The Role

This is a unique and dynamic opportunity for a seasoned Trading Director to define, implement and execute TalkTalk’s Trading customer retention and overarching net growth strategy. As a critical leadership role, you will be responsible for driving TalkTalk’s commercial success across existing customers. Your focus will be on maximising revenue, profit and market share through strategic customer retention, both proactive and reactive. Leveraging a blend of strategic foresight, data-driven decision-making and people leadership, you will work closely with commercial, product and propositions, marketing, insights, operations and finance teams to deliver an integrated trading strategy that optimises customer lifetime value and volume. Additionally, you will be responsible for the operational readiness and performance of Better Value, Retention and Winback, managed via our third parties. Building a partnership with suppliers, managing QBRs, and improving operational KPIs will be key to your success. You will also be accountable for the overarching TalkTalk net growth area who bring together Sales and Churn to create our Trading narrative, proactively managing risk and opportunities across both volume and value. This will also include being responsible for the overall cost out initiatives within Sales and Marketing, working cross-functionally with peers to ensure we exceed or at least achieve our ambition. Finally you will be have accountability of a Supplier Trading, which will put you at the heart of ensuring we meet supplier commitments and have wholistic plans to achieve our plans (for example leading Alt net trading strategy).

Reporting to the Sales and Marketing Director for TalkTalk, as Base and Net Growth Trading Director, you will manage a team responsible for the day-to-day trading cadence, insights and strategic actions to drive both volume and value growth. Additionally, you will take ownership of the long-term strategic roadmap (18 months) ensuring sustainable growth and market competitiveness.

The Successful Applicant will:

• Entrepreneurial, challenger mindset to identify and create value

• Able to influence at C-Suite and Board level

• Be customer and data driven

• Be tenacious and resilient

• Be a great stakeholder manager

• Think strategically

• Team player

It would be preferable if the successful applicant also:

• Has experience of Trading ownership within a subscription business 

Accountabilities of the role

Trading Strategy and Performance

• Develop and execute a comprehensive Base and Net Growth trading strategy focused on existing customer management (churn, retention and winback) working in partnership with Commercial (who own the in-life area, upsell/cross-sell)

• Bring together the overarching Net Growth strategy working in partnership with our Sales Director to ensure we have an end to end customer strategy for TalkTalk Consumer

• Define and implement the commercial trading roadmap to achieve revenue and profit targets, ensuring alignment with our wider business objectives (Base and Net Growth)

• Lean in and own the interlock with our Product and Proposition leads to ensure the roadmap represents the best outcome for our base and overall net growth

• Lead pricing, promotional and discount strategies to drive customer growth and profitability within the Retention space, with broadband at the core offering while ensuring our value added services meet their financial targets

• Continuously monitor and analyse trading performance, identifying areas for improvement and implementing strategies to maximise opportunities

• Lead our weekly and monthly Trading performance reviews with the Executive Committee, including CEO of TalkTalk Consumer

• Ensure a balanced approach between short-term trading wins and long-term sustainable growth

Customer Retention

• Create a customer retention strategy that the business can fully get behind and that can turn the tide on churn rates across the next 6-18 months

• Manage customer product/package movements as part of the retention journey and channel mix for existing customer to ensure optimal EBITDA growth

• Collaborate with marketing to design and create campaigns that retain customers which align to our business customer segments

• Develop robust customer retention strategies aimed at reducing churn through enhanced customer experience (within remit) and delivering competitive pricing strategies that allow us to stand out in a very competitive landscape

• Leverage data and customer insights to continually retention approaches

Market and Competitor Analysis

• Take an insight (consumer and market) led approach across your remit, which is underpinned by data

• Partner with the insights team to conduct market analysis to understand customer behaviours, competitor activity and industry trends that then influence our activities

• Utilise market insights to adjust trading strategies and sustain competitive advantage

