Rachael Tate Email & Phone Number

London, England, Gb

Wisley, England, United Kingdom

Surrey, England, United Kingdom

To adapt to the current challenges presented by the pandemic, I’ve temporarily set up my own business while looking for my next role. Utilising my passion for interiors, trends and providing a customer-centric service, I create affordable and bespoke home styling solutions for private clients throughout Surrey.

Accessories Buyer & Store Concept DevelopmentTourvest provides the in-flight retail offering for major airlines. Reporting directly into the Buying Director, I was the Accessories Buyer for British Airways, with two direct reports (a Junior Buyer and a Buyer’s Administrator). Sadly, Tourvest had to make extensive redundancies due to the impact of the pandemic, which is why I’m now available for my next role. Responsibilities & Achievements• Set and implement the seasonal strategy.• Created the strategy for launching a new store concept; whereby the retail offering would be extended to include stand-alone stores (instead of products only being available to purchase during flights). • Transformed the appearance and merchandising of our shop based at British Airways head office, resulting in an increase of 10%. • Collaborated with Mulberry & Liberty of London to create a range of bespoke and exclusive products. • Sourced new suppliers and brands via the Cannes Tax Free World Association tradeshow, including: Furla, Bally, Ray Ban & Estella Bartlett brands.• Introduced a successful ‘experiences’ range as a new category. This involved sourcing the brands, developing the ‘experiences’ concept with them, negotiating pricing and contracts.• Collaborated with a design agency (Cedar) to create the style of the British Airways in-flight magazine.

London, United Kingdom

Working collaboratively within an overall team of 30, including E-commerce, Marketing and Licensing and reporting into the Head of Buying, this was a busy stand-alone role with support from the administrator for the whole Buying team. My category generated a revenue of £15m per annum. Responsibilities & Achievements• Evaluated the product offer, identified gaps of revenue drivers and created a successful ‘Heritage range’ as a new, premium product category:- Leveraged the football club’s proud British heritage (having been formed in 1866). Drew on skills and contacts built while working at the National Portrait Gallery to create a premium prints offering, using artwork and photography from the club’s museum archives.- Identified and collaborated with three promising young British artists, to use unique football artworks across a range of products including homeware, prints and general gifting. • Controlled budgets and buys on a £2million category.• Negotiated contracts with suppliers and artists.• Reduced costs by identifying over-stocks and creating an exit plan for poor performing lines and product area, successfully streamlining the product offering.

London, United Kingdom

The National Portrait Gallery holds the most extensive collection of portraits in the world, with more than 215,000 works dating from the 16th century to the present day. Reporting into the Head of Buying, with three direct reports, I was responsible for all of the National Portrait Gallery’s product categories within its gift shops and online offering. Responsibilities & Achievements• Implemented a product strategy which contributed to an overall retail sales increase of 70% over 5 years, reaching £5m per annum.• Spearheaded the design, development and implementation of 15 exhibition ranges and 18 core ranges and delivered targets.• Worked on exceptionally high-profile exhibitions that achieved worldwide sales including Audrey Hepburn, Vogue 100, Picasso and Grayson Perry. Vogue 100 was the most profitable range in the retail history of the gallery.• Creative thinking and a focus on continual innovation led to collaboration with the Marketing team to create unique events using the shop space to support the opening of new exhibitions.• Responsible for store planning when an additional gift shop and pop-up shops opened within the gallery; specifying which ranges to include and setting the layout and merchandising of the shop. • Established profitable partnerships with high street brands for the first time at the gallery. These included Barbour, Patricia Nicolas, Nails Inc, Charlotte Tilbury and Floris. • Chaired product meetings with artists, designers and gallery stakeholders. • Restructured the buying process, streamlining and giving consistency to the sharing of information, driving the profitable and efficient flow of products through the business.• Led and shaped a team, establishing goals and objectives to manage team performance.

QVC is the world’s leading tv shopping channel, which also has a significant e-commerce presence. During my time at QVC, I was promoted from Associate Buyer to Buyer and worked across a variety of departments and categories, including gold jewellery, gemstone jewellery, casualwear, outerwear and home styling. Responsibilities & Achievements• Identified, sourced and secured profitable product, delivering targets of up to £15million.• Introduced several new and profitable ranges, including Alex Monroe Jewellery and Kelly Hoppen Home Furnishings. • Managed and grew a reliable and flexible global supplier base, working with Far East, Europe and the US, dealing directly with factories and agents.• Mentored Assistant Buyer.