About Stussy

In the late ’80s and early ’90s, a brand was born from the Southern California surf scene and swept through the clothing landscape to redefine the look and ideology of casualwear. That brand was Stüssy, a label that grew organically from youth movements and inadvertently revolutionized the clothing business.

Shawn Stüssy was a surfer who used to shape his own boards for friends and locals in Laguna Beach, California. Stüssy began screening t-shirts and shorts to sell along with the surfboards as a form of promotion; his surname written in a graffiti-influenced hand style was to become the company logo. Stüssy inadvertently fell into the clothing business through his deep-rooted love of surfing, and in a few short years, people were talking within the small, insular world of surf and skateboarding in the late ‘80s. Shawn set up small showrooms in New York and California and hit the road, showing his designs to stores he respected. The brand grew during a time when epochal shifts that now frame contemporary popular culture were taking place. In the music scene the late ’70s gave us punk, while the early ’80s brought us a new DIY type of music called rap. Punk broke creative and aesthetic barriers and taught us that anyone could have a band. Rap pushed social boundaries and explored the ideas of remixing and sampling. These new ideas and territories created a new modern platform for fashion and cultural expression. The designs and overall aesthetic touched on references from a range of underground subcultures that resonated with Stüssy. This approach appealed to a worldwide network of creative youth who shared a common interest in surf-culture, skating and music. Limited distribution fuelled the desire internationally, and those who wanted the gear found it and felt a part of something bigger in the process.

With Stüssy’s success came the opportunity to travel and spread the Stüssy vibe. The clothing was inspired by an international group of musicians, skaters, DJs and artists with similar tastes; trendsetters in New York, London, Tokyo and other areas of the world were eager to get aboard this movement inspired by a network of like-minded individuals. This group of friends later became the “International Stüssy Tribe” with chapters in New York, Tokyo, London, Berlin and Los Angeles. With a strong network of tribe members wearing the brand in clubs and on the scene across the globe, the Stüssy message spread organically. The brand was committed to producing relevant, good quality clothing at a reasonable price available only at very select stores worldwide in limited quantities. This was an entirely new concept at the time, which has since been used to varying degrees of success.

About the Role

Stussy, Inc. is seeking an experienced operations leader to own the strategy, execution, and team leadership across global fulfillment, order management, inventory flow, logistics, retail back-of-house operations, and our global third-party logistics network. This is a highly cross-functional role for a global apparel brand that sells primarily through its own retail stores and ecommerce, with additional managed-partner and wholesale channels.

The Vice President, Global Operations will be accountable for building a customer-first, scalable operating model that improves product availability, speed to market, service, inventory velocity, and total logistics cost. The ideal candidate has led operations for a vertically integrated, direct-to-consumer apparel or lifestyle brand and is equally comfortable setting strategy, building teams, solving cross-functional problems, and working hands-on in 3PLs and stores.

This is an in-office role based in downtown Los Angeles.

What You'll Own

Customer Experience, Product Availability & Speed to Market

• Use customer experience, product availability, and speed to market as core operating principles, balancing cost and productivity with service, launch readiness, and the ability to sell inventory when and where demand exists.
• Own end-to-end operational flow from product readiness through freight, customs, receiving, pickable inventory, fulfillment, and delivery to stores, ecommerce customers, and wholesale/partner channels.
• Establish and manage service metrics across the flow, including OTIF, dock-to-stock, receipt-to-pickable, fulfillment cycle time, order fill rate, and on-time delivery.
• Proactively identify and resolve exceptions that threaten launches, replenishment, product availability, or customer commitments.

Global Fulfillment, Order Management & 3PL Network Strategy

• Set strategy and drive execution across DTC ecommerce, retail store replenishment, managed partner, and wholesale order flows.
• Own order orchestration and routing logic to optimize service, speed, inventory utilization, shipment complexity, and total cost across a multi-channel network.
• Own the strategy, design, capacity model, and performance of the global 3PL network, including consistent SLAs, KPIs, governance, peak planning, and accountability across partners.
• Ensure 3PL labor, receiving, fulfillment, storage, and transportation capacity is ready for seasonal launches, peak periods, store openings, pop-ups, promotions, and unexpected demand.
• Partner with IT/ERP teams to ensure order management, fulfillment, inventory, and 3PL integrations scale with the business.

Inventory Flow, Availability & Execution

• Partner with Planning, Merchandising, and Commercial teams on inventory allocation strategy; Planning owns the inventory/allocation strategy, while Operations is accountable for translating that strategy into flawless physical and transactional execution.
• Ensure inventory reaches the right location, becomes available-to-sell quickly, and is positioned to support seasonal launches, replenishment, and customer demand.
• Reduce inventory dwell time, unpickable inventory, unnecessary handling and transfers, aged receiving backlogs, and stranded inventory across the global network.
• Own operational controls for inventory reservations, order commitments, transfer execution, fulfillment priorities, and exception resolution within ERP/OMS and warehouse workflows.
• Build visibility and accountability for inventory that is owned but not yet available to sell.

