Work at Rapha

As a result of exceptional sales growth in the last 12 months, Rapha is looking to hire full time staff for a number of exciting positions.

Available positions:

• Head of Technology
• Head of Sales and Marketing: Asia-Pacific
• Logistics Manager
• Global Customer Relationship Manager
• Management Accountant
• Financial Accountant
• HR Manager
• Customer Service Advisor
• Front End Developer
• Junior Web Designer
• Marketing Internship

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Head of Technology

Location - London

Rapha is growing internationally, it is a true global brand and business. We have customers and staff all over the world. Being able to service and support them is crucial to our continued success. We have a business strategy that has created a unique customer experience via our website, retail network (Rapha Cycle Clubs) and our wholesale business.

As the complexity and reach of our business expands, so too does the need to align our IT strategy with our business objectives. We have invested in our technical infrastructure using the Hybris platform to give us connectivity to our customers via the web, mobile, point of sale, TV etc.

We have a clear vision for our business – we need someone to draw up and own our IT roadmap.

This exciting, newly created role will report directly to our COO and you will be a pivotal member of our management team. You will provide the strategy and direction for our global expansion programme. We need someone with the intellectual capability to design our technology strategy and then the personal, leadership, commercial and managerial qualities and experience to implement it and make it happen.

You will need to show us the following experience, skills and aptitudes:

• Extensive knowledge and experience of business and enterprise systems in a B2C e-commerce environment.
• Extensive knowledge of design and architecture principles and practice.
• Extensive experience of selecting and managing 3rd party suppliers.
• Full system development lifecycle experience.
• Experience of application development concepts and languages.
• Proven analytical, evaluative, and problem solving abilities.
• Detailed knowledge of new innovation in web based architectures.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong leadership and managerial skills.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Ability to present ideas in business-friendly and user-friendly language.
• Highly self-motivated and directed with a keen attention to detail.
• Exceptional customer service orientation.
• Extensive experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment.
• An active interest in cycling would be an added bonus.

Still interested? Please apply to careers@rapha.cc

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Head of Sales and Marketing: Asia-Pacific

Rapha has been present in the Asia Pacific region for over 5 years, starting with operations in Japan. Investment in the Australian market followed three years ago and for the last 12 months local marketing activity has started in Taiwan, Korea and SE Asian markets. Rapha has a head of sales and marketing and marketing team in Japan, plus marketing managers in Australia and Singapore.

The cycling market is growing rapidly in Asian markets and Rapha is expanding quickly. To manage this growth and drive the business further in the region, the company is now looking to appoint a Head of Sales and Marketing for the entire Asia Pacific region.

The role

The Head of Sales and Marketing for Asia Pacific will lead and coordinate all sales and marketing activity and drive business growth in the region.

We have ambitious growth plans for Rapha and believe that Asia Pacific sales can increase as a proportion of total sales as the overall business grows in the next few years. For this to happen we need to bolster the strategic and commercial management of Rapha operations in the region, pulling the team together under an experienced regional head who can drive brand awareness and customer acquisition and retention.

The Asia Pac Head will report to the Chief Executive and CMO and is likely to be based in a new Rapha office in Hong Kong or Singapore.

Responsibilities

• Local customer insight and marketing planning.
• Asia Pacific Marketing communications planning and execution.
• Plan and drive regional expansion (especially in Taiwan, Korea and China).
• Drive and manage regional sales.
• Leading and coordinating the regional team (Australia, Japan, SE Asia, etc).
• Marketing measurement and weekly and monthly reporting to London.

Core competencies

• Understanding of and affinity for the Rapha brand and business model.
• Excellent grasp of leading edge marketing practices.
• Appreciation of luxury, quality and the high end consumer.
• Strong understanding of road cycling and road racing.
• Excellent marketing and communications management skills across the marketing mix.
• Excellent knowledge of Asia Pacific markets and Asian cyclists / cycling.
• Market entry Planning skills.
• Creativity to follow the Rapha approach and step outside established industry conventions.
• Ability to conceive and manage activities and campaigns that are based on story telling.
• Energy, determination and ambition.
• Self sufficient and able to build local infrastructure / office and systems as needed.
• A leader, with vision and understanding of strategic marketing issues.
• Team building and people management skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively with customers and employees and to inspire and motivate them.
• A planning mentality with proven ability to manage projects effectively.

