General Manager: Misela (Designer Handbags) - Leap

About the Brand:

Founded in 2008 by Serra Türker, Misela is a luxury handbag and accessories brand renowned for its beautifully crafted bags, travel accessories, and home decor. Inspired by the vibrant culture and contemporary design scene of Istanbul, Misela combines traditional Turkish craftsmanship with modern aesthetics to create timeless and sophisticated designs.

Serra Türker Bayır, born and raised in Istanbul, trained at the Rhode Island School of Design, followed by Parsons School of Design. Building on her painting background, Serra focused on textile design through her studies, later specializing in accessories. Her passion for the construction of accessories led her to establish Misela, drawing on her unique perspective on fashion and design.

Misela’s collections are crafted by skilled artisans using high-quality materials and meticulous attention to detail. Each Misela piece, from the seasonal collection to the Made to Order collection featuring the iconic herringbone pattern, caters to diverse tastes and lifestyles, ensuring that every item is not just an accessory but a collector’s piece.

With flagship stores in Istanbul, London, and Bodrum, and a special Made to Order collection that highlights personalization, Misela celebrates more than a decade of innovation and design excellence. As a brand that represents the attributes of independence, strength, and authenticity, Misela continues to appeal to individuals across the globe who seek modern, timeless, and playful designs.

About the Role:

We are seeking a dynamic and visionary General Manager for our Misela boutique coming to Soho March 2025. This leadership role requires an experienced, strategic, and results-driven General Manager who thrives in building high-performing teams, driving business growth, and ensuring operational excellence across all aspects of the store. As the General Manager, you will leverage your expertise in leadership, sales, and team development to deliver a world-class experience to both clients and associates. Additionally, you will act as a local market expert, understanding the customer demographic, consumer trends, and events in the area to drive targeted initiatives and build meaningful community connections.

As a key driver of store success, you will lead and mentor all positions in the store, fostering an environment where your team can consistently perform at their best. Your responsibilities will include building and executing action plans that drive store and team performance, as well as developing future leaders within the organization. You’ll be responsible for setting clear expectations, aligning goals, and establishing a culture of continuous improvement. Your natural ability to create partnerships and share knowledge will be essential in building a cohesive, motivated, and engaged team.

The General Manager will take full ownership of the store’s daily operations, including driving sales, enhancing customer interactions, and ensuring operational standards are consistently met. In addition to maintaining a keen focus on the customer experience, you will oversee inventory management, visual merchandising, and ensuring all store procedures are executed seamlessly. You will play a critical role in developing strategic partnerships with neighboring stores and driving client engagement through impactful in-store activations and community events.

Beyond your location, the role will extend to supporting other Leap-powered locations in the market. This may include overseeing new store openings, managing cross-store initiatives, and training new store teams. You will lead by example and maintain an active presence on the sales floor, managing schedules and ensuring payroll accuracy.

In this fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment, you will be expected to lead autonomously, stay nimble, and adapt to shifting business needs. A commitment to learning and continuous growth is essential, and familiarity with platforms such as Shopify, Endear, Slack, and Google Workspace is a strong advantage.

Position Requirements:

• Minimum age requirement of 18 years.
• Proven management experience with a demonstrated track record of overseeing, motivating, and developing high-performing teams.
• Expertise in luxury retail, high-touch client service, or related industries, with a deep commitment to creating exceptional customer experiences and fostering long-term relationships.
• Action-oriented leadership with the ability to create and implement strategic action plans to enhance store and team performance.
• A proven ability to build, nurture, and develop talent at all levels within the store, with a consistent focus on building a leadership pipeline.
• Operational excellence in managing store operations, including scheduling, payroll accuracy, visual merchandising, inventory management, and shipment processing.
• Flexibility to work according to dynamic business needs, including evenings, weekends, and holidays.
• Ability to maintain an active presence on the sales floor, capable of standing, walking, using a ladder, and lifting up to 50 lbs.

Annual Pay Range: 75k to 90k. Compensation will be determined based on the candidate's experience, skills, competencies, and qualifications.

Interpersonal Skills:

• People Leadership: Inspires and empowers teams through coaching, mentoring, and hands-on leadership. Effectively builds and maintains a bench of future leaders.
• Customer-Centric & Hospitality-Driven: Cultivates authentic, personalized client relationships to create lasting impressions and enhance customer satisfaction.
• Adaptable & Entrepreneurial: Leads with an entrepreneurial mindset in a fast-paced, evolving environment. Demonstrates resilience and creativity in problem-solving and decision-making.
• Collaborative Team Player: Builds strong, cross-functional relationships and fosters an inclusive, supportive work environment. Actively seeks and provides feedback to drive team success.
• Exceptional Communicator: Articulates complex ideas clearly, delivers actionable feedback, and fosters positive, productive relationships with team members, clients, and stakeholders.
• Professional & Reliable: Consistently demonstrates dependability, empathy, and professionalism in all interactions with both clients and team members.
• Brand Champion & Product Expert: Demonstrates in-depth product knowledge and brand expertise to elevate the customer experience and ensure effective selling.
• Detail-Oriented & Efficient: Delivers high-quality work with a strong attention to detail and ensures operational tasks are performed with precision and efficiency.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

• Employee Retention & Development: Cultivates a supportive environment that emphasizes growth, team engagement, and the development of future leaders.
• Sales Leadership: Drives sales performance by setting clear, measurable sales goals and motivating the team to meet and exceed these targets. Focuses on optimizing key metrics such as Conversion Rate, Average Order Value (AOV), and Units Per Transaction (UPT), while consistently achieving or surpassing both individual and team sales objectives. Provides guidance and support to team members to enhance performance, fosters a results-driven culture, and ensures alignment with broader business goals to deliver exceptional sales results.
• Clienteling Excellence: Achieves high Net Promoter Scores (NPS), drives repeat business, and creates an exceptional client experience through networking and personalized outreach.
• Operational Efficiency: Ensure inventory levels are consistently maintained and accurate by monitoring stock levels, conducting regular audits, and coordinating with the team to address discrepancies in a timely manner.

About Leap:

The Leap platform powers insight-driven retail stores for modern brands, delivering superior performance with minimized risk. We manage 100 stores across the country proudly partnering with trailblazing brands such as Billy Reid, Frankies Bikinis, Grown Brilliance, Malbon Golf, MZ Wallace, Paper Planes, Ring Concierge, SET and many others. To hear more about our platform directly from our CEO, click here!

Leap Perks:

• Unlimited PTO (blackout periods apply)
• Bonus Eligible
• 401K
• Medical, Dental & Vision benefits including HSA
• AllOne Health - Employee Assistance Programs
• Employee discount wardrobe allotment for participating Leap brands

In order to achieve our mission, we need to work hard to create a diverse community of Leapers to support the brand and customers we serve and help us all grow and thrive individually and as a team. Our differences make our organization special and are paramount to our culture. Your age, skin color, beliefs, sexual orientation, nationality, disability, parental status, vet status, gender identity are valued.

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