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Head of Marketplaces

  • Hybrid
    • London, Greater London, United Kingdom
  • Ecommerce

Job description

About Us

At Olsam, we are on a mission to grow brands and develop products that customers love, trust, and value.  We specialize in acquiring and scaling category-leading brands, unlocking their full potential by expanding them across international marketplaces and channels, streamlining operations, and driving product innovation.  

With a fantastic team across four continents and 15 nationalities, we bring together over 50 years of e-commerce expertise. We’re not just building brands, we’re shaping the future of global consumer goods. We are looking for ambitious, driven individuals to be part of it. Ready to make an impact? Let’s talk. 

Your Role at a Glance

We are looking for an exceptional Head of Marketplaces to own and grow our global marketplace business. This role carries full accountability for the performance, strategy, and long-term value creation of all marketplace channels, primarily Amazon, but including Walmart, and other regional or category-specific platforms. 

 

As a senior leader reporting into the Executive team, you will own P&L performance while building the capabilities, systems, and team required to scale the business globally.  

 

Success in this role means: 

  • Delivering market-leading, profitable growth across all marketplace channels, demonstrating full P&L ownership 

  • Defining and executing a clear, scalable global marketplace strategy, aligned with broader company and omnichannel objectives 

  • Building a best-in-class marketplace operating model and team across Trading and Performance Marketing who can partner closely with colleagues in the Brand, Product, Planning, and Logistics teams to deliver exceptional results 

  • Establishing sustainable competitive advantage across key marketplaces 

Job requirements

Key Responsibilities 

Trading & Commercial Ownership 

  • Own the global marketplace P&L, with full accountability for revenue, contribution margin, and cash flow 

  • Continuously evaluate performance across markets, categories, and brands, directing team focus to maximise profitability 

  • Deliver Executive-level reporting and insights to senior stakeholders on current performance, and future risks and opportunities  

 

Channel Strategy & Growth 

  • Define and deliver the long-term marketplace strategy, aligned with broader company and omnichannel objectives 

  • Identify, prioritise, and unlock new growth opportunities across marketplaces, geographies, and categories, from business case through to scaled execution  

  • Play a key role in M&A, supporting diligence and integration planning from a marketplace perspective 

  • Own channel-level forecasting, budgeting, and performance tracking for marketplace channels 

Platform Execution & Optimisation 

  • Design and embed a scalable, best-in-class marketplace operating model to drive profitable, sustainable growth across:  

    a) pricing, promotions, and trading

    b) content, SEO, and discoverability 

    c) retail media and performance marketing  

    d)catalogue quality, compliance, and account health  

    e) platform execution and operations 

  • Lead development of best practices and playbooks to drive repeatable success  

  • Build a culture of performance improvement through rigorous testing, experimentation, and continuous optimisation 

  • Identify, escalate, and resolve key emerging issues, e.g. listing or account-level suspensions, product compliance, platform changes 

  • Stay up to date with Amazon (and other marketplace) platform developments, tools, and category trends  

Performance Marketing & Demand Generation 

  • Set the strategic direction for retail media and PPC across all marketplaces, ensuring alignment with commercial objectives and efficient, scalable growth 

  • Oversee performance marketing execution, ensuring paid and organic strategies are integrated to maximise total search visibility and efficiency  

  • Blend in-house and third-party teams to deliver results in line with budgets 

Team Leadership & Organisational Build 

  • Lead the Marketplace function, including Trading and Performance Marketing teams 

  • Define team structure, roles, and ways of working to support current and future scale  

  • Hire, develop, and retain high-performing talent 

  • Maintain a culture of ownership, accountability, commerciality, foresight and high performance 

Cross-Functional Leadership 

  • As part of the commercial leadership team, support company-wide strategy development and execution across channels, pricing, product, and market expansion  

  • Act as the senior POC for marketplaces across the business. Aligning stakeholders around priorities and trade-offs. 

  • Partner closely with internal teams to deliver best-in-class execution. This includes: 

    a) Brand & Creative 

    b) Product Development 

    c) DTC and other channels 

    d) Supply Chain & Operations 

    d) Finance 

Data, Technology & Scale Enablement 

  • Ensure best-in-class data infrastructure, reporting and insight generation to support decision-making  

  • Drive adoption of automation, tooling and AI-driven solutions to scale performance and efficiency  

  • Build scalable, repeatable systems across trading, marketing, and optimisation  

About You

  • Extensive experience leading marketplace eCommerce, with deep expertise in Amazon and exposure to multiple platforms (e.g. Walmart, regional marketplaces) 

  • Proven track record of owning and scaling multi-marketplace P&L performance at scale 

  • Exceptional strategic and commercial mindset, with the ability to balance growth, efficiency, and foresight for long-term value creation 

  • Experience building and leading high-performing, cross-functional teams 

  • Highly analytical, with the ability to translate complex data into clear strategic decisions 

  • Strong executive presence, with experience influencing senior stakeholders and driving alignment 

  • Experience launching and scaling new marketplaces, categories, or geographies 

  • Structured, pragmatic, and execution-oriented, with a bias for action 

  • Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, high-growth environment with evolving priorities 

Perks & Benefits

  • 30 days holiday: + 8 UK bank holidays 

  • Pension contribution Scheme: 5% from you, 3% from us. 

  • Private Medical Insurance: Includes travel, vision & dental (through Vitality) 

  • Work from Abroad: One month per year, anywhere in the world* 

  • Bonus Scheme: Discretionary bonus, based on individual and company performance 

  • Mental Health Support: Free, confidential therapy via Spill 

  • Opportunity for International Travel: Our team members have been to New York, Vegas, Amsterdam… and Birmingham! 

  • Flexi-Fridays: Finish early one Friday per month 

  • Olstar Events: Quarterly meetups, celebrations & socials 

  • Vibrant Office: Runway East, Bloomsbury 

Olsam is proud to be a disability-committed employer registered in the UK. If you identify as having a disability and meet all of the criteria set out in the job description, we would like to support you through the interview stage. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive work environment where all employees and applicants can flourish.

Note: By submitting your application to join our talent pool, you consent to the collection and processing of your personal data in accordance with our privacy policy.

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