Francesca Leighton, NACD.DC

Lead the comfort-led furniture brand’s global commercial strategy to drive profitable growth across all distribution channels including e-commerce and retail (D2C & parter network). Responsible for optimizing customer acquisition and retention through a seamless omnichannel experience, while aligning commercial operations and customer service with vetsak’s new luxury positioning, driving the Go-to-Market process and international market development. Play a key role in developing organisational process & systems, sales & operations infrastructure to scale, and human capital -leading strategic org design, talent development and fostering a culture for brand-right growth.

Advisory board member for an early seed stage company developing an innovative, conscious fashion meets health & wellness concept with a sustainable business model. Helping to set the path of this start-up I provide oversight, coaching, and consultancy to guide the creation of a disruptive vision, strategic positioning, brand development, Go-To-Market plan, and support fund-raising activities including pitch deck & business plan.

Advisory Board Member to private companies and peer groups contributing to Strategy, Marketing, Sales, Organisation, Culture & Talent Development, Sustainability/ESG and Risk Management.

Provide consultancy and oversight to start-ups, SMEs, and global companies. I offer strategic growth, operational optimization, and leadership & talent development services to help clients achieve their goals, create value and lasting impact. My first-hand expertise and actionable insights have contributed to the success of various companies, management consultancies and private equity funds working directly and through the World's leading professional networks including AlphaSights, Guidepoint, Third Bridge and GLG

Led Nike's largest portfolio of wholesale retail accounts with diverse multi-functional team of 150. Drove strategic growth in a dynamic environment to deliver $3B annual revenue and best serve consumers with a premium omni-channel experience. * Led strategic visioning and planning, including positioning aligned to target consumer segments, creating distinction and market leadership in basketball, kids, women’s & lifestyle categories. * Commercialized strategy to deliver annual ops plans with KPIs over-indexing to budget each yr. * Led teams and partners through the GTM process, landing premium curated assortments and multi-seasonal brand roadmaps. * Developed retailer partnerships, digital optimization programs, and negotiated trade terms to deliver productivity and value inc. DD% full-price retail sales improvements pre & post programs. * Led strategic re-positioning of retail accounts to revitalize relationships, align & activate distribution plans and growth drivers. * Influenced omni-consumer experience elevation in the heart of sport and sneaker communities, working with Merchandising, Brand & Marketing experts to deliver improved engagement, conversion, AUR, UPT. * Partnered with retailers to co-create new experiential concepts and evolve the consumer journey (eg Nordstrom, Hibbett, Academy, Kohls, Foot Locker) and to bring to life authentic sneaker destinations that also uplift local communities. * Leveraged insights, data & analytics, establishing whls retail footprints and growth strategies incremental to D2C strategy. * Led multiple team and culture initiatives to improve engagement, resulting in +10% pts YoY (through purpose, connectivity, talent development). * Prioritized talent and leadership development, realizing 40% promo rate. Oversaw DE&I, including initiatives tackling topics such as gender-fluidity and LGBTQ+ allyship. * Served as key stakeholder involved in a new organizational design and operating model, and led successful implementation.

Led transformation of wholesale partnerships as part of Nike’s consumer direct strategic acceleration. This involved the ‘start up’ of a new function and partnership with consultants to drive strategy and transformation agenda for retail accounts to better serve consumers more directly, personally & experientially, and leadership of a cross-functional team of 100+ globally to adopt and execute in market. * Designed and introduced new global function to enable new business model led by D2C. Team designed, talent mapped, activated, and strategy developed ready for implementation within 6 months. * Led strategic partnership development to define new positioning of wholesale retail accounts and critical capabilities required to better know & and serve consumers (data, digital/tech, ops) * Led cross-functional team to develop & and pilot elevated experiences throughout the omni-consumer journey and digital optimisation initiatives collectively delivering DD% increases in conversion and full-price sales. * Introduced new operating models and new service levels for Nike's most strategic retail accounts (connected inventory, connected membership) and trade terms to complement and enable D2C acceleration. Partnered with McKinsey to define and recommend strategic marketplace and partner choices and presented to Geo leadership. *Delivered successful operationalization of new processes and ways of working to develop and manage wholesale retail accounts; created playbooks and on-demand learning to enable teams to transition through and land significant strategic shifts whilst also delivering P&L. * Led corporate efforts to maintain healthy, premium brand marketplace through grey market prevention, investigation, and action with legal partners (leveraging web scraping & RFID technology). Collective efforts removed substantial product annually to benefit D2C and authorized accounts. * Shepherded teams through the change journey, activating new strategy, structure and processes.