Experience

The ideal candidate for the role will have spent at least ten years working in a senior marketing or communications role, either client or agency side. The candidate will have considerable experience in Asia Pacific markets and be used to considerable travel.

The candidate is more likely to come from an active-sports, luxury or fashion background than have deep experience in the cycling industry.

The ideal candidate will already be an active road cyclist and have empathy for core Rapha customers.

A competitive salary and benefits package is offered. To apply for this position please send your CV, in confidence, to: careers@rapha.cc

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Logistics Manager

Location - London

Rapha is a luxury road cycling apparel brand. We sell our products through our website as well as through our Rapha Cycle Clubs and we have created a new range in partnership with Team SKY. The business continues to experience rapid growth and expansion. This newly created Logistics Manager role will be critical to our continued success and growth.

The Role

Reporting directly to the Supply Chain Director, and working closely with the production, customer service and merchandising teams, this role will manage all aspects of a third party warehousing and dispatch operation based in the UK and the US. The role will be responsible for all delivery of orders from the warehouses to customers via our global network. It will also involve the design, development and implementation of new overseas logistics hubs, to underpin our global expansion programme.

• Build the outbound logistics strategy – including global network design and aligning them with businesses requirements.
• Step change Rapha’s outbound logistics capability based on leading methodology.
• Risk assess the outbound supply chain and devise mitigation plans to secure deliveries.
• Improve 3PL supplier flexibility and responsiveness to underpin Rapha’s product and growth plans.
• Negotiate with carriers and implement new carrier services to suit out international and premium shipping offer.
• Troubleshoot delivery issues linking closely with the customer service team.
• Work with the merchandising team on seasonal stock planning.
• Set, manage and report 3PL KPIs.
• Ensure Rapha are always tax and duty compliant.
• Field customer related order queries related to parcel delivery.
• Map worldwide duties/freight costs and devise ways to make them cost efficient for customers.
• Review packaging formats and make improvements as appropriate.

Candidate Profile

• At least 5 years logistics expertise, ideally in managing some aspect of warehouse/ dispatch/ shipping operations of an eCommerce B2C business.
• Understanding of duties and taxes.
• Knowledgeable about global parcel carrier companies.
• Trained in logistics best practice.
• Experience in creating and delivering robust network design strategies.
• Adept at running and using logistics processes, tools, techniques and systems.
• Seasoned trouble-shooter with excellent judgement in manoeuvring through challenging situations.
• Commercially astute and savvy.
• Flexible in switching between big picture and detail, planned and reactive strategy.
• Strong communication skills.
• Dynamic, resilient and very sharp.
• Experience of the garment trade is beneficial but not a must.
• Ideally already a road cyclist, or have a love of active sports.

For further information please apply in confidence to careers@rapha.cc

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Global Customer Relationship Manager

Rapha is growing internationally, it is a true global brand and business with customers all over the world. Being able to service and support them is crucial to our continued success. We have a business strategy that has created a unique customer experience via our website, retail network (Rapha Cycle Clubs) and our wholesale business. We have reached a position in our growth to appoint a Global Customer Relations Manager to lead and manage the global customer service function and ensure it meets world class best practice service levels.

Responsibilities:

• Advise on best practice methods of communication including new methods, e.g. social platforms, live chat.
• Coordinate international customer service teams to ensure a consistent customer experience of communication, returns and repairs process and shipping service levels, considering geography, time, and language differences.
• Ensure the customer experience is consistent across non-web sales channels such as physical retail stores.
• Provide reports to the business including regular customer feedback to the Product and Marketing teams and monthly statistics on productivity and adherence to service levels.
• Ensure efficiency of the international teams through staff training, preparation of guidance manuals and implementation of performance metrics.
• Coach, develop and train staff to ensure a single tone of voice and appropriate Rapha product and general cycling knowledge.

