Buying Director - (London UK)

Urban Outfitters started out as a single boutique in 1970s Philadelphia with creativity and uniqueness at its core. 50 years on, and over 60 stores across Europe later, we’ve become a destination for emerging design, unexpected styling, One-Of-A-Kind vintage and homeware that makes you want to hit the share button. We speak to a social community of over 10 million forward-thinking individuals, bringing together a nostalgia for the past with an enthusiasm to shape the future. The UO community are culturally aware, they shape the music scene, they live a digitally native life and they wear style trends before anyone else. At our core, we empower our customers and staff to express themselves, unapologetically, living life in a way that’s truly authentic to them.

Our Values

• Progressive – we move with the mood
• Creative – we champion limitless minds
• Inclusive – we open our platforms to all communities
• Responsible – we work to reduce our impact on the environment
• Compassionate – we care for each other beyond the 9 to 5

Role Summary

Our Buying Director is a visionary commercial leader responsible for driving the short and long-term strategic plans for the division in total alignment with brand goals. Reporting to the Managing Director, you will oversee multiple high-performing product teams, ensuring the optimal delivery of "concept to customer" across all platforms to maximize sales and hit aggressive profit targets. You will act as a dynamic architect of the brand DNA, leveraging deep market intuition and advanced data analysis to potentialize key drivers and launch products with authority. As a senior leader, you will balance commercial dexterity with an inclusive leadership style and serve as a global ambassador for Urban Outfitters.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Planning and Strategy: Drive the building and delivery of short-term and long-term strategic plans according to trends, market share, and customer insight while aligning with all relevant inter-dependent teams.
• Buying and Trading: Oversee the curation of products alongside Heads of Design and Planning to build the range and options profile, signing off on product that delivers on margin targets and considers all territory impacts.
• Customer Obsessed: Lead across functions to create end-to-end customer experience, harnessing creative ideas from the team to drive commercial success and influence wider business decisions.
• Product Development & Range Building: Oversee and lead the product development process, using extensive knowledge of supplier capabilities and making methods to ensure samples are of high quality at the first attempt.
• Driving Profit: Influence company objectives and financial targets by utilizing all available levers, including foreign exchange, labor costs, and freight, to achieve or beat profit targets.
• Sourcing & Supplier Management: Oversee the execution of a considered sourcing strategy that ensures the supply base is consolidated yet sufficiently diversified to be resilient against macro industry shifts.
• Sustainability: Champion sustainable practices at each stage of production and collaborate with the Sustainability team to understand long-term innovations and their impact on business processes.
• Teamwork and Leadership: Lead multiple optimally defined product teams, creating a clear vision with understandable goals that motivate teams to achieve functional KPIs through effective leadership.

What You’ll Need

You will have a mix of creative intuition and commerciality. We aren’t just looking for an experienced buyer who has moved up the ranks; you will be a strategic thinker who has successfully navigated the complexities of a multi-territory, omni-channel retail business. Ideally you will have held full P&L accountability for significant turnovers and have a proven track record of visionary planning, meaning you don’t just follow trends, you’re able to accurately predict and commercially exploit them before the competition. Technically, you must demonstrate a clear understanding of the entire value chain. This includes a deep fluency in margin levers like foreign exchange, duty preference schemes, and global labor pressures. Beyond the numbers, your leadership gravity is essential; you should be as comfortable presenting persuasively to a C-suite Board as you are delivering productive and professional challenging feedback to a global vendor base.

Key Technical Competencies

• Planning and Strategy: Advanced commercial acumen to influence strategic decisions at a senior level and experience leading new cross-functional business projects and initiatives.
• Buying and Trading: Advanced insight into trading patterns and the dexterity to create impact across multiple categories while making informed decisions to optimize overall business performance.
• Customer Obsessed: The ability to challenge teams to stay ahead of market changes and embed new customer insights into daily operations across all global territories.
• Product Development & Range Building: Strategic ability to contribute to the aesthetic and positioning of proprietary brands, ensuring range builds are informed by trend, price architecture, and seasonality.
• Driving Profit: A mature understanding of financial targets and creativity to seek out new initiatives to drive profit across various channels and territories.
• Sourcing & Supplier Management: In-depth knowledge of the sourcing market and industry contacts, with the ability to provide vendors with clear objectives and productive, professional feedback.
• Sustainability: A strong technical understanding of the impacts of different materials and the ability to succinctly articulate options for more sustainable products that balance impact, margin, and flexibility.
• Teamwork and Leadership: Proven ability to develop future leaders through guidance and coaching, identify key talent succession, and champion business-wide initiatives including DE&I.

The Perks

• Work-life Balance: Flexible start and finish times, bring your dog to work.
• Wellbeing: Employees Assistance program to support with mental, physical and financial health, fully equipped free gym and on-site wellness room in Brick Lane and 50% discount of external gym memberships, private medical insurance.
• Employee Discount: Up to 40% off at all URBN Brands.
• Community: One paid day to either volunteer or fundraise for a charity of your choice.
• Travel: Cycle to work scheme, season ticket loan.
• Continued Development: We offer structured support within the business alongside continued learning and development.

Equal Opportunity Statement

URBN is an Equal Opportunities Employer committed to diversity and inclusion. We provide equal employment opportunities regardless of age, sexual orientation, sex, gender reassignment, pregnancy, marital status, religion, race, or disability. We base all our employment decisions on merit, job requirements and business needs.