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Lead Manager - Retail Operations & CommunicationsHead Office
Lead Manager - Retail Operations & Communications
Function:
Central OperationsReports To:
Senior Manager / Head of Central OperationsLocation:
Head OfficeRole Purpose
The Lead Manager - Retail Operations & Communications leads the planning, governance, communication, and execution of activity across the retail estate, ensuring initiatives are operationally deliverable, commercially aligned, and effectively measured. Acting as the voice of Retail, the role partners across functions to prioritise and deliver key business activity while owning the strategy to simplify and modernise retail communications. This is a high-profile role with significant exposure to senior leaders across the business, offering the opportunity to influence major decisions, build a broad network, and gain valuable experience. Widely recognised as a strong development opportunity, it is an excellent stepping stone to broader leadership roles within the organisation.
A strong retail operations background, exceptional stakeholder management, and the ability to influence senior leaders are critical for success.
Key Accountabilities
Retail Activity Planning & Governance
- Own and manage the Retail Activity Plan, ensuring all initiatives are aligned to strategic priorities and operational capacity.
- Lead activity governance processes covering resource requirements, budget impacts, operational readiness, and performance measures.
- Maintain visibility and control of all key retail initiatives through robust critical path management.
- Challenge stakeholders to improve quality, adherence, and delivery performance throughout the activity lifecycle.
- Closely monitor the final six weeks of all activity delivery, ensuring:
- Critical path adherence.
- Risk mitigation and issue resolution.
- Operational readiness.
- Excellence in execution across stores.
- Establish clear success measures and monitor delivery against agreed outcomes and benefits.
Project & Programme Leadership
- Represent Retail Operations in the design, development, and governance of projects that impact stores.
- Act as a strategic business partner to Commercial Directors and functional leaders to ensure retail considerations are embedded from project inception.
- Provide operational insight and challenge to ensure initiatives are practical, scalable, and customer-focused.
- Lead selected strategic projects on behalf of Central Operations, delivering measurable improvements in execution and retail performance.
Stakeholder Management & Performance Accountability
- Build strong relationships across Retail, Commercial, Supply Chain, Technology, Finance, and Central Functions.
- Influence senior stakeholders to improve compliance, execution standards, and operational outcomes.
- Hold project and activity owners accountable for delivery commitments and agreed performance measures.
- Facilitate effective cross-functional collaboration to remove barriers and accelerate delivery.
Post Implementation Review & Continuous Improvement
- Own the Post Implementation Review (PIR) process for all major retail activity.
- Evaluate delivery outcomes against objectives, operational impact, colleague feedback, and financial performance.
- Partner with Category, Commercial, and Operational teams to identify lessons learned and embed continuous improvement.
- Create mechanisms to ensure learning is captured and applied to future activity planning and execution.
Retail Communications Strategy
- Own the end-to-end retail communications approach for stores.
- Simplify communication channels and reduce unnecessary communication volume across the business.
- Drive consistency, clarity, and prioritisation of messages reaching stores.
- Develop modern communication methods by leveraging technology and digital solutions to improve engagement and efficiency.
- Ensure communications support operational execution and colleague understanding of business priorities.
- Establish governance and measurement frameworks to evaluate communication effectiveness and colleague engagement.
Key Relationships
Internal
- Retail Directors
- Commercial Unit Directors
- Operations Leadership Team
- Category Teams
- Technology Teams
- Supply Chain
- Finance
- Change & Transformation Teams
- Communications Teams
External
- Technology partners and solution providers
- Third-party project and communication partners (where applicable)
Knowledge, Skills & Experience
Essential
- Significant operations leadership experience within a large, multi-site organisation.
- Strong understanding of store operations, activity planning, operational readiness, and execution.
- Proven experience managing complex cross-functional programmes and critical paths.
- Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills at senior leadership level.
- Experience holding stakeholders accountable for delivery and performance outcomes.
- Excellent communication and presentation skills.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving capability.
