Store Design & Project Manager

Mission Brief: Store Design & Project Management — Building the Physical Face of Lenskart, Globally

This is a builder's role, plain and simple: you will be responsible for making sure every new Lenskart store — and every refreshed one, in every market — gets built on time, on budget, and true to what the brand is supposed to look and feel like. Where Visual Merchandising owns how a store presents once it's open, you own how it gets built in the first place: the design standards, the construction and fit-out execution, and the project discipline that lets Lenskart open stores at a pace almost no other retailer can match — across five continents at once.

Lenskart operates 2,500+ stores across India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Japan, and the US, and it's not slowing down. Every one of those stores had to be designed, budgeted, fitted out, and opened on a deadline — and as the network keeps expanding into new cities and new countries, the difference between a well-run global store rollout function and a chaotic one shows up directly in cost, speed, and brand consistency.

This role is based in Thailand and owns store design and project management strategy across every Lenskart market globally.

🔑 Core Mandate

1. Global Store Design & Prototype Development

• Own and evolve Lenskart's store design standards — layout, fixtures, materials, eye-testing room configuration, signage, lighting — balancing brand aesthetics with retail functionality and cost, for every market Lenskart operates in.
• Develop and maintain prototype store formats for different footprints (flagship, mall, high street, shop-in-shop) that can flex across markets without losing brand coherence.
• Partner with Visual Merchandising and Brand to make sure the physical shell a store is built on can actually deliver the in-store experience VM designs for it.

2. Global Rollout & Project Delivery

• Own end-to-end project management for new store openings and store refreshes/rebuilds globally — from site handover through design sign-off, construction, fit-out, and launch-ready handover to Retail Operations.
• Build and manage rollout timelines and critical paths across dozens of simultaneous projects in different countries, catching delays before they cascade.
• Set the standard operating rhythm — templates, checklists, milestone gates — that makes store openings repeatable and predictable rather than reinvented each time.

3. Cost, Vendor & Contractor Management

• Own capex budgeting and cost control for store builds and refreshes across markets, and be accountable for cost-per-store and variance against plan.
• Build and manage a global network of architects, contractors, fit-out vendors, and fixture suppliers — including local vendor relationships in each new market Lenskart enters.
• Negotiate and manage vendor contracts, balancing cost, quality, and speed, and build playbooks so new markets don't start vendor relationships from zero.

4. Multi-Country Execution & Localization

• Develop a "global standard, local execution" model — construction codes, material availability, labor markets, and store formats vary enormously between India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Japan, and the US, and you get that intuitively.
• Build regional project management capability (local PMs or trusted general contractors) so execution quality and timelines don't depend on constant HQ oversight.
• Navigate local regulatory, permitting, and compliance requirements market by market, building relationships with local authorities and consultants where needed.

5. Digital & AI-Enabled Project Management

• Build a project tracking system that gives real-time visibility into every store's status globally design sign-off, construction progress, budget burn, and launch readiness not monthly retrospectives.
• Explore AI and digital tools to speed up design iteration (rendering, space planning) and to flag project risks (cost overruns, timeline slippage) before they become expensive.
• Own the tech stack connecting design, procurement, and project tracking into a single source of truth across all markets.

6. Team & Capability Building

• Build and lead a global store design and project management function, plus a network of regional project managers and trusted local execution partners.
• Create standards, training, and documentation so store rollout quality doesn't depend on any one person being in the room.
• Build the internal case for design and capex decisions backed by cost-per-store, speed-to-open, and quality data, not just design preference.

The Essentials

• Experience: 8+ years in retail store design, construction project management, or store development, with at least 3–4 years in a senior/lead capacity managing multi-market or multi-site rollout.
• Scale Experience: You've managed store design and construction for a large, fast-growing retail network dozens or hundreds of stores a year, not a handful of one-off builds. You understand the operational discipline that scale demands.
• Multi-Country Track Record: You've delivered store projects across at least 2–3 international markets and understand how construction codes, vendor markets, and timelines shift by geography.
• Commercial & Budget Fluency: You own capex numbers as rigorously as you own design quality cost-per-store, budget variance, and ROI on fit-out decisions are second nature to you.
• Education: Bachelor's or Master's in Architecture, Interior Design, Construction Management, Civil Engineering, or a related field or equivalent exceptional experience.

The Mindset

• Builder, Not Just Designer: You care as much about the Gantt chart and the vendor contract as you do about the floor plan a beautiful design that opens three months late isn't a win.
• Global Fluency, Local Judgment: You know a construction approach that works in Bengaluru won't necessarily work in Bangkok or Dubai, and you build playbooks that flex accordingly.
• Relentlessly Organized: You thrive on running dozens of parallel projects across time zones without dropping a ball, and you build systems so nothing depends on your memory.
• Commercially Minded: You see every design and vendor decision through a cost-per-store and speed-to-open lens, not just an aesthetic one.
• Founder-Friendly: Comfortable moving fast, working with imperfect information, and making capex and timeline calls under real-world constraints.