Christian Maher

British high street womenswear brand. Recruited to lead a full commercial turnaround of a stagnating £9M business, restructuring the team, rebuilding the supplier base, and repositioning the brand for sustainable growth. • Owned group commercial strategy and quarterly performance reporting to the founder, including annual planning across sales, marketing, assortment, trading calendar, and inventory. • Led and developed a 30+ person cross-functional team spanning buying, merchandising, marketing, e-commerce, logistics, sourcing, wholesale, and retail operations. • Rebuilt the wholesale channel from near zero, opening 25 UK accounts (including John Lewis and Debenhams Marketplace) and launching across Germany, Austria, Italy, and Sweden. • Overhauled demand planning and markdown strategy, taking full-price sell-through from 50% to 75% and lifting gross margin by 5 points, turning a discount-dependent business into a commercially disciplined, growth-ready brand, with sales up 9.5% over 24 months. • Directed £500K annual paid media investment (Google Ads and Meta) alongside agency partner, delivering 4x ROAS and driving +15% traffic growth and +5% LTV improvement. • Inherited an over-concentrated supplier base of just 2; restructured to 8 partners across Europe and Asia, cutting production costs by 5%. • Oversaw store fleet strategy including performance reviews, lease negotiations, and store fit-outs.

D2C arm of Fashion UK, a £200M+ global licensing group holding rights to Universal, Disney, Hasbro, and LEGO, partnering with Tesco, Primark, Zara, and Sainsbury's. Recruited as MD to lead a full turnaround of a marketplace-dependent £8M business and rebuild it as a digital-first, owned-channel model. • Owned full P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow across UK and US entities, reporting quarterly to the owner of Fashion UK on D2C performance, technology investment, and international expansion. • Grew revenue from £8M to £9.2M while fundamentally shifting the business model, reducing marketplace dependency from 90% to 50% and driving the balance through owned channels, significantly improving margin. • Directed £800K annual paid media budget across Google Ads (Search, Shopping) and Meta at 3.5x ROAS, running Google Merchant Center end-to-end to drive profitable acquisition and accelerate the shift from marketplace to owned channels. • Delivered end-to-end technology transformation: migration to Shopify Plus and WMS integration of Cin7, enabling marketplace expansion on eBay, Amazon, TikTok, and Walmart. • Implemented Klaviyo CRM and ran email and SMS lifecycle flows across welcome, abandoned-cart, and win-back journeys, lifting repeat-purchase rate and customer LTV. • Managed strategic licensor partnerships (Disney, LEGO, Universal, Roblox, Netflix), aligning product development, marketing investment, and financial targets. • Ran warehouse and fulfilment operations across UK and US sites, managing third-party logistics, courier, and platform cost bases to protect margin. • Ran warehouse and fulfilment operations across UK and US sites, managing third-party logistics, courier, and platform cost bases to protect margin. • Launched new international entities in the US and Netherlands, enabling expansion into Amazon US, Walmart, and Bol.com.

Global luxury lingerie brand with a €100M+ omni-channel business spanning retail, e-commerce, wholesale, and concessions across EMEA, APAC, and North America. • Led a buying and merchandising team of 35 across three regions, overseeing €100M in revenue. • Sat on the global operating board, presenting seasonal commercial plans and trading performance to the executive committee and brand ownership. • Created a global merchandising function to consolidate demand, rationalise option count, and streamline the supply chain, lifting annual sales by 10%. • Drove in-season trading performance through agile reallocation and markdown decisions, capturing a further 12% of seasonal net sales. • Built and implemented the company’s first formal €30M open-to-buy function, replacing ad-hoc buying with structured trading discipline and delivering a 30% inventory reduction. • Revitalised the basics business after identifying a €10M revenue shortfall, recouping €3M in one year by onboarding new and lapsed wholesale accounts. • Built and maintained key wholesale partnerships: GUM, KaDeWe, Printemps, Selfridges, Bloomingdale’s, Harrods, and El Corte Inglés.

American luxury accessories brand. Member of the founding EMEA governing board, reporting directly to the EMEA CEO. • Scaled EMEA revenue from £10M to £50M across six countries in six years, building a store fleet that included one of the highest sales per square foot in the company. • Built the EMEA merchandising and allocation function from 2 to 20 people to support the region’s rapid growth. • Led business integration and transformation of Coach EMEA and Coach International, aligning finance, demand planning, buying, and sales into a single team. • Managed £20M EMEA OTB across women’s and men’s accessories, clothing, footwear, and jewellery, with full responsibility for store ranging, margin targets, and markdown optimisation. • Defined localisation strategies, acting as liaison between EMEA and global teams to ensure brand integrity across all markets.

 Responsibility for top level merchandise planning for 20+ in the Middle East, Europe, North America, Japan and Thailand accounting for 20% of business.  Conducted monthly financial reviews with the Account Director and proposed ideas to drive sales while maximizing inventory and profit.