- Experience leading governance, planning, and post-implementation review processes.
- Ability to balance strategic thinking with operational execution.
Desirable
- Experience in retail transformation or change programmes.
- Knowledge of project management methodologies and governance frameworks.
- Experience using operational performance and communication effectiveness metrics to drive improvements.
Success Measures
- Delivery against Retail Activity Plan objectives and timelines.
- Improved operational execution and critical path compliance.
- Increased stakeholder accountability and project delivery performance.
- Measurable reduction in retail communication volume and channel complexity.
- Improved colleague engagement and understanding of key operational priorities.
- Post Implementation Reviews completed with lessons learned embedded into future planning.
- Positive feedback from Retail Directors, Commercial Directors, and store teams regarding operational support and communication effectiveness.
Everything you'll love
To ensure we balance moments where we know we need to collaborate together and the need for flexibility, Asda has a hybrid way of working with a minimum 3 days a week in one of our Home Offices. Over and above this, each area of Asda may have additional requirements which may require spending more days in the office, visiting suppliers, stores or depots.
You will also get an excellent benefits package including:
Discretionary company bonus
Company pension up to 7% matched
Company Car allowance of £5,700
15% colleague discount in store and online
Free access to wellbeing services such as Stream, 24/7 virtual GP, counselling, health and dental cash plans and a 24/7 employee assistance helpline, alongside discounts across a range of services and activities, from airport parking, enhanced to theme parks and cinemas.
Asda Allies Inclusion Networks – helping colleagues to make sure everybody is included and that our differences are recognised and celebrated
Excellent parental leave policies, including maternity & adoption leave, paternity leave, shared parental leave, neonatal care leave, and support for those doing fertility treatments.
We want all colleagues to be able to bring their best and true selves to work, every day. Simply put, we want our colleagues to be Proud to be Asda and proud to be themselves
Find your everything
Apply here
Why Asda?
We’re a really values-led organisation. Our mission means we encourage everyone to be open and honest. We work creatively and collaboratively with each other, valuing everyone’s input. We get on with things, we make them happen. As so many people across the UK rely on us, we have to.
Our Creating Change for Better programme tackles the major challenges facing our business and society today and guides our efforts on where we can make the biggest difference by reducing our environmental footprint, creating healthier products and supporting our communities.
Big businesses like ours offer big opportunities. With more than 1,000 stores across the UK, from superstores and Asda Living to petrol stations, as well as depots and Express stores. £60m+ in revenue taken every day. We conduct £300m worth of transactions every week. Our website handles 2 million transactions a month. And 75% of the UK shop in Asda every year.
Be yourself at Asda
We're committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels welcome, valued and able to achieve their potential.
We want every candidate to have a fair opportunity to show us what they can bring to the role. If you need any support or adjustments during the recruitment process, we'll work with you to make sure you have the support you need.
Need support? Visit our Help Page, select the People Services icon and choose Candidate Query. Tell us how we can help.
Rewards and Recognition
Free remote GP service
Available to you, your partner and your children, 24/7, year round.
Pension
Save for retirement with contributions paid into your pension account by you and Asda.
Free physiotherapy consultations
Helping you and your partner take care of yourselves with 8 free sessions per year.
Colleague discounts
15% off at our stores - get discounts on groceries and George all year round.
Car cash allowance
Eligible colleagues will receive a cash allowance as part of their benefits package. In addition, all salaried colleagues can choose to register for the Salary Sacrifice Electric Car scheme*.
(*Conditions apply)
Mortgage advice
Whether you’re a first-time buyer, renewing your mortgage, looking at buy to lets, or simply after some advice in getting a mortgage, get free* unbiased advice through the Mortgage Advice Bureau (MAB), one the UKs largest mortgage brokers.
Confidential support helpline
Find free emotional, practical, and financial support that’s fully confidential, through a helpline that’s available 24/7, year round.
Cycle to work
Buy a bike through this scheme and save on tax and national insurance.
