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Head of Buying and Merchandising

Permanent United Arab Emirates Buying & Merchandising

We are conducting a search for a Head of Buying & Merchandising to lead the product and trading agenda for a branded retail business.

 

THE ROLE WILL REQUIRE RELOCATION TO UAE.

 

This opportunity will suit a commercially sharp leader who understands what makes customers buy—and how to turn that understanding into compelling ranges, stronger margins and productive stock.

 

Bringing buying and merchandising together, you will shape what the business buys, how it invests and how effectively it trades. You will balance brand appeal with commercial discipline, building an assortment that earns its place both with the customer and on the balance sheet.

 

The remit

  • Lead buying and merchandising, aligning range strategy with customer demand and financial targets.
  • Shape seasonal assortments, brand mix and category plans with a clear point of view.
  • Own budgets, open-to-buy, forecasting and stock investment.
  • Drive sales, gross margin, sell-through and stock turn, taking decisive action on trading opportunities and underperformance.
  • Strengthen brand and supplier relationships, negotiating terms that support profitable growth.
  • Develop a team that combines strong product judgement with rigorous planning.
  • Work closely with retail, marketing and digital teams to translate product strategy into consistent execution.

 

The profile

You will bring senior buying and merchandising experience within branded retail, with a track record of improving both product performance and profitability.

You know when to back a winner, when to challenge a forecast and when to walk away from a range. You can negotiate confidently with brand partners, hold your own in senior commercial discussions and give your team clear direction.

Experience managing multiple brands or categories would be particularly relevant, alongside strong financial judgement and a close understanding of customer behaviour.

More Information

  • Salary Offer Strong Tax Free
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Candidate Privacy Policy
PRIVACY NOTICE

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS DOCUMENT?

The Global Search Company is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.
 This privacy notice describes how we collect and use the personal information you provide to us, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

THE KIND OF INFORMATION WE HOLD ABOUT YOU

We are required to collect, store, and use your personal information, this may include:

  • Contact details
  • Right to work documents
  • Details of driving license
  • Emergency contact details
  • A copy of your CV
  • Qualifications
  • Professional memberships
  • Salary and additional benefits information
  • Positions you have previously applied for

We may be required to process additional information for candidates who would be employed by The Global Search Company on a temporary basis with any of our clients, this could include:

  • Bank details
  • NI number
  • Tax details
  • References
  • Details of criminal convictions
  • Sick leave details
  • Disciplinary and grievance information
  • Performance details

Candidates who would be self-employed as a contractor will need to provide some additional information which could include:
 • Companies House information
 • Details of Public Liability insurance
 • VAT registration

For candidates who are applying for roles within certain businesses, we may also be required to collect, store, and use some additional personal information, which could include:

  • Employment history
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  • Address history
  • Marital status
  • Nationality
  • Details of financial credit checks
  • Information relating to any previous position held as a Director, Secretary or association to a company

How is Your Personal Information Collected?
 We typically collect this personal information directly from you or through our website or job advertisements. We may sometimes be required to collect additional information from third parties or other publicly available sources. The Global Search Company will take reasonable steps to inform you it has collected your personal information from a third party.

How We Will Use Information About You
 We need certain personal information primarily to allow us to perform our contract with you and to enable us to comply with legal obligations. In some cases, we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties, provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. The situations in which we will process your personal information are listed below.

  • Providing our recruitment services
  • To maintain business relationships with clients and candidates
  • To submit your CV to third parties
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  • Assessing qualifications for a particular job
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If you are engaged as an employee or contractor through The Global Search Company we may also need additional information for the following reasons:

  •  Administering the contract, we have entered into with you
  •  Paying you, deducting tax and National Insurance contributions
  • Dealing with legal disputes involving you, or other employees, workers and contractors
  • To prevent fraud

Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

If you fail to provide personal information
 If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to represent you as a recruitment agency, or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of our workers).

HOW WE USE PARTICULARLY SENSITIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:
 • In limited circumstances, with explicit written consent
 • To ensure you are eligible to work in the UK
 • In order to meet legal obligations
 • When it is needed to assess working capacity on health grounds, subject to appropriate confidentiality safeguards.

Do we need your consent?
 We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of employment law. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent. You should be aware that it is not a condition of your contract with us that you agree to any request for consent from us.

Information About Criminal Convictions
 We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where we are legally able to do so. Where appropriate, we will collect information about criminal convictions as part of the recruitment process or we may be notified of such information directly by you. We will use information about criminal convictions and offences usually where such processing is necessary to carry out our obligations and provided we do so in line with our contractual obligations to our clients and candidates.

Automated Decision-Making
 You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you.

DATA SHARING

We may have to share your data with third parties, including prospective employers, third-party service providers and other entities in the group. We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.
 We may transfer your personal information outside the EU. If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

Why might you share my personal information with third parties?
 We may share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.

Which third-party service providers process my personal information?
 “Third parties” includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents) and other entities within our group. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: CV formatting, payroll, pension administration, benefits provision and administration, IT services

How secure is my information with third-party service providers and other entities in our group?
 All our third-party service providers and other entities in the group are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

What about other third parties?
 We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the business. We may also need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.

Transferring information outside the EU
 We may transfer the personal information we collect about you outside of the EU, in order to perform our contract with you. To ensure that your personal information does receive an adequate level of protection we have put in place the appropriate measures to ensure that your personal information is treated by those third parties in a way that is consistent with and which respects the EU and UK laws on data protection.

DATA SECURITY

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

DATA RETENTION

How long will you use my information for?
 We will retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you.

RIGHTS OF ACCESS, CORRECTION, ERASURE, AND RESTRICTION

Your duty to inform us of changes
 It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your working relationship with us.

Your rights in connection with personal information
 Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

  • Request access to your personal information
  • Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you
  • Request erasure of your personal information
  • Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground
  • Request the restriction of processing of your personal information
  • Request the transfer of your personal information to another party

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact The Global Search Company in writing.

No fee usually required
 You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

What we may need from you
 We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

RIGHT TO WITHDRAW CONSENT

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the HR department at The Global Search Company. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact the HR department at The Global Search Company.