About this role
Who we are You enjoy creating and innovating. You never stop striving for better. You take responsibility and you get results. You love being part of a team. Above all, you want your work to matter: Welcome to our world! At Sonova we create sense by bringing sound to life. Our innovative hearing care solutions help millions of people enjoy life’s unforgettable moments. We offer exceptional career opportunities through market-leading brands from consumer to medical, products and services that keep pushing hearing care forward, and a culture where you can quickly belong and perform at your best. If you want the freedom to explore, opportunities to grow, and make positive change on people lives through your work, this is the place for you. Retail Marketing & Retail Excellence Director As Retail Marketing & Retail Excellence Director, you will be the foundational capability for our retail business and a critical enabler of long-term, sustainable growth. You will serve as the trade marketing function to cascade down central marketing's strategy and support the Sales team in achieving their targets. You will also establish the commercial "operating system" that ensures our strategy is translated into consistent execution across stores – improving conversion, productivity, and service quality while strengthening customer satisfaction and loyalty. By building standard ways of working, performance management, and frontline capability (including audiological and retail training), you will reduce performance variability, lift operational efficiency, and create a repeatable model for scaling the business. You will be based in Shanghai, reporting directly to the BU MD. More about the role: In this role, you will be the strategic driver behind our retail excellence and marketing agenda. Your core mission is to ensure that central marketing strategy is effectively cascaded to stores and that retail execution is consistently excellent across all touchpoints.
• Commercial Intelligence, Insight & Planning: Own the end-to-end retail performance management system – KPI framework, target setting, forecasting, and the operating cadence across stores/regions/channels. Establish the commercial intelligence agenda and “single source of truth” reporting (definitions, dashboards, governance), turning data into actionable insights and clear priorities. Lead structured performance diagnostics and scenario planning to identify growth and margin opportunities and direct resources and initiatives.
• Store Excellence, Productivity & Capacity Management: Lead appointment and scheduling projects (capacity planning, appointment mix, utilization, and leakage reduction). Define “what good looks like” for store execution and drive adoption through routines, tools, and field enablement. Lead productivity programs that balance customer outcomes, quality, and profitability (time-in-clinic, throughput, rework reduction, and service-level adherence). Scale best practices using disciplined process design (SOPs), change management, and performance assurance. Design and govern sales incentive schemes (in partnership with HR/Finance) aligned to productivity, conversion, customer outcomes, and quality/ethics; model scenarios, set targets/thresholds, and monitor unintended consequences. Oversee audiological equipment and standards.
• Capability Building (Store/Audiological Training): Own the end-to-end learning strategy for store and audiological capability – onboarding, certification pathways, refreshers, and rollout training for new initiatives. Build a measurement system for training effectiveness (knowledge/skill assessment, behavioral adoption, impact on KPIs, and quality outcomes).
• Retail Marketing: Lead the retail marketing calendar, ensuring alignment with product launches, seasonal peaks, and business growth objectives. Design and execute channel-specific marketing strategies across Sonova's retail store network to drive footfall, conversion, and customer lifetime value. Partner with sales, store operations, and central marketing teams to translate national campaigns into local, store-relevant activations that resonate with hearing-impaired consumers. Leverage data and customer insights to optimize in-store marketing assets and promotional mechanics. Collaborate with central marketing to plan attendance to enhance store performance achievement. More about you:
• Minimum 15 years of experience in retail store management and channel marketing management, with at least 3 years in a leadership role and a demonstrated track record of implementation success in a retail environment. • Master's Degree in Engineering, Business or equivalent; MBA is a plus. • Commercial acumen with a customer-first mindset and respect for clinical quality/ethics. • Advanced stakeholder management and influencing ability; comfortable operating at executive and field levels. • Strong performance management discipline (KPIs, operating rhythm, coaching). More about what we offer: As one of the world’s leading hearing care providers headquartered in Switzerland, we’re committed to building an inclusive culture. We want to create an environment where you can balance a successful career with your commitments and interests outside of work, through our flexible hybrid working model. We offer a wide range of training opportunities for both your professional and personal development, and there are exceptional growth opportunities with individual development plans. Sonova is an equal opportunity employer. We team up. We grow talent. We collaborate with people of diverse backgrounds to win with the best team in the marketplace. We guarantee every person equal treatment in regard to employment and opportunity for employment, regardless of a candidate's ethnic or national origin, religion, sexual orientation or marital status, gender, genetic identity, age, disability or any other legally protected status.