Financial support
Find financial wellbeing tools and support, including the ability to stream your pay.
Free eye tests
Head to our in store opticians for a free checkup and take care of your vision.
Bonus
Sharing our success with a discretionary bonus scheme for salaried colleagues that really rewards your contributions.
Cancer support
Guidance and support for you and your family, from before diagnosis, to treatment and beyond.
Paid time off
From holiday to sick leave and other types of leave, such as parental leave.
Mental health support
Access free mental health support for you and your family.
Support and advice with care
If you’re supporting older family or friends with care and support, find free, confidential information, expert support, and guidance about later life care for your loved ones through the Legal & General Care Concierge service.
Hybrid working
To ensure we balance moments where we know we need to collaborate together and the need for flexibility, Asda has a hybrid way of working with a minimum 3 days a week in one of our Home Offices. Each area of Asda may have additional requirements which may require spending more days in the office, visiting suppliers, stores or depots
Save money on every day spends
Access to hundreds of high-street discounted Vouchers, discounts on days out, gym memberships, airport parking, and more
Setting your loved ones up for the future
As part of the team, you’ll get life assurance.
Guaranteed contracted hours
All colleagues are guaranteed weekly contracted hours / guaranteed weekly shifts via their contract of employment which is agreed with the hiring manager.
Holiday buying
Once a year our salaried colleagues are able to buy up to 5 additional days holiday via salary sacrifice (subject to eligibility).
Everything that makes us different, makes us Asda
Our colleague-led inclusion networks, including our DisAbility, Race & Ethnicity, Women at Asda, LGBTQIA+, and our Wellbeing Network, are all about giving our colleagues a space to share their stories, experiences, and perspective. Supported by our dedicated Executive Ambassadors and led by our ten passionate co-chairs, our Networks help us make changes that make life better for every colleague.
Transforming communities and changing lives
Our stores, distribution centres, and head offices work in local communities across the UK – and we want to be a real part of making a difference for them. From our amazing 400 Community Champions to our charity, The Asda Foundation, we’ve got loads of ways to help local groups and charities. Our outreach programmes, grants, and Community Champions are all about listening to our communities’ needs – to shape projects and initiatives that will make a real impact for local people.
Our commitment to the Armed Forces
Here at Asda, we’re dedicated to helping the Armed Forces rediscover their everything after service. We guarantee interviews for people who have left service and meet the minimum criteria for a role, provide leave for reservists’ training, support for cadet training, and employment opportunities for their partners. And that’s why we have over a thousand new colleagues from the Armed Forces Service Leaver Community join us every year.
Head Office roles
Thinking bigger, looking forwards, and always asking what’s next, Our Head Office teams aren’t afraid to challenge how we think, and embrace fresh perspectives, experiences, and change – all to keep us growing.
Asda House
The heart of everything Asda in the centre of Leeds, Asda House is full of collaborative workspaces and meeting rooms where teams work together to deliver real value for ordinary working people.
It’s home to its own Leon restaurant, where you can get discounted food and drinks, as well as two shops and a staff discount store, where you can sometimes snap up some real end of season bargains. We also have regular atrium events, where you’ll often have a chance to sample new products, and play host to exciting celebrity guests. And you can park your car for free in our onsite parking, with electric charging points just over the road.
If you're looking for a new opportunity and you want a challenge within a fast-paced environment with great culture then a role at Asda would be ideal for you.
Polly,
Commercial and Propositions Lead
The flexibility is great, I can attend school events like sports days and I can go for my morning run when I'm working from home and in the office as they have showers.
Tom,
Seasonal Packaging Design Specialist
The role is really varied and diverse. You get involved in so many different things! Everyone is so supportive and really cares about your personal development.
Hayley,
Buying Manager
Work where it works
Here at Asda, we think that the best way to work is to do it where it works best. That’s why all of our teams who are able to work from home, work with each other to figure out a pattern that works for you all, and the business needs. So you can get the most out of work, whether that’s at home, the office, or both.