Inbound Logistics, Outbound Transportation & Trade

• Own end-to-end inbound logistics strategy, including ocean and air freight, customs, freight forwarding, receiving, and handoff into distribution centers and stores.
• Own outbound transportation strategy across parcel, LTL/FTL, final-mile, and international networks for DTC, retail distribution, and wholesale/partner shipments.
• Manage carrier, freight forwarder, customs broker, and transportation partner performance, contracts, rate negotiations, and service levels.
• Drive improvements in transit time, reliability, customs clearance, compliance, country-of-origin management, import/re-export processes, and duty efficiency.
• Optimize total logistics cost - including 3PL handling and storage, transportation, duties, transfers, expedites, and cost-to-serve - while balancing sales opportunity, margin, inventory carrying cost, and customer experience.

Retail Back-of-House Operations & Omnichannel Enablement

• Own the operating standards, processes, and tools for retail back-of-house operations across the store fleet, including receiving, stockroom management, inventory movement, replenishment, transfer execution, inventory accuracy, and shrink/loss-prevention coordination.
• Partner closely with Retail leadership, which owns customer-facing selling, traffic, and merchandise execution, to ensure back-of-house operations support the store experience without creating conflicting priorities.
• Own the operational design and execution standards for omnichannel capabilities such as ship-from-store and future store-enabled fulfillment, including inventory availability, order handoff, pick/pack processes, capacity, service levels, and exception handling.
• Build training, SOPs, and scalable tools that create consistent back-of-house execution across a growing global store footprint.

Operational Excellence, Capacity & Continuous Improvement

• Build a continuous-improvement culture focused on simplifying processes, eliminating unnecessary touches and handoffs, improving flow, and reducing operational waste.
• Use data, root-cause analysis, process redesign, automation, and system capabilities to improve speed, service, inventory velocity, quality, and total cost.
• Establish forward-looking capacity and risk management across 3PL labor, receiving, fulfillment, storage, and transportation.
• Develop contingency plans and operating playbooks for launches, volume spikes, supply chain disruptions, carrier failures, system issues, and other material exceptions.
• Drive scalable capability without automatically scaling organizational complexity or headcount.

Leadership & Cross-Functional Supply Chain Integration

• Build, lead, and develop a lean, agile, high-accountability operations organization capable of responding quickly to changing demand, launches, disruptions, and a dynamic global retail environment.
• Act as the connective operational leader across Planning, Production/Sourcing, Merchandising, Retail, ecommerce, Finance, and Technology to optimize the end-to-end supply chain rather than individual functions in isolation.
• Clarify decision rights, operating handoffs, service expectations, and accountability across internal teams and external partners.
• Represent Operations in ERP, OMS, WMS, planning, ecommerce, and systems initiatives, ensuring operating requirements are reflected in solution design, testing, cutover, and go-live readiness.
• Develop and report an executive KPI framework across service, product availability, inventory velocity, 3PL performance, capacity, quality, and total logistics cost.

What We're Looking For

• 10+ years of progressive operations leadership experience in apparel, footwear, or consumer lifestyle brands, including significant experience in a vertically integrated DTC, retail, and ecommerce environment.
• Demonstrated ownership of complex end-to-end operations spanning fulfillment, order management, inventory flow, global logistics, 3PL networks, and retail store support.
• Experience designing and managing multi-3PL or multi-node distribution networks with clear SLAs, capacity planning, governance, and performance accountability.
• Strong understanding of multi-channel complexity across owned retail, ecommerce, managed partner, and wholesale channels, including the operational and systems differences between them.
• Track record of improving product availability, OTIF, dock-to-stock, fulfillment speed, inventory velocity, on-time delivery, and total logistics cost.
• Experience with import/export operations, including customs, country-of-origin tracking, international freight, duty structures, and trade compliance.
• Strong systems fluency; hands-on experience with NetSuite or comparable ERP/OMS platforms strongly preferred, with a practical understanding of WMS, ecommerce, and planning-system integration.
• Proven cross-functional leader who can influence across Planning, Production/Sourcing, Retail, ecommerce, Finance, Technology, and external partners without relying solely on direct authority.
• Proven people leader with experience building capable, lean teams through growth and change.
• Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, in-office, hands-on environment and willing to spend time in 3PLs and stores, not just in the office.
• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree a plus.