Director, Visual Design - Kendo Brands

Job Description

ABOUT KENDO

Kendo Holdings, Inc. is a San Francisco-based beauty brand developer and wholesaler owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy - Louis Vuitton, the world's largest luxury group. A play on the words "can do", Kendo has become the hub of creativity and next generation beauty product development for global Sephora channels and selective retailers outside of Sephora.

Through original development, collaborations and acquisitions the Kendo stable of brands will always be creative, inspiring and innovative. A dynamic engine of speed, expertise and market-savvy, the Kendo team continues to redefine the beauty industry through great product, great storytelling, great retail and direct-to-consumer partnerships. This shows up in everything we do and in what we stand for:

• "Can Do" Spirit: We work together to make our wildest dreams a reality: As entrepreneurs, we embrace optimism and find creative ways to reach our goals
• Advocacy, Diversity, and Inclusion: We recognize and celebrate the full spectrum of personal identities. We create safe spaces so everyone's voice is heard. We listen with humility and act with courage.
• Storytelling: We tell authentic stories like no, one else. It's our key to inspire trust and build relationships, rallying, our people, partners, and consumers around our brands.
• Resilience: We embrace challenges as opportunities. Change is ever- constant, and agility is our strength.
• Product Excellence: We put the consumers first: We constantly raise the bar to create products of the highest quality that everyone just has to have.

The salary range for this position is $137,083 - $171,354 per year based upon a San Francisco location. Offered salary is dependent upon experience and location. Kendo Total Rewards offerings also include an annual bonus and a comprehensive benefits package including: medical, dental and vision insurance, flex paid time off program, parental leave, employee discount/perks, a retirement plan with employer contributions, Summer Fridays, opportunity to work from anywhere for two weeks in the summer and July and December wellness/shutdown weeks for applicable positions.

The Kendo house of brands currently includes: Fenty Beauty, Fenty Skin, KVD Beauty, Lip Lab, Ole Henriksen.

Kendo Brands has a hybrid work model with three days in office and two days remote each week.

Overview:

The Global Visual + Experiential Designer Director for Kendo will lead the creative vision for all IRL spaces across the globe and for all brands at Kendo bringing together design, merchandising, and copy to formulate a north star creative vision for how our brands are presented. This critical creative leadership role will translate strategy, campaigns and 2d assets into 3d storytelling for the consumer in a compelling way. This Director would be very experienced in concepting and drafting blue sky thinking for retail & experiential initiatives with the strong ability to marry those ideas with the consumer, our brand DNA, innovative retail concepts and the business needs to deliver best-in-class experiences that meet the business objectives. This role will be the first to identify the changing retail & consumer landscape and propose ideas on how to stay ahead. This role would support all Kendo brands and offer a wide range of projects across retail spaces, merchandising, marketing, store design, experiential marketing for the consumer, influencers, founders and retail partners.

Responsibilities:

Innovation

• Lead the blue sky thinking and push the brands IRL experience to be best in class

Conceptualize + Design

• Lead the conceptualization and design of visually appealing and on-brand in-store displays, windows, animated VM spaces to maximize product visibility and consumer experience. This can be through hand sketches and renderings.
• Introduce innovative design concepts for experiential and retail spaces
• Lead the translation of the 2D space to the 3D space while bringing to life brand storytelling.

Sourcing

• Lead the research and selection of materials and fixtures to enhance product displays.
• Establish innovative relationships with vendors and oversee the procurement of fixtures.

Collaboration

• Collaborate with brand teams to ensure strong briefs for team and vendors for product launches.
• Lead brainstorms with creative team to ideate and ensure fixture design aligns with overall concept design.
• Collaborate with retailer partners and field teams to understand best in class fixtures and understand what is working and not with Kendo fixtures.

Maintain Visual Standards

• Provide leadership by regularly visiting stores to ensure that visual merchandising standards are maintained and execute innovative adjustments as needed.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Visual Design, or a related field or equivalent experience.
• 10 + years of proven experience as a Store Design, Visual Merchandising Designer or related in the beauty or retail industry.
• Strong understanding of beauty industry trends and consumer behavior.
• Proficiency in design software (e.g., Adobe Creative Suite, SketchUp).
• Excellent communication, collaboration, leadership, and innovation skills.
• Creative thinking and ability to translate ideas into visually appealing displays.
• Strong project management skills with the ability to meet deadlines.
• Experience in vendor management and procurement processes.
• People leadership experience including cross functional partnerships and influencing.