Director, Search (SEO and AEO)
New York, NY, US
We believe that difference sparks brilliance, so we welcome people and ideas from everywhere to join us in stretching what’s possible.
At Tapestry, being true to yourself is core to who we are. When each of us brings our individuality to our collective ambition, our creativity is unleashed. This global house of brands – Coach, Kate Spade New York, Stuart Weitzman – was built by unconventional entrepreneurs and unexpected solutions, so when we say we believe in dreams, we mean we believe in making them happen. We’re always on a journey to becoming our best, but you can count on this: Here, your voice is valued, your ambitions are supported, and your work is recognized.
A member of the Tapestry family, we are part of a global house of brands that has unwavering optimism and is committed to being innovative and wholly inclusive.
Primary Purpose
The Director, Search (SEO and AEO) will lead Tapestry’s enterprise search strategy, ensuring platform-level SEO and AEO health, performance, and discoverability. This leader will partner closely with engineering, product, site merchandising, brand marketing, and analytics teams to address complex SEO/AEO challenges and build scalable infrastructure for long-term growth. The Director will oversee enterprise initiatives across indexation, page performance, structured data, mobile rendering, taxonomy, and site architecture, while also preparing the organization for discoverability in emerging AI-driven platforms. Although the role does not directly manage paid search, the Director will ensure alignment between organic and paid search strategies to maximize traffic and conversion.
The successful individual will leverage their proficiency in SEO & AEO to:
- SEO Strategy & Leadership: Define and execute an enterprise-wide SEO strategy that drives sustainable organic growth and aligns with brand priorities.
- AEO & Emerging Platforms: Stay at the forefront of AI Engine Optimization (AEO), ensuring Tapestry content and experiences are discoverable in AI-driven search, chatbots, and emerging platforms. Develop forward-looking strategies to adapt to evolving discoverability models.
- Site Optimization: Lead initiatives across taxonomy, metadata, internal linking, and content optimization to strengthen discoverability and improve conversion.
- Technical SEO: Partner with engineering and product teams to ensure robust site architecture, crawlability, indexation, structured data, rendering, and Core Web Vitals compliance.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Provide SEO and AEO best practices into seasonal planning, navigation, site refreshes, and digital product development in partnership with UX, merchandising, product, and engineering teams.
- Enterprise Initiatives: Serve as SEO/AEO lead for high-impact projects such as replatforming, taxonomy restructuring, and international expansion, safeguarding and enhancing visibility.
- Paid Search Alignment: Partner with performance marketing teams to ensure complementary strategies and shared insights across paid and organic search.
- Measurement & Reporting: Define KPIs and reporting frameworks to measure SEO and AEO performance, using dashboards and analytics to share insights with leadership.
- Innovation & Continuous Improvement: Anticipate algorithm updates, adopt emerging tools, and pilot innovative approaches to keep Tapestry’s SEO and AEO practices best-in-class.
The accomplished individual will possess:
- 10+ years of progressive SEO experience in large-scale, complex retail/e-commerce environments
- Proven success driving organic growth through taxonomy optimization, technical SEO, and content strategies
- Familiarity with AEO concepts and emerging discovery models (AI-driven search engines, generative AI platforms, voice assistants)
- Deep expertise in site architecture, crawl/index dynamics, structured data, and scalable SEO solutions. Proficiency with SEO / AEO analytics tools
- Demonstrated ability to influence and partner with engineering, product, UX, and merchandising teams to integrate SEO/AEO into site development and experiences
- Strong communication skills to advocate for SEO/AEO priorities and connect performance to business outcomes
- Ability to manage multiple priorities and enterprise-scale initiatives in a fast-paced environment
- Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree preferred
Our Competencies for All Employees
- Courage: Doesn’t hold back anything that needs to be said; provides current, direct, complete, and “actionable” positive and corrective feedback to others; lets people know where they stand; faces up to people problems on any person or situation (not including direct reports) quickly and directly; is not afraid to take negative action when necessary.
- Creativity: Comes up with a lot of new and unique ideas; easily makes connections among previously unrelated notions; tends to be seen as original and value-added in brainstorming settings.
- Customer Focus: Is dedicated to meeting the expectations and requirements of internal and external customers; gets first-hand customer information and uses it for improvements in products and services; acts with customers in mind; establishes and maintains effective relationships with customers and gains their trust and respect.
- Dealing with Ambiguity: Can effectively cope with change; can shift gears comfortably; can decide and act without having the total picture; isn’t upset when things are up in the air; doesn’t have to finish things before moving on; can comfortably handle risk and uncertainty.
- Drive for Results: Can be counted on to exceed goals successfully; is constantly and consistently one of the top performers; very bottom-line oriented; steadfastly pushes self and others for results.
- Interpersonal Savvy: Relates well to all kinds of people, up, down, and sideways, inside and outside the organization; builds appropriate rapport; builds constructive and effective relationships; uses diplomacy and tact; can diffuse even high-tension situations comfortably.
- Learning on the Fly: Learns quickly when facing new problems; a relentless and versatile learner; open to change; analyzes both successes and failures for clues to improvement; experiments and will try anything to find solutions; enjoys the challenge of unfamiliar tasks; quickly grasps the essence and the underlying structure of anything.
Our Competencies for All People Managers
- Strategic Agility: Sees ahead clearly; can anticipate future consequences and trends accurately; has broad knowledge and perspective; is future oriented; can articulately paint credible pictures and visions of possibilities and likelihoods; can create competitive and breakthrough strategies and plans.
- Developing Direct Reports and Others: Provides challenging and stretching tasks and assignments; holds frequent development discussions; is aware of each person’s career goals; constructs compelling development plans and executes them; pushes people to accept developmental moves; will take on those who need help and further development; cooperates with the developmental system in the organization; is a people builder.
- Building Effective Teams: Blends people into teams when needed; creates strong morale
and spirit in his/her team; shares wins and successes; fosters open dialogue; lets people finish and be responsible for their work; defines success in terms of the whole team; creates a feeling of belonging in the team.
Tapestry, Inc. is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer and we pride ourselves on hiring and developing the best people. All employment decisions (including recruitment, hiring, promotion, compensation, transfer, training, discipline and termination) are based on the applicant’s or employee’s qualifications as they relate to the requirements of the position under consideration. These decisions are made without regard to age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic characteristics, race, color, creed, religion, ethnicity, national origin, alienage, citizenship, disability, marital status, military status, pregnancy, or any other legally-recognized protected basis prohibited by applicable law.
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
Tapestry, Inc. will provide applicants and employees with reasonable accommodation for disabilities or religious beliefs. If you require reasonable accommodation to complete the application process, please contact Tapestry People Services at 1-855-566-9264 or employeerelations@tapestry.com
Visit Tapestry, Inc. at http://www.tapestry.com/
Work Setup: HYBRID
BASE PAY RANGE $180,000.00 TO $195,000.00 Annually
Here are some of the benefits that we offer: Medical insurance, Dental insurance, Vision insurance, 401 (K), Paid Paternity and Maternity leave, Commuter Benefits, Disability insurance and Tuition assistance. Please click here for a complete list of U.S Corporate Compensation & Benefits.
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Nearest Major Market: Manhattan
Nearest Secondary Market: New York City
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SEO, Merchandising, Marketing, Retail