Director, Global Store Design

Since its launch in 1993 with a collection of six essential handbags, Kate Spade New York has always been colorful, bold, and optimistic. Today, it is a global lifestyle brand that designs extraordinary things for the everyday, delivering seasonal collections of handbags, ready-to-wear, jewelry, footwear, home décor, and more. Known for its rich heritage and unique brand DNA, Kate Spade New York offers a distinctive point of view and celebrates communities of women around the globe who live their perfectly imperfect lifestyles. 

Kate Spade New York is part of the Tapestry portfolio – a global house of brands committed to stretching what’s possible.

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.

At Kate Spade New York we believe in sparking joy – in the spaces we create and the experiences that bring people together. Our store environments and retail experiences are the heart and soul of the brand, creating community and connection between our customers, store teams, and the neighborhoods and centers around our stores.

The Director of Global Store Design Concept and Development leads the creative and strategic development of immersive retail environments that bring the Kate Spade brand to life across all physical touchpoints. This role merges architecture, experiential design, storytelling, and brand strategy to create memorable, emotionally resonant in-store experiences that drive engagement, community, and sales.

You will guide the conception, design, and execution of flagship stores, pop-ups, shop-in-shops, and retail activations globally – ensuring every space communicates the Kate Spade brand DNA while inspiring new ways for customers to connect.

Responsibilities:

• In partnership with the VP, Global Visual Experience and Store Design, lead the creative vision for experiential retail and store environments that express the brand values and codes.
• Concept and direct immersive store experiences that blend design, technology, community, and storytelling.
• Partner with cross-functional teams in Visual Experience, Merchandising, Brand Creative, and Consumer Experience to ensure a collaborative global store design process and cohesive consumer journey.
• Oversee end-to-end design process from concept sketches and spatial narratives through design development, documentation, and construction.
• Manage a team of designers, external vendors and agencies, and architectural partners to deliver high-quality store designs on time and within budget.
• Keep brand teams informed of deadlines and design items required to keep projects moving forward in a timely and proactive fashion. 
• Partner with Real Estate and Construction leads for management of all upcoming projects.
• Support the Visual Experience teams in translating design and visual merchandising ideas to Store Design through the preparation of sketches, renderings, and presentations.
• Maintain design consistency and brand integrity across global markets while guiding local adaptation and creativity.
• Adapt new store design concepts to existing store designs and formats.
• Create and maintain scalable retail design guidelines and toolkits as well as fixture systems and material libraries for all retail and brand experience projects.
• Foster an environment of collaboration, inspiration, and curiosity with an emphasis on the mentorship and development of team members.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Architecture, Interior Design, Environmental Design, or related field. 
• Must have high level ability to read architectural drawings and understanding of basic code, ADA requirements. 
• 10+ years in retail experience and store design – ideally within luxury, fashion, beauty, or lifestyle brands.
• Exceptional creative vision with strong spatial and storytelling sensibility.
• Strong collaborator and communicator who thrives in cross-functional creative environments.
• Experience developing, designing, and installing in-store shops, specialty retail and outlet store environments as well as an understanding of the difference between these channels. 
• Ability to redline shop drawings for millwork, fixturing, freestanding furniture in addition to architectural plans is required.
• Hands-on, with the ability to show initiative and pro-actively present and escalate ideas, process improvements, and problems, to ensure outstanding results.
• High level of appreciation of the need to work within set budgets and time frames.
• Ability to convey design ideas and concepts quickly to leadership through preparation of presentations for internal partners to share.
• Familiarity with CAD, Sketch UP, 3D rendering, and Adobe Creative Suite.
• Deep understanding of contemporary culture, design trends, and consumer experience.

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 their 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.

Kate Spade 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 the 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 Kate Spade at www.katespade.com.                                                                                                                                   

Work Setup: HYBRID #LI-DC1

BASE PAY RANGE $155,000.00 TO $200,000.00 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.