Fat Face’s Global Ops Director on the challenges of trading in a pandemic

Wright was recorded in conversation with Good Growth’s Dan Kendall towards the end of 2020 as part of a new series of The Good Growth podcast.
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Mark Wright began his retail career in store management before moving into ecommerce as Head of Trading at Marks & Spencer. After a stint at Jack Wills, he is now Global Ops Director at Fat Face, a role which his colleagues jokingly inform him can be abbreviated to retail GOD.
With Fat Face’s 200+ UK stores closed for large parts of 2020, Wright discusses how the brand tried to adapt, finding ways to resonate with customers and for office staff to remain efficient when working remotely.
Listen to the full conversation below, to hear Wright’s five rules of leadership, and more on how Fat Face has tackled the market in the US.
The retail veteran also shares his passion for multichannel selling and combining “good old gut instinct”, which he argues “still has a very important place, and has done throughout [2020]”, alongside “a more data-driven, analytic approach.”
In the episode, Wright discusses consumer trends across the year, including searches for Christmas items “much earlier than we would’ve ordinarily have seen”, a “step up in loungewear” sales, and more investment in clothes for the top halves of bodies, doubtless influenced by the rise of Zoom.