Skills and qualifications will ideally include:

• Experience of best practice customer service operations gained in a truly global operating environment.
• The ability to identify and initiate process improvement using the latest technology and innovations.
• Education to degree level and experience in the retail, distribution or logistics industries.
• An experienced customer service professional with a clear understanding and commitment to the importance of customer service, ideally in an online, multi channel retail business.
• Significant experience of a leading edge OMS, Warehouse Integration and Inventory Tracking systems and processes.
• Critical analysis/decision making ability.
• High level of self-motivation with a positive, solution focused attitude.
• Strong people management skills with a passion for learning and development.
• A passion for operations management and be process improvement.
• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to influence and motivate across a global organization and throughout multiple departments.
• Proven management experience in a front line customer service team.
• A genuine appreciation of the impact of world class customer service, and the desire to deliver at an industry-best standard.
• Passion for cycling.
• Knowledge of technical, performance, or luxury products.

Could this be you? If so then please apply in confidence to careers@rapha.cc

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Management Accountant

Background

Rapha is continually growing its business internationally and across multiple retail channels. With rapid growth in the business we are looking to hire a skilled and experienced management accountant to add value to the monthly reporting process and assist in driving the development of key reporting to senior management.

Role

The management accountant role will include producing monthly management accounts, preparing key analysis and reporting to heads of departments. Additionally the role will include controlling the processing of sales invoices and receipts, as well as maintaining the sales ledger. As Rapha continues to grow an important aspect of the role will be in assisting in the development of key financial reporting to senior management. Accordingly we are looking to recruit a skilled management accountant with experience in international, multi-channel financial analysis.

Responsibilities

• Work with the Financial Accountant to produce the monthly management accounts.
• To effectively report actual spend against budget and analyse variances.
• To develop and report KPI’s.
• To consolidate the regional and company accounts into group format.
• To reconcile all monthly prepayments and accruals.
• Ensure that all sales invoices are accurately and efficiently processed.
• Ensure the accurate and timely processing of all receipts.
• Ensure that all Debtor accounts are kept up to date and reconciled monthly.
• Assist in the annual and monthly reforecasting.
• Assist in developing new internal reporting Heads of departments.

Skills and experience

• Qualified or finalist CIMA accountant with a minimum of 4 years of experience in a management accounting role.
• Attention to detail with a good sense of commerciality and an analytical mind.
• Strong excel and presentation skills.
• Strong organisation and communication skills.
• Ability to communicate financial information to non-financial audiences.
• Preferably experience in an international, multi-channel retail business.
• An interest in cycling and the business culture is an advantage.

A competitive salary and benefits package is offered. To apply for this position please send your CV, in confidence, to simon.hare@rapha.cc

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Financial Accountant

Location: London

Role

The Financial Accountant will report directly to the Finance Manager and will involve day to day management of two junior members of staff. The role will consist of managing the daily processing of financial information, payments to suppliers, controlling the financial ledgers and monthly reconciliation of accounts.

Responsibilities

• Managing the financial accounts team
• Maintaining sales and purchase ledgers, overseeing payment to suppliers
• Preparing month end reconciliations, accruals and prepayments
• Ensuring the accurate costing of stock and reconciliation of stock accounts
• UK and EU VAT returns
• Managing financial relationships with suppliers
• Supporting finance manager with annual consolidation of financial accounts
• Seek to identify and implement improvement to controls and processes

Skills and experience

• Qualified Accountant (preferably ACCA)
• Experience in an international retail business with exposure to group accounting would be advantageous
• Previous experience in managing a team of accountants
• Strong organisation and communication skills
• Must have good attention to detail and strong excel skills
• Keen road cyclist would be ideal

A competitive salary and benefits package is offered. To apply for this position please send your CV, in confidence, to simon.hare@rapha.cc

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HR Manager

Location: London

Salary - competitive plus benefits

As Rapha expands both in the UK and abroad we are continually looking for new skills and expertise. We are recruiting for an experienced HR Manager to hire the best new people and to help our employees deliver to their full potential. This is a new position reporting to the COO. The individual will be skilled at the full range of HR disciplines including organisational design, resource planning, recruitment, induction, talent management, learning & development, reward & benefits and succession planning.

