Head of Retail

Faithful to Nature is in an ambitious phase of retail growth. With 12 stores currently trading and 8–9 new openings planned for 2026 alone, the Head of Retail is a critical role in the business. This is not a role for someone used to managing mature retail, it is a role for someone who builds, opens, leads, and scales.

Faithful to Nature is South Africa's leading health and wellness retailer, guided by the purpose of ensuring that what we consume doesn't harm our health, the health of our planet, or our communities. We sell carefully selected health, food, body & beauty, and natural living products, both online and through a rapidly growing national store network. Faithful to Nature is part of the Silvertree Internet Holdings group of purpose-driven consumer brands, including UCook, Skoon, and Pet Heaven.

As the Head of Retail, you will own the full store network: its people, its performance, its standards, and its pipeline. You will lead a team of area managers, drive store P&L accountability, and personally own the new store opening process from lease handover through to trading. You will work closely with the Co-CEO and cross-functional teams in planning, commercial, finance, HR, marketing, and tech to ensure that FtN's retail network delivers on its brand promise and financial targets.

You are the right person for this role if you are energised by complexity and pace, not intimidated by it. You have personally opened multiple stores, built teams from scratch, and operated in environments where not everything is defined yet. You are warm, high-energy, and tech savvy, comfortable with retail systems, data, and digital tools are core parts of how you lead.

Key Responsibilities

Retail Leadership & Store Performance :

• Own the performance of the full store network: sales, margin, wage cost, stock turns, stock write offs, customer experience, compliance and shop built costs.
• Lead, develop, and performance-manage a team of area managers, with clear accountability frameworks.
• Conduct regular store visits and provide structured feedback, coaching, and action plans to store and area management.
• Ensure brand and service standards are consistently delivered across every
• Build a high-performance, values-aligned retail culture that attracts and retains great

New Store Openings :

• Own the end-to-end new store opening process, from lease handover through shop fit and build coordination, recruitment, training, and launch.
• Build and maintain a repeatable, scalable store opening
• Manage relationships with mall management and landlords, ensuring FtN is well-represented and opening timelines are protected.
• Coordinate cross-functionally with planning, commercial, marketing, and tech to ensure new stores open fully stocked, staffed, and ready to trade.
• Track and report on store opening progress, risks, and readiness with clear communication to relevant stakeholders.

Commercial & Financial Accountability :

• Drive achievement of store-level revenue targets and EBITDA margin, with a strong understanding of the levers that affect store P&L.
• Monitor and manage wage cost, write offs, and operational expenditure across
• Analyse store performance data and translate insight into action, both at individual store level and across retail as a whole.
• Work with the marketing, planning and commercial teams to ensure stock availability, promotional execution, and ranging decisions support store performance.

People & Team Development :

• Lead recruitment for store management and area management roles, maintaining a strong succession pipeline.
• Design and implement onboarding, product knowledge, and skills development programmes for store teams.
• Manage performance across the retail team with fairness, clarity, and appropriate use of IR processes where required.
• Foster a team environment where people feel supported, motivated, and proud to represent FtN.

Systems, Processes & Technology :

• Champion the adoption of retail systems and tools, including Erply, Quant,
• Work closely with the Retail Systems & Process Integration Lead to implement and embed lightweight, scalable processes across the store network.
• Drive compliance with planogram execution, stocktake processes, and operational checklists through data and accountability rather than manual oversight.
• Use retail performance dashboards and reporting tools actively, not just to review, but to lead.

Cross-functional Collaboration :

• Represent retail in cross-functional forums and ensure that planning, marketing, commercial, and tech decisions are grounded in store-level reality.
• Maintain strong communication between store teams and central office, ensuring directives land and feedback flows both ways.
• Provide structured reporting on store performance, store opening progress, people matters, and key risks.

Qualifications & Experience

• 7+ years of retail management experience, with at least 3 years in a multi-site leadership role.
• Proven, direct track record of opening multiple retail stores, not in a support capacity, but as the accountable owner of the opening process.
• Experience operating in a high-growth or entrepreneurial retail environment where not everything was defined, finding energy in that, not friction.
• Demonstrated financial accountability at store or network level, including P&L ownership, wage cost management, and margin understanding.
• Genuinely tech-savvy: comfortable with retail management systems, reporting tools, and digital ways of working. Experience with tools such as Erply, Quant, or similar platforms is advantageous.
• Background in health, wellness, food, lifestyle, or beauty retail is strongly Alignment with FtN's values and product positioning matters.
• Experience recruiting, developing, and performance-managing retail teams across multiple locations.

Personal Attributes

• High energy and warmth, someone store teams and area managers naturally
• Comfortable with pace, ambiguity, and building structure while simultaneously running operations.
• Commercially sharp, understands the numbers and uses them to lead, not just report.
• Hands-on and present, not a desk leader; this role requires being in stores and with teams.
• Strong communicator who can represent retail credibly in an executive environment and translate strategy into clear direction for store teams.
• Resilient and solutions-oriented, when things go wrong (and they will), this person stabilises and finds the path forward.
• Values-aligned: genuinely committed to the purpose behind FtN's brand, not just the commercial opportunity.

KPIs

• Network Sales & Revenue: Store and retail revenue and margin
• Store Openings: New stores opening on time, within budget, and to brand
• Store EBITDA: Store-level profitability managed within target ranges, with wage cost and operational expenditure controlled.
• Stock Turns: fine stock turns maintained across
• Team Performance: Staff turnover rate, engagement, onboarding completion, and succession pipeline health.
• Customer Experience: In-store NPS and customer satisfaction scores maintained at or above target.
• Operational Compliance: Planogram compliance, checklist completion rates, stocktake accuracy.
• Reporting & Communication: Timely, structured reporting to cross-functional

Current Group Benefits

• Matching Company Retirement Fund Contributions
• Discounts across the Silvertree portfolio group