Your role @ CHANEL
The Tech Operation Lead - Responsible for overseeing the support team and ensuring efficient governance and performance monitoring across all operations. This role involves strategic planning, leadership, and execution to enhance operational effectiveness and service delivery.
This role is critical for:
- Orchestrating cross-functional operational strategies to drive business growth, cost optimization, and digital transformation initiatives.
- Translating business strategies into actionable operational roadmaps, ensuring technology operations become a strategic enabler rather than a reactive support function.
- Setting and influencing the operational agenda that impacts key business metrics (e.g., operation efficiency, user experience, business expansion).
The impact you can create at CHANEL
- Cost strategy optimization: Architect a sustainable operational model that reduces IT run costs by 20% YoY while enabling 30%+ business growth—linking cost efficiency to strategic investment capacity.
- Strategic operational framework: Design a next-gen tech operating model that supports business scalability (e.g., omni-channel retail strategies), positioning technology as a competitive differentiator.
- Strategic leadership footprint: Drive cross-business-unit initiatives to break down operational barriers, fostering collaboration that directly supports strategic priorities (e.g., digital adaptation, AI transformation).
- Lead the strategic adoption of emerging technologies (digital, AI,) to drive 40%+ process automation and 30% reduction in system downtime, directly enhancing operational resilience.
- Measure technology ROI through standardized metrics (e.g., system TCO reduction, digital service adoption rate), aligning technology investments with business growth objectives.
What you can bring to the team…
Strategic resource architecture design
- Develop a scalable tech operational model that aligns with the company’s long-term business strategy, balancing resource demand with future growth plans (e.g., supporting new market entries or product lines).
Operational strategy governance
- Lead the formulation of tech operational strategies that drive proactive risk mitigation, the elimination of silos, and enterprise-wide collaboration—directly contributing to business agility.
Cultural transformation for strategic impact
- Foster a culture of ownership and responsibility ("We own it, we care for it") to drive ongoing improvements in usage and processes
Technical Innovation:
- Implement performance optimization initiatives annually, driving measurable improvements in system throughput and latency.
Working Experience
- 15+ years of relevant, broad engineering experience, including 5+ years of Project/Program Manager/ Lead position
- Proven track record in designing operational strategies for complex environments (e.g., retail/luxury sectors), with a focus on aligning tech to business goals.
- Strategic process reengineering: Design end-to-end operational workflows that align with business strategy (e.g., supply chain optimization, customer service transformation).
- Technology alignment: Experience in mapping tech capabilities to business objectives (e.g., cloud migration strategies, data-driven operational models).
Functional/Technological Expertise
- Mastery in application support strategic planning, governance frameworks, and cross-domain operational optimization in hybrid IT environments.
- Demonstrated ability to prioritize complex strategic initiatives in fast-paced contexts, balancing short-term operational stability with long-term business transformation goals.
- Experience in leading successful teams through times of significant organizational change
- Experience in retail, hospitality or luxury retail desired
Required Competencies
- Experience in translating business strategies into operational roadmaps, e.g., developing tech strategies for operational optimization or product adoption.
- Expertise in managing matrix teams through organizational transformations that impact business-critical operations.
- Ability to prioritize competing strategic initiatives in fast-paced environments, balancing short-term operational needs with long-term business goals.
- Strategic vision setting: Demonstrate ability to craft and communicate operational strategies that gain buy-in from business stakeholders.
- Influential leadership: Lead with integrity to inspire teams in executing strategic initiatives, even in ambiguous or high-stakes scenarios (e.g., post-go live operational optimization).
- Cross-strategy collaboration: Proactively partner with business unit leaders to ensure operational strategies support revenue growth, profitability, and market share objectives.
- Bilingual strategic communication: Fluent in English and Mandarin, with the ability to present strategic recommendations to executive committees and drive decision-making
Skills Required
- 15+ years of relevant engineering experience, including 5+ years in Project/Program Manager or Lead roles
- Proven track record designing operational strategies for complex environments (retail/luxury sectors preferred)
- Mastery in application support strategic planning, governance frameworks, and cross-domain operational optimization in hybrid IT environments
- Experience mapping technology capabilities to business objectives (e.g., cloud migration strategies, data-driven operational models)
- Experience leading teams through significant organizational change
- Experience translating business strategies into actionable operational roadmaps and prioritizing competing strategic initiatives
- Experience in retail, hospitality, or luxury retail
- Fluent in English and Mandarin (bilingual strategic communication)
What We Do
CHANEL is a private company and a world leader in creating, developing, manufacturing and distributing luxury products. Founded by Gabrielle Chanel at the beginning of the last century, CHANEL offers a broad range of high-end creations, including Ready-to-Wear, Leather Goods, Fashion Accessories, Eyewear, Fragrances, Makeup, Skincare, Jewelry and Watches. CHANEL is also renowned for its Haute Couture collections, presented twice yearly in Paris, and for having acquired a large number of specialized suppliers, collectively known as the Métiers d’Art. CHANEL is dedicated to ultimate luxury and to the highest level of craftsmanship. It is a brand whose core values remain historically grounded on exceptional creation. As such, CHANEL promotes culture, art, creativity and “savoir-faire” throughout the world, and invests significantly in people, R&D and innovation. At the end of 2019, CHANEL employed more than 28,000 people across the world.
