- Location
- Lugano Ticino Switzerland
- Employment
- Full-Time
- Seniority
- Manager
- Department
- Retail & Boutique Operations
- Industry
- Fashion, Apparel & Leather Goods
- Posted
- Oct 19, 2026
About Hermès
This prestigious fashion house, renowned for its timeless elegance and innovative designs, is a part of a leading global luxury conglomerate. The brand is committed to excellence and offers a dynamic environment where creativity and business acumen are equally valued.
Hermès seeks a Department Manager in Lugano to lead team development, departmental sales and client experience, while supporting store operations and visual merchandising. The role is a full-time, permanent position.
Role & Responsibilities
- Plan daily activities, set objectives and assign tasks to the team.
- Observe the team on the sales floor and provide ongoing feedback and coaching to support individual development.
- Participate in recruitment with the leadership team, in line with the HR strategy.
- Induct new team members and ensure their integration into the team.
- Set personal development objectives, expectations and targets for team members, and coach them on areas for improvement.
- Conduct annual performance appraisals to support team members' development and discuss their career ambitions.
- Propose people-development plans to store management and HR.
- Identify training needs and share them with store management and the training manager.
- Drive sales goal achievement through the team, with specific accountability for the assigned departments.
- Develop business strategies and action plans to grow the departments.
- Foster a client-centric culture, supporting client discovery, loyalty-building and the sharing of clienteling best practices.
- Support the store team with complex sales and complaint management.
- Plan morning briefings, ensure all team members participate and support their preparation.
- Coach team members to improve data accuracy and client reachability, monitoring data quality in line with privacy and company guidelines.
- Contribute to business development by proposing commercial actions based on product knowledge, market trends, customer feedback and best practices, and monitor business performance indicators.
- Develop action plans to meet targets based on performance-indicator analysis.
- Support buying for the assigned departments by proposing strategies to the manager based on past performance, observation, client feedback and market trends.
- Support store management with organization, sales-floor coverage and supervision.
- Collaborate with the operations team and store management to improve end-to-end in-store processes.
- Encourage ongoing collaboration between department managers and visual merchandising, proposing ideas to enhance the in-store experience.
Qualifications
- At least 5 years of relevant experience in high-end fashion, the luxury industry or a similar capacity.
- Perfect command of Italian and a very good level of English; French or a third language is an advantage.
- Strong management career, preferably with international and luxury fashion retail experience.
- Exemplary application of procedures, attitude and presentation.
- A confident, charismatic presence on the sales floor and with diverse stakeholders.
- Resilience and strong organizational skills.
- Excellent leadership and the ability to lead and motivate a team.
- Professionalism, enthusiasm and humility.
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with a customer-service orientation.
- Team-player mentality, ability to build meaningful relationships and capacity to work autonomously.
- Availability, flexibility and dynamism to operate in a fast-paced environment.
- Commitment to a people-centric retail project, with a vocation for human values, passion and a strong aesthetic sense.
Skills
Experience
At least 5 years of relevant experience in high-end fashion, the luxury industry or a similar capacity; the requisition specifies a minimum of 6 years.
Workplace
The successful candidate will be located in Lugano, Ticino, Switzerland.
Explore jobs in Ticino or in Switzerland.
Culture
The company fosters a collaborative and innovative culture, encouraging employees to push the boundaries of creativity while maintaining a strong commitment to sustainability and ethical practices.
About Cerulean
Cerulean is the definitive career portal for the global luxury industry. We match exceptional professionals with exclusive opportunities at the world's most prestigious brands. From haute couture and fine watchmaking to prestige beauty, hospitality, and boutique retail, Cerulean centralises luxury employment to help you find the career for which you were destined.
Frequently Asked Questions
The luxury industry is characterised by a diverse and nuanced nomenclature. Esteemed houses frequently employ proprietary terminology, and even within a single organisation like Hermès, titles may vary across global markets to reflect local conventions. To ensure absolute clarity, Cerulean assigns a standardised, industry-coherent canonical title to every listing. However, it is worth noting that this role is functionally synonymous with «Department Supervisor», «Retail Department Lead», «Sales Department Manager», «Department Team Manager», and other variations. Our sophisticated search architecture anticipates these variations, ensuring that inquiries using related terms will seamlessly yield the exact roles you desire.