Our Story
Founded in 1994 by Chrissie Rucker, The White Company was created to bring stylish, white, designer-quality products into customers’ homes, underpinned by exceptional service. Our commitment to simplicity, quality, and thoughtful design continues to guide how we set standards, develop leaders, and deliver excellence at flagship level.
Our Role
As a General Manager, you lead a flagship business and represent the highest standards of The White Company in store. You hold full accountability for commercial performance, brand delivery, and people leadership, setting the benchmark for excellence across the retail estate.
This role represents progression from supporting and shaping a complex business to owning it end-to-end, influencing beyond your store and preparing for broader area leadership.
Customer And Brand Experience
- Set and protect the benchmark for customer experience and brand standards in a flagship environment.
- Use customer insight, service data, and market awareness to shape long-term experience strategy.
- Ensure consistency, storytelling, and premium execution across all customer touchpoints.
- Anticipate, assess, and mitigate risks to brand or customer experience, taking decisive action when standards are at risk.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with local market groups, BIDs, and external stakeholders to strengthen brand presence and footfall.
- Act as the senior brand ambassador for a flagship store, ensuring every element of the customer journey reflects The White Company values and aesthetic.
People and Culture: Leading the Team
- Lead, empower, and inspire a large and diverse team through clear vision, trust, and accountability.
- Build and develop a high-performing management structure, enabling autonomy while maintaining strong governance.
- Act as a key talent developer, identifying, nurturing, and progressing future leaders for the wider business.
- Set clear, measurable objectives for store leadership teams and ensure the performance management cycle is used effectively to drive accountability and development.
- Partner closely with People and L&D teams, using people data, analytics, and engagement surveys to identify opportunities and deliver clear actions that improve performance and engagement.
- Embed The White Company leadership behaviours and values consistently at every level of the store.
- Create a culture of engagement, feedback, and recognition, ensuring teams feel valued, supported, and motivated.
- Partner closely with the Area Manager to shape leadership capability and culture across the area.
- Provide key support to the Area Manager when required, including stepping into Area Manager cover during periods of absence.
Operational and Commercial Excellence: Driving Performance
- Take full ownership of end-to-end commercial performance, including sales, profitability and P&L, payroll, and controllable costs.
- Implement a robust trade routine, reviewing store sales and KPI performance weekly and producing a clear trade report that summarises performance, opportunities, and actions.
- Ensure weekly trading actions are clearly cascaded, understood, and delivered through store leadership teams.
- Translate business strategy into clear, effective trading plans that maximise performance across KPIs including conversion, ATV, UPT, footfall, and data capture.
- Use deep commercial insight, customer data, and market awareness to identify opportunities and mitigate risk.
- Partner cross-functionally with Head Office teams including Merchandising, Marketing, Visual, and Digital to optimise stock flow, communicate stock feedback, opportunities, and risks, Visual presentation, and customer experience.
- Oversee operational excellence across compliance, audit, safety, and productivity, ensuring the store sets the standard for others.
- Leverage digital tools and analytics to enhance decision-making, performance, and customer engagement.
- Represent the store as a flagship within the business, sharing best practice and contributing to wider retail initiatives.
- Develop the commercial capability of Store Management teams, ensuring they have the skills and confidence to manage performance effectively.
About You
- Significant experience leading a high-profile, high-turnover retail business.
- Proven ability to lead leaders and develop senior capability at scale.
- Highly commercially astute, with strong strategic and financial judgement.
- An influential communicator who builds credibility with senior stakeholders.
- Resilient, agile, and confident leading in complex environments.
- Highly accountable, with strong personal organisation and time management skills.
- A genuine passion for The White Company brand, with a strong commitment to protecting and bringing our values, aesthetic, and customer experience to life.
How You Can Grow
As a General Manager, you are preparing for broader leadership accountability across multiple stores.
You will develop:
- People Leadership – Leading leaders at scale and shaping succession across the business.
- Operational Confidence – Setting flagship standards and managing complexity at pace.
- Commercial Insight – Driving long-term growth and preparing for Area Manager responsibility.