Role

• Develop the HR strategy with the leadership team.
• Lead organisation design and implement a robust resourcing process.
• Run recruitment, finding excellent candidates quickly and cost effectively.
• Upgrade the induction process for new starters to ensure smooth on-boarding.
• Facilitate a fair and efficient appraisals process and ensure clear personal objectives are set.
• Set up a learning and development programme and run inspiring training modules.
• In time, set up coaching for The Leadership Team and Senior Managers.
• Upgrade succession planning to ensure our talent is nurtured and kept in the business.
• Review and upgrade the benefits package.
• Create a staff handbook for relevant HR information.
• Step change internal communication to employees.
• Manage staff records and payroll and oversee the staff budget.
• Advise the business on relevant employment law and best practice.
• Step change working efficiency as Rapha renovates their offices.

Candidate

• 7+ years post graduate experience in a leading edge Human Resources environment.
• Skilled in each of the HR disciplines especially talent management and learning & development.
• The ability to flex between thinking strategically and acting hands-on.
• Confident, inspiring and proactive with the ability to influence at board level.
• Articulate with excellent writing skills and an eye for detail.
• Exceptionally well-organised with good communication skills.
• Experience of working in a similar high growth business would be beneficial.
• Understanding of international employment law.
• A CIPD is useful but not essential.
• An interest in cycling be a significant advantage.

To apply for this position please send your CV, in confidence, to: careers@rapha.cc

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Customer Service Advisor

Location: London

Rapha has an excellent reputation for the highest standards of customer service. Our customers have grown to expect and demand a highly personalised “high touch” customer experience, whenever they interface with the customer service team on matters of product advice, returns and general enquiries. We are looking to grow the team and increase our language capability to respond to our growing European and international customer base.

• Salary: Competitive salary and benefits package, TBC
• Position: Full time

The Role

• Act as an initial point of contact and member of the CS Team while assisting with all customers.
• Maintain the Rapha ethos of providing exemplary customer service.
• Communicate with customers in a polite and professional manner.
• Provide timely communication with customers via email or phone, regarding returns, order processing, online registration and product enquiries.
• Identify cross-selling opportunities for related products or alternatives.
• Keep abreast of product characteristics, future stock deliveries, promotions and customer service policies.
• Maintain active use and knowledge of the Rapha website and back office systems.
• Liaise with the distribution, shipping and finance functions to resolve customer queries.
• Assist the distribution and shipping functions when required.
• Observe at all times customer confidentiality and company policy surrounding data protection and security.

The Candidate

• Written and spoken fluency in English is essential and other European languages are highly desirable (particularly French and German).
• A passion for cycling and ideally knowledge of cycling culture within Europe.
• Experience in delivering an excellent customer experience and resolving customer enquiries as a Customer Care Advisor, Sales Assistant or similar, ideally in an apparel retail environment.
• Ability to improve working processes in a fast growing company and develop ideas to improve the customer experience.
• Articulate with exceptional writing skills (including good spelling and grammar).
• Excellent eye for detail and organisational skills.
• Experience with Microsoft office applications.
• Previous experience of a back office web system or and content management system is desirable but not essential.
• Knowledge of Data Protection issues desirable but not essential.
• Ability to adapt to the changing structure of a growing company and team.
• Ability to manage time effectively with a diverse workload.

To apply for this position please send your CV, in confidence, to: careers@rapha.cc

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Front End Developer

Location: London

As a result of exceptional sales growth in the last 12 months, Rapha is looking to expand its team by moving its front end website development in-house. Based in the London Head office, this position will support Rapha’s wider Design and eCommerce functions, and be responsible for maintaining and enhancing the premium online shopping & content experience on the Rapha website.

The key tasks will include:

• Designing and producing standards-compliant hand-coded pages from wireframes, initial PSD mock-ups as well as original HTML designs.
• Effective prototyping of new page layouts to optimise the website user experience, minimise latency and maximise conversion.
• Optimising the website’s design for various browsers and devices, including mobile and tablet.
• Liaising with other departments to gather requirements for new projects and ensure these are fully understood.
• Providing a creative edge to the existing team to support ongoing enhancements to the Rapha site.
• Working alongside the Heads of Design and eCommerce to identify areas of improvement.
• Creating campaign specific landing pages to optimise the performance of PPC & media campaigns.
• Project managing their time effectively to deliver continual improvements on the Rapha site.
• Debugging and fixing defects in existing code where these are detected.