• Maintain comprehensive understanding of the telecoms regulatory environment and ensure trading strategies comply with relevant legislation (working with our legal and compliance teams)

Commercial Planning and Forecasting

• Develop sophisticated and robust forecasting models to predict how sales turn in to installs, how our customer migrations move over successfully and how our churn pipeline manifests into customer churn. Use these models to inform the trading plan whilst also managing the areas of opportunity to drive further net add growth

• Own and manage the Trading P&L, ensuring profitability and alignment with our business financial objectives

• Identify and manage in quarter risk and opportunities within the trading environment, communicating clearly the balance between the two to the Executive Committee

• Colloborate with our Commercial and Finance teams to forecast sales and churn quarterly plans, including forecasting sales volumes, mix, ARPU, churn volumes and winback

Operational Management

• Own the supplier strategy, in conjunction with our Sales Director, ensuring we are constantly reviewing the best partners to do business with

• Drive the strategic direction, development and performance of our retention channels

• Focus on channel performance to maximise revenue and enhancing customer retention whilst ensuring consistent customer experiences across all touchpoint

• Manage the costs of all channels together with ensuring we meet or exceed our channel KPIs across suppliers

• Lead quality Monthly and Quarterly Business Reviews, you will create a partnership relationship (not customer/client) to bring out the best performance

Net growth management

• Although not directly responsible for Sales, we require this Director role to take a lead on owning the net growth position and narrative for our business

• This will require quality cross functional working with our Sales Director and Marketing Director to ensure that the we are clear on what our priorities are

• Own our monthly EXCO Trading performance reviews where we take stock of our previous four weeks trading together with the looking forward and owning the narrative on our forward facing plans

• Own our weekly trading cadence and pack to ensure we are mitigating any risk on volume or value

• Own the interlock with the product and proposition team, influencing roadmap priorities to ensure it reflects the best prioritisation for our trading roadmap

Leadership and Team Management

• Lead a cross-functional team base strategy, base operations, net growth and supplier trading

• Develop and mentor team members, fostering a performance driven and innovative trading culture focused on achieving trading objectives

• Set clear performance objectives, conducting regular reviews to ensure targets are achieved or exceeded

• Work collaboratively with senior leadership to influence and shape companywide strategic decisions

Supplier Trading management

• Be at the heart of us achieving our MGS/incentives offered via suppliers by ensuring we have the trading plans in place to achieve our targets

• Lead supplier programmes that are integral to our business that sit across both Sales and Base management e.g. Owning the City Fibre Task Force, bringing together all the various areas (including marketing, commercial, data, cs, finance, sales, base) to create a rolling 12 month strategy

• Manage the risks and opportunities, both volumetrically and financially to enable the business to meet its targets

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• We’re seeking a high calibre individual with strong commercial acumen and trading ability, and excellent analytical and numeracy skills to support solid trading decision making for TalkTalk

• Deep understanding of a subscriptions business including trends, customer behaviour and competitive landscape

• We require a proven track record of delivering commercial or trading success in both new and existing customer segments

• They will have the ability to build multi-level relationships across TalkTalk and the gravitas to command respect when presenting to Senior management

• Excellent stakeholder management, clear and concise communication and working with other TalkTalk functions to ensure cross-functional success is key

• They will have the ability and personal skills to enable visualisation of an opportunity and communicate to stakeholders and contributors; this includes the ability to create business plans and models for C-suite review and evaluation

• The successful individual will be a proven agent of change, able to organise, coordinate and deliver in complexity. They will have a strong background in delivery and implementation of complex opportunities

• They will be capable of bringing ideas, being disruptive and having a degree of pace and urgency

As a recognised Top 50 Inclusive Employer in the UK, we know that diversity means success and innovation. We want our workplace to reflect the communities and customer we serve. Being inclusive is part of our DNA; we are all 100% human, and we create a culture where you can truly be yourself.

We’re also not your usual 9-5. We are a dynamic workplace and we want to talk to you about how you like to work.