Portfolio leadership with regional P&L accountability for $0.5B wholesale business in emerging markets including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam. Led strategic transformation of sales function and partnerships to return to profitable growth. Operated multiple business models to accelerate digital and introduced new retail concepts to catalyze premium growth. Leveraged cross-cultural ways of working, strong communication, strategic visioning and problem solving to reposition for sustainable growth and delivered with executional excellence. * Led multi-brand offense regionally and created new marketplace strategy to build capacity, elevate consumer experiences, rethink business models and accelerate digital growth. Reversed 3-year cadence of declining revenues to deliver DD% growth and profitability gains. * Re-segmented and differentiated business, developed new strategic partnerships with capabilities to scale pan-regionally (including online retailers Zalora, Myntra, online marketplace Lazada, local retail groups eg PTMAP, Foot Locker, JD, CRC Supersports). * Introduced new business model pilots including dropship and marketplace wholesale partnership with Flipkart in India to enable both digital scale and premium brand positioning. * Partnered with retail agencies and strategic accounts, to create market-defining catalyzing concept for sporting goods. Launched flagships and scale proposition, increasing sales productivity store wide, and doubling brand performance. * Led integration of 2 territory sales teams (India & SEA) and nurtured cultural shift embracing DE&I as business moved to new centralized operating model. Pioneered new ways of team working virtually and digitally transforming sales process and leveraging AR/VR technologies to bring physical to life in secure digital environment. * Led with a growth mindset and always on approach to team learning and development with DE&I at the core.

P & L management of $140M revenue across D2C (Nike Stores Partners) & wholesale (Retailers and Distributors). Led team of 50 through reset to deliver profitable growth. Established holistic marketplace transformation strategy, implemented new business models, processes, and organizational structure. Delivered currency-neutral +118% revenue growth.

Established and led wholesale digital and omni strategy to accelerate digital sales growth regionally complementing Nike’s D2C expansion. Led regional education, process development and resourcing partnering with new and traditional accounts on their transformation journey. With a virtual team grew the business +35%. Led a successful strategic initiative to empower and develop female talent, reverse declining leadership trends and improve gender diversity.

Informed marketplace strategy and led the creation of sales tools to serve $2B kids business globally. Built strong relationships to influence strategy adoption and enabled GTM excellence through seasonal toolkits and analytics. Led pilots to test new sport concepts and inform scale. Business growth over indexed at +18% and delivered margin expansion.

UK/IRE Sales Manager for performance & lifestyle products for Women's, Kids' & Running categories and with a team of 12 delivered $250M annual sales, with HSD and DD% growth YoY. Selected to be a Marketplace Leader for London Olympics and for a stretch assignment as Global Sales Director in the US.

Responsible for development, sales growth and premium brand positioning of various UK/Ire category and channel businesses including Basketball, Running, Football, and Sportswear. Led Nike Swim merchandising for EMEA region.

Human Resources & Executive Recruitment Consultancy. Responsible for leading the re-branding and strategic expansion of the business into new sectors including Consumer Goods. MBA thesis followed by full-time employment

Developed new food products and commercialized from creative concept through to market launch including ingredient procurement, pricing strategy, trade marketing, packaging solutions and in-store merchandising plans. HACCP Certified.

Specialized in International Strategy, Marketing and Organisational Change

Inclusive and Authentic Leadership Certification - Northwestern University l Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences 2021

Science of Well-Being - Yale University / Coursera