Director of Application and Business Solutions

Role Overview:

The IT Applications & Business Solutions Director will lead the global strategy, governance, and evolution of critical business applications supporting Product team and Wholesale and Retail operations. Managing a team of IT professionals and 3rd party resources, this role will ensure that the application landscape supports business priorities, operational excellence, scalability, and transformation objectives.

This position plays a key role in shaping the applications roadmap, setting priorities across initiatives, and strengthening the partnership between IT and business leadership. The Director will oversee the overall functional ownership of core platforms, while ensuring that solution delivery and support models are effective and aligned with business goals and strategy.

Key Responsibilities:

• Business Engagement & Advisory: Act as a strategic partner to business stakeholders, challenging and refining needs, identifying opportunities for process improvement, and translating business priorities into technology direction and investment choices.
• Application Portfolio Governance: Oversee the functional landscape of key enterprise applications, ensuring consistency, scalability, governance, and clear prioritization across enhancements, projects, and support activities.
• Work closely and under parent Governance as related to IT strategy, guidance, cyber, applications.
• Contribute and support IT Budget planning and management of responsible tech stack Capital and Expenses.
• Operating Model & Team Leadership: Lead, mentor, and develop a small team, with clear ownership across application strategy, solution delivery, and operational support. Build an effective team structure that balances strategic oversight with hands-on solution expertise.
• Applications Strategy & Roadmap: Define and maintain the strategic roadmap for business applications across Wholesale and Retail, ensuring alignment with company priorities, growth ambitions, and operational needs.
• ERP Leadership – lead full life-cycle management and strategy for ERP (Microsoft D365). Support global parent strategy as related to ERP (integration, deployment to other brands/divisions).
• Application Management:
• Manage and optimize all functional topics and processes supported by key applications including Centric Software (PLM), Anaplan (distribution planning), Microsoft D365 (ERP), and our Point-of-Sale (POS) systems, ensuring alignment with business objectives for Wholesale and Retail activities.
• Configuration & Quality Assurance: Guarantee the accurate and optimal configuration of applications, ensuring they effectively support current and future business processes.
• Support and align on integrating systems/applications – where applicable – with parent systems/applications.
• Solution Quality & Process Optimization: Ensure applications are configured and evolved to support efficient, robust, and future-fit business processes across Wholesale and Retail operations.
• Vendor & Stakeholder Management: Manage relationships with external vendors and implementation partners, and coordinate effectively with internal stakeholders to ensure service quality and successful project execution.
• Operational Excellence: Ensure high availability, performance, support effectiveness, and user satisfaction across the application landscape, with appropriate governance and service levels in place.

Qualifications:

• Proven experience in IT applications leadership, preferably within the fashion, retail, or luxury goods industry.
• Strong understanding of Wholesale and Retail business processes.
• Demonstrated experience managing and evolving complex enterprise application ecosystems, including
• PLM (Centric Software preferred)
• ERP (D365 preferred)
• POS systems
• Planning systems (Anaplan preferred)
• Integration platforms (Boomi, MuleSoft, etc.)
• Strong experience in IT strategy, application roadmap definition, and business-facing technology leadership.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional projects and transformation initiatives, balancing strategic direction with execution.
• Experience managing and developing teams, including structuring responsibilities across strategic leadership and solution ownership.
• Excellent analytical, communication, stakeholder management, and problem-solving skills.