Company Overview
The company is an apparel business focused on high-quality, everyday essentials designed for comfort and accessibility. The business is entering a growth phase, with plans to expand across Malaysia and Thailand, and is focused on building a scalable, multi-store retail platform driven by strong merchandising fundamentals and operational excellence. This role offers the opportunity to build and scale the retail engine of the business from the ground up.
Role Overview
The General Manager will lead the end-to-end business and retail operations, responsible for driving store performance, building scalable operating systems, and supporting expansion across Malaysia and Thailand.
This is a hands-on builder role, with full ownership of execution across retail operations, store expansion, and cross-functional alignment.
The GM will work closely with Merchandising to translate product strategy into strong in-store performance and commercial results.
Key Responsibilities:
Business Performance & P&L Ownership
- Own overall business performance, including sales, margins, and operating costs
- Lead budgeting, forecasting, and regular performance reviews
- Improve store productivity, sell-through, and operational efficiency
Retail Operations & Store Excellence
- Oversee day-to-day store operations to ensure consistent execution and customer experience
- Establish SOPs, store KPIs, and operating discipline across all locations
- Identify and resolve store-level issues (staffing, VM execution, stock flow, service quality)
- Build a repeatable model store and scale best practices across new locations
Commercial Strategy and Market Leadership
- Develop and execute a clear growth strategy across stores
- Support new store openings, including setup, staffing, and operational readiness
- Localize assortment, pricing, promotions and brand positioning to align with market needs
- Translate HQ objectives into local action plans with clear KPIs
Inventory Flow & Execution
- Work closely with Merchandising to ensure effective stock allocation and availability
- Monitor store-level inventory health and drive actions to optimize sell-through
- Ensure strong coordination across stores and partners
Team Building & People Leadership
- Build and lead a high-performing team across retail ops and support functions
- Strengthen store leadership capabilities; upgrade talent where needed
- Drive a culture of accountability, performance, and continuous improvement.
Qualifications:
- 10-12 years of experience in multi-store retail, fashion, apparel or lifestyle brands
- Strong commercial leadership with full P&L ownership
- Proven experience building or scaling retail operations
- Deep understanding of merchandising, category planning and inventory management
- Strong analytical, problem-solving and data-driven decision-making skills
- Excellent people leadership across both corporate and store teams
- Mandarin-fluency is required, as partners are from China
- Southeast Asia experience is a strong advantage
