[Hiring] Head of Wholesale @Madison Reed

Role Description

As the Head of Wholesale at Madison Reed, you own the wholesale P&L end to end and the relationships that drive it, across a portfolio that now spans prestige specialty, mass, off-price, club, professional distribution and international. This is a builder's seat, not a steward's. You will be as comfortable opening a retailer portal and building the model yourself as you are presenting the three-year plan to the C-Team.

Madison Reed's wholesale business has changed shape. Your job is to run all of it as one portfolio rather than as a collection of accounts, to decide where the next dollar of trade spend and shelf advocacy goes, and to build a team that can carry the next set of doors as well as the current ones.

Reporting directly to the Chief Commercial Officer, you will lead a team of wholesale leaders responsible for our retailer partnerships. The position is full time and remote, with up to 30% travel from home including retailer visits, store manager shows, industry events, team meetings, quarterly business meetings and company-sponsored events.

The base salary range for this position is between $195,000 and $205,000. Factors which may affect starting pay within this range may include geography/market, skills, education, experience, and other qualifications of the successful candidate.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree; 12+ years of progressive experience in beauty, cosmetics or CPG, including at least 5 in a strategic sales leadership capacity rather than purely sales execution.
• Proven P&L ownership at scale in an omnichannel model, with a record of hitting and exceeding plan.
• Experience across more than one channel type. Prestige specialty plus at least one of off-price, club, or international is what this portfolio actually requires.
• Established relationships with senior decision makers at major beauty retailers. Ulta Beauty experience strongly preferred.
• Strong financial acumen, including the ability to build and interrogate the model yourself in Excel or Looker rather than commissioning it.
• Demonstrated fluency using AI tools in commercial work: analysis, forecasting, competitive intelligence and executive communication.
• Exceptional negotiation skills and the ability to influence across a matrixed organization.
• Entrepreneurial, decisive, and comfortable with ambiguity in a business that is changing shape.

Requirements

• Own the full wholesale P&L: revenue, margin, trade spend and profitability across every door and every channel type.
• Build and defend the annual plan and the three-to-five year portfolio strategy, including which channel types we invest in, which we hold, and which we exit.
• Personally own the trade-spend model. Know where every dollar of promotional and co-op investment is going and what it returned, and cut what is not working.
• Partner with Finance and Channel Demand Planning on bottom-up revenue planning from POS down to revenue, and own the forecast you sign.
• Own OpEx management for the wholesale organization. Build the annual budget, manage headcount, travel, trade shows and program spend to plan, and own the variance story.
• Run a portfolio that spans prestige specialty, mass, club, off-price, professional distribution and international across North America, the UK and the Middle East, and set explicit strategy for each channel type rather than a single wholesale strategy applied uniformly.
• Own the channel-conflict policy with Amazon, DTC and the Hair Color Bars: explicit pricing, promotional and assortment rules, agreed at the portfolio level.
• Set assortment and pack architecture by channel type with Product Development and Merchandising, including exclusive product and channel-specific packaging where it earns its place.
• Work with the SVP, Business Development on new doors, and own them from first purchase order forward, including the scaling plan and the internal readiness to support them.
• Serve as the senior Madison Reed relationship for our largest partners. Lead joint business planning with Ulta, Target and Walmart personally.
• Lead annual market meetings and line reviews, and set the negotiation strategy for terms, space, promotional calendars and new items.
• Drive visual merchandising and planogram enhancement at every retailer. Advocate for space, better fixtures and secondary placement, and hold the set to what was agreed.
• Visit stores. Walk the set, check the planogram against what we were promised, and come back with what you saw.
• Own the wholesale intelligence standard. Every JBP, line review and C-Team brief is built on predictive analysis rather than a recap of what already happened.
• Set the expectation that your team works at Madison Reed's AI operating levels and hold it.
• Sponsor the Retailer Intelligence system: weekly per-retailer signal briefs, pre-JBP intelligence packages, and a running competitive timeline.
• Drive alignment with Supply Chain and Planning on forecast accuracy, in-stock rates and the inventory needed to support off-price and club volume without starving the core.
• Partner with Marketing on retailer media, shopper marketing and go-to-market launch plans, and bring the creative and audience learnings our DTC business pays for into retailer media.
• Partner with the Education team on channel-specific education, including field leader conferences and professional-channel training.
• Partner with Product Development on long-lead planning internally and on the three-year innovation plan, so the wholesale assortment is shaped before it is set rather than inherited after.
• Partner with Digital Product on the wholesale tooling and reporting stack.
• Own the annual influencer plan for retail partners with Marketing, tied to the retailer calendar and measured on sell-through rather than impressions.
• Lead, coach and grow a team of a Director, a Senior Manager and a Manager, and build the bench for the next stage of the portfolio.
• Give each leader a clear book and a number, and hold them to it.

Benefits

• Comprehensive Healthcare
• 100% Company Paid Short and Long Term Disability
• 401k Participation and Equity Grants
• Continuing Education Contributions
• HSA Employer Contributions and FSA Options
• Parental Leave Program
• Commuter Benefits
• Responsible Paid Time Off Program
• Complimentary Madison Reed Products + Discounts on Hair Color Bar Services
• Company sponsored events