in and understanding of research strategies and business planning forums.

Community:

• Building and maintaining strong and effective external stakeholder relationships.
• Acting as an advocate for the Centre and proactively getting involved with the local community the Centre serves.
• Achieving ESG/Sustainability targets and/or demonstrating how Centre has supported different community events.
• Embedded in and supportive of local community issues.

Other:

• Given the requirement to provide a 24 hour operation to retail and leisure partners, flexibility is required and it may be necessary for you to work additional hours outside of normal office hours to meet the needs of your role.

Essential Criteria:

• Breadth of relevant experience to be able to manage in a broad and high profile role.
• A working knowledge and demonstration of success in matrix organisation.
• Proven experience of translating strategy into excellent execution.
• Proven experience at building relationships with a broad range of stakeholders.
• A confident communicator able to represent the business at all levels.
• Presentation experience.
• Financially astute.
• Influential people leader.
• Coaching skills.
• Proven track record of creating and delivering commercial business plans.
• Commercial negotiator.
• Ability to embrace innovation and digest changing market conditions.
• Technologically savvy.
• Report writing skills.
• Willing to challenge status quo.

Life And Benefits At Landsec:

We have a great benefits package, there to support you with your work-life balance and in moments that matter. We offer fantastic Learning and Development opportunities to help you grow and reach your potential and we also play our part in supporting the communities where we live and work.

Below are some of our core benefits:

• Performance based annual bonus plan.
• 25 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) rising to 27 days after 2 years and the option to purchase up to 10 additional days each year.
• Enhanced pension contributions Landsec will contribute up to 10.5% subject to your contribution.
• Private medical insurance, Health Cash Plan, Life assurance and income protection.
• Enhanced maternity, adoption, shared parental leave policies.
• Two different share plans enabling you to share in the success you will help to build.
• Up to 4 working days to volunteer per year and "Give As You Earn" programmes allowing you to donate to charities straight out of your pay and we top up by 20%.
• Access to health and wellbeing benefits including employee assistance programme, digital GP, cycle to work scheme, a mindfulness app and a health app supporting fertility and menopause.

Diversity and Inclusion:

At Landsec, we value diversity & inclusion. We work to better reflect the diversity of the communities we work within and empower everyone who works at Landsec to realise their potential. We strive to ensure all our information, and services are accessible to and usable by everyone.