Company: VTCT Skills
Role: Group Operations Director
I lead the operations department at CLOUD NINE, which includes a number of different areas, such as:
Supply Chain: Forecasting, procurement, inbound shipments from the Far East to multiple global locations (UK, EU, Australia, New Zealand)
Logistics: Managing the third party warehouses in UK, EU, Australia, New Zealand for inbound, storage, fulfilment and delivery activities
Warehousing: Managing the onsite warehouse for personalised product and return management
Product: New product development and sourcing as well as continuous improvement of current products
Customer Experience: Dealing with customer queries and optimising the customer purchasing/returns journey
Compliance: Ensuring legal compliance and best practise for all products and operations in all territorie
Sustainability: Ensuring we minimise the impact on the environment
No specific qualifications were listed on the job advert that I applied for, as experience was key, but I am a graduate of the University of Greenwich, where I studied Business, Logistics and Transport Management. I found my role on LinkedIn, where a recruiter reached out to me, and I was attrected to it as it was a larger remit than my previous role but the fundamental basic were the same. I felt this role was the right balance between being confident and using my experience, whilst at the same time growing my experience in other areas, such as customer experience and compliance. My role has helped me to develop my skills in problem solving, data analysis and in developing a continuous improvement mindset.
The best thing about my role is the variety of tasks at hand – one minute I could deal with our supplier in Korea regarding an issue of how to get our product compliant in Saudi Arabia, then the next minute, I have to call a customer in New Zealand because they are unhappy about a delivery and has been escalated it to me, then I jump on a call with a warehouse in Europe to discuss how to label the next order for a new retail client in Germany. This can also be the worst part of my role, when I want to concentrate on one thing, rather than on lots! It is hard to pin down a career highlight…so I’m going to choose two. I created and implemented the first-of-its-kind European two-person home delivery network, with full end to end tracking visibility, for Wayfair. I also extended CLOUD NINEs logistics portfolio from a single UK-based onsite warehouse to a global footprint with third party warehouses located in UK, EU, Australia and New Zealand. A particular highlight of this was the first Black Friday in the UK – the year before it took 10 days to fulfil all Black Friday orders – with a partner in logistics, we managed to have all orders delivered by Sunday!