Darrin Conroy Email & Phone Number

United Kingdom

Reporting to the Retail Director, with responsibility for leading and developing the UK field team ensuring that the P&L for UK Retail is delivered and commercial opportunities are maximised whilst ensuring that both customer and colleague experience is enhanced and improved.

Northern England And Scotland

As Regional Manager of the Northern Region I am responsible for the leadership of 4 Area Managers and 80 stores, from Aberdeen to Belfast and Glasgow to Cambridge.As a senior member of the business, my role is both to support and develop the Area Manager team to better enable them to develop their own management teams, as well as to help develop and drive the retail strategy and agenda to maximise sales and profits. As an internal promotion into what was a new layer of management for the business, I have had to adapt my style and leadership as the role has evolved. I am now line manager to those who were my peers, but there is now also a need to manage upwards to board level.Having been with the business for over 7 years I have grown as the business has grown, and whilst my job role has developed, the job is still about people. Engaging with people and enabling them to do their own jobs better, and I will continue to focus on this. In retail, engaged managers = engaged teams = engaged customers = profit.

North East, Scotland And N.I.,

As the Area Manager for the North East of England, Scotland and N.I. Initially with a portfolio of 9 stores, I grew this to 18 store over the 6 years in the Area Manager role, including the opening of the Glasgow Flagship store. During this time like for like sales grew year on year alongside other key KPIs and on that basis over these 6 years I was either 1st or 2nd Area Manager in the business. Results which enabled me to be considered for the Regional Manager role when it was introduced and was subsequently successful in my application.Whilst there were many aspects to the job description, I truly believe that the success was down to the simple premise of ensuring I had 9, 10........17, 18 good store managers who could drive their businesses forward. Very easy to say - more difficult to achieve but entirely the reason I was successful in the role.That basic principle required strong leadership, clear direction, communication, support and coaching to engage the with and improve the skill sets of a group of store managers. Everything else flowed from there.

Store Manager of the £3.5 million Metro Centre store for 5 years. The store underwent expansion in 2005, doubling the retail space. During this time I was simultaneously managing the Republic Outlet Store, also in the Metro Centre, which was on a 6 month lease.My duties include:• Motivating, training and developing a team of five other managers to support me in the success of the store• The recruitment, training and development of a core staff of 35• Developing the business to achieve the best possible results over 6 Hard KPIs• Actively managing the sales floor to increase conversion, average spend and sales• Maximising sales through the use of commercial tools• Achieving a high standard of visual merchandising• Maintaining a tight control on payroll costs• Accountable for stock result of the store (0.39% of sales against target of 0.49% SVI)• Driving the business through tight operational performance and administration• Maximise sales through sound promotional activity• Carrying out the closedown and opening of both the Outlet and my own new store• Supporting the North East and Scotland area by troubleshooting to other stores.• Training and developing new store managers and deputies into the business• Part of SAS team in 3 new store openings• Close down manager of Leeds store• Direct contact for the area when Area manager is on holiday

. With an Area of 12 stores with a total turnover of over £30 million per year I was responsible for managing, motivating and leading these 12 stores to increase sales, control costs, minimise loss whilst ensuring customer service remained the priority.