Key skills and experience required:

• A great eye for design and a thorough understanding of how to improve user experience, with strong attention to detail, and a rigorous approach to testing.
• Proficient in front end development with demonstrable commercial experience.
• Extensive experience in HTML, HTML5, CSS 3, JavaScript and JQuery and the ability to write high-performance code. Prior experience with Blueprint CSS and a variety of other CSS frameworks is desirable.
• Extensive experience with Photoshop, Creative Suite and Imagery production / resizing / encoding.
• Ability to fit page designs into an inheriting WCMS component model. Prior work on the Hybris platform is an advantage.
• Proven experience in mobile site development and optimisation, as well as testing with mobile browsers.
• Creating responsive designs and using media queries to request appropriate images and media.
• Experience with international site development an advantage - notably using different character sets like Chinese and Japanese.
• Ability to rapidly-prototype, iterate and comfortably work with agile processes and Git-based version control systems.
• Solid knowledge of distributed systems and deployments and their effect on performance and user experience.
• Basic back-end development skills (e.g. Java, PHP, MySQL, Ruby-on-Rails)
• Proven experience with A/B and multivariate user-testing.
• Experience with social networking and third-party API integrations.
• Prior eCommerce site development and experience of user testing is beneficial.
• Preferably the candidate will be an active road cyclist.

To apply for this position please send your CV, in confidence, to: careers@rapha.cc

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Junior Web Designer / Editor

Location – London

Junior Web Designer required for the world's leading luxury cycle brand at our offices in Kentish Town, North London. Full or part-time position (at least three days a week). Must be a cyclist. Must have great Photoshop skills. Imminent start.

Duties will be:

Assisting Rapha's two-man Web Team and the Rapha Marketing department with all web output:

• Preparing photo assets for new platform
• Helping maintain and organise photographic and graphic assets
• Creating web pages using existing bespoke CMS
• Creating HTML emails using Campaign Monitor
• Creating graphics for web in Rapha brand identity

Essential abilities and attributes:

• Great design sense: photographic eye and typographically adept
• Experience using web-based content management systems like Wordpress
• Experience using Campaign Monitor or similar email marketing software
• Photoshop black-belt
• Team-player with good communication skills
• Timely production with quality output
• Attention to detail

Desirable:

• Agency experience
• Experience using Textile markup
• Excel (MS Office)
• Illustrator
• Understanding of HTML
• Copy-writing skill or just excellent English
• Photography
• Knowledge of cycling market or keen cyclist
• Interest in road racing
• Experience in luxury markets/ retail

Please send your CV, website or examples of your work to careers@rapha.cc

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Marketing Internship

Rapha currently has a 6-12 month placement available for an intern in the marketing department at our London office, starting in May. You will gain first hand experience of many of our marketing and communications projects, including managing events, graphic design and website design. In addition there will be some specific projects to undertake such as the following:

Organising the seasonal photo shoot – Each season a team of riders and staff travels abroad to shoot new season clothing. All aspects of the trip have to be project managed within the constraints of the budget, including accommodation, flights, vehicle hire, riders (our models), sample clothing, and all other elements.

Adaptations – Co-ordinating and managing the process of translation across the Rapha website and literature. The company is global and currently translates website and printed content into a number of different languages. The Project Manager liaises with and co-ordinates everyone involved: copywriters, the translation agency, proof readers, implementation team, web and design teams.

You will gain experience through the following tasks:

• Developing practical solutions to marketing goals
• Be involved in the planning of projects and events
• Assisting in coordination and execution of events, design projects and daily tasks

Essential skills & requirements

• A passion for road cycling
• Hard working, driven and proven to be able to work to deadlines
• Likely to be studying or recently graduated in marketing, management or communications
• Knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel is essential
• Ability to take initiative and follow through on tasks
• Must be reliable with excellent organisational skills
• Strong attention to detail
• Strong spoken and written English language
• A level of fluency in another European Language would be an advantage but not essential.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

The position will be competitively remunerated.

To apply please send us your CV and a covering letter explaining why you feel you are suited to Rapha and this internship. These should be emailed to careers@rapha.cc