Centre Director - Clarks Village

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.

We’ve honed this ability over 80 years. Spotting the opportunities, building the partnerships, and continually adapting to shape the places that meet the needs of a changing world.

Places where life happens. Where businesses grow. And where cities are defined.

Location

This role will be based on-site at Clarks Village, five days a week.

The Team

You will lead a dynamic on-site team comprising the Centre Operations Manager, Business Development Manager, Retail Manager, Admin/Office Manager, and Guest Experience Managers, all of whom report into this role. You will also play a key role in shaping the strategy and budget in collaboration with Elevate, our strategic facilities partners in a recently formed partnership with Landsec.

The role

As Centre Director at Clarks Village, you’ll take the lead at one of Landsec’s three Premium Outlets, alongside Gunwharf Quays and Braintree Village. Clarks Village is the UK’s first outlet destination – a vibrant, open-air retail and leisure environment that attracts millions of visitors each year and showcases some of the nation’s best-loved brands.

We’re seeking a commercially astute, people-focused leader who can inspire teams, build strong partnerships, and deliver exceptional guest experiences. You’ll combine strategic thinking with day-to-day operational excellence, driving sales, income growth and community impact while keeping our brand partners and guests at the heart of everything you do.

If you’re ambitious, inclusive, and thrive in a dynamic retail setting, this is your chance to shape the future of one of the UK’s most successful outlet destinations and play a key role in Landsec’s growing Premium Outlets portfolio.

• Salary: Competitive

Principle Accountabilities

As the operational leader for the Centre, your responsibilities will include:

Leadership

• Leading and managing the Centre Team (consisting of Landsec employees, Service Partner employees and Contractors) providing them with day-to-day operational direction.

• 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 and mean we are seen as the preferred partner for the businesses we work with.

• Implementing the centre strategy from an operational perspective, feeding into the asset planning process and business plan.

Brand Partners

• Working as a proactive member of the internal matrix structure within Landsec, pulling on the strength and expertise of specialist teams to ensure the Centre delivers operational and strategic excellence on a day-to-day basis.

• 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 Centre’s 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 the Centre budget and KPI’s 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 learnt, 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 Centre’s 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

Essential Criteria

• Breath 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

• Strong Commercial skills demonstrated within current or previous working environment.

• 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

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. If you would like to receive any information in a different way or would like us to do anything differently to help you apply for our roles, please get in touch with our recruitment partners by emailing [email protected]

To find out more about our approach, visit our Diversity and Inclusion page.