Fashion Universe Lead

Job Description: Fashion Universe Lead

Function: Business Development

Reports To: Head of Business Development

About S&S

S&S is a vertically integrated textile solutions provider based in Ruiru, Kenya. We design, produce, and distribute a vast array of textile consumer solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa under our two brands, butterfly® and textyle®.

Our purpose is to Empower Africa’s Potential and Authenticity. We are a team of purpose-driven individuals committed to providing exceptional, proactive solutions that make our customers feel valued and fulfilled. We strive to add value in all we do, with the customer

always at the heart of our actions.

The Opportunity

We are seeking a visionary and commercially astute leader to build and scale our Fashion Universe. This is not a maintenance role; it is a build-and-scale mandate. You will lead three distinct brands, texStyle, Asili, and Brand Works, transforming them from a collection of businesses with great potential into a structured, repeatable, and powerful growth engine for S&S.

This role is for a true commercial builder. You will connect brand, product, customer, manufacturing, and margin to create a cohesive and profitable fashion ecosystem. If the challenge of building something meaningful energizes you, are as comfortable with a P&L as you are with a product range, and have the determination to turn vision into commercial reality, we want to hear from you.

Core Responsibilities

Brand & Consumer Direction

• Architect and protect the distinct identities of texStyle, Asili, and Brand Works, ensuring each has a clear customer, product, price, visual identity, and channel strategy.
• Ensure our Fashion brands resonate with real African lifestyles, preferences, sizing, fit, and colour, moving beyond generic product selling to create authentic brand experiences.

Commercial Growth & Customer Architecture

• Own customer growth, partner productivity, and repeat orders. Build the right customer base, not just more customers.
• Lead the commercial strategy across all routes: building productive retail partners for texStyle, repeat wholesale anchors for Asili, and deposit-led B2B work for Brand Works.
• Drive a 20% YoY growth for Expansion units and 10% YoY for Turnaround units over the next 3 years, as part of the broader business plan.

Revenue, Margin & Commercial Discipline

• Drive revenue with quality. Own the Fashion performance around sales, Gross Profit (GP), pipeline, pricing discipline, and cash conversion. Growth without margin or controlled exposure is not growth.
• Implement robust pricing, costing, and credit terms in collaboration with Finance to ensure commercial strength and sustainability.

Product, Range, Innovation & Development

• Lead the future product and innovation pipeline. Translate customer and market learning into relevant ranges, collections, and new commercial opportunities.
• Treat innovation as a leadership mindset, driving new thinking across products, customers, partnerships, route-to-market, and operating rhythms.
• Ensure ideas move from concept to tested, costed, and commercially viable execution, improving customer value and long-term competitiveness.

Team, Capability & Rhythm

• Build a stronger Fashion team and operating system. Create clear ownership, weekly rhythms, customer reviews, range reviews, and pipeline discipline.
• Move Fashion away from dependency on one person by developing team capability and clear succession.

Key Deliverables

• Clarity & Distinction: Achieve clear and protected brand distinction between texStyle, Asili, and Brand Works.
• Commercial Strength: Improve repeat sales, customer quality, partner productivity, GP, and cash conversion.
• Market Depth: Build a credible Kenya market foundation and develop a clear regional (and future global) expansion roadmap.
• Operational Rhythm: Establish a robust product/range calendar and team working rhythm.
• A 2027-2028 Scale-up Plan: Deliver a credible, data-backed plan to scale the Fashion Universe in the next fiscal year.

What You Bring (Skills & Competencies)

• A Results-Driven Mindset: A proven ability to own and deliver commercial targets (revenue, GP, cash), not just creative or marketing outputs.
• Brand Building & Consumer Insight: Deep understanding of how to build a brand and translate consumer understanding into commercial action.
• Fashion & Apparel Expertise: Strong experience in fashion, apparel, textile, retail, or a lifestyle business with direct exposure to product, range, and innovation leadership.
• Commercial Acumen: Demonstrable experience with revenue, GP, pricing, cash, and customer-risk discipline.
• A Learner's Curiosity: A natural inclination to explore, ask questions, and seek out opportunities for improvement and growth from customers, markets, and competitors.
• Proactive & Accountable: A high degree of personal drive, determination, and accountability. Is comfortable with ambiguity and building from imperfect conditions.
• Cross-Functional Leader: Experience working across Finance, Operations, Production, QA, and Marketing to achieve business goals.

Our Expectations

At S&S, we look for individuals who don't just do a job, but who live our values. You will be expected to:

• Understand and passionately execute the Company's strategy.
• Be commercially focused and driven by customer growth.
• Be a collaborative problem-solver and a supportive team player.
• Ultimately, be self-driven and accountable for realizing the company's goals.