Senior Manager, Real Estate & Partner Implementation

As Senior Manager, Real Estate & Partner Implementation, you will play a pivotal role in bringing our retail footprint strategy to life across China. You will lead the execution of our retail footprint plans with partner-operated stores across China, translating strategic growth priorities into an actionable pipeline of high-quality retail locations that strengthen our brand presence and support long-term business growth.

No relocation assistance is offered for this position

Core Responsibilities:

Retail Real Estate & Site Portfolio Management

• Lead the identification, evaluation, and qualification of retail opportunities, leveraging market insights, location analytics, and local real estate expertise to secure high-quality sites that support the long-term retail footprint strategy.

• Recommend portfolio improvements, including the integration and interpretation of data to produce practical and commercially relevant outputs.

• Forecast future real estate needs and trends, and participate in and drive key location planning projects.

• Provide valuable retail implementation preparation and deployment guidance, balancing market commercial plans with Retail Development objectives and activity planning.

Partner Implementation & Expansion Execution

• Drive the implementation of approved expansion plans with partner-operated stores, ensuring alignment between strategic objectives, partner capabilities, site readiness, and agreed development timelines.

• Represent partner-operated store requirements in China store concept and format development, ensuring new and evolved concepts are practical, commercially viable, and executable within the partner operating model.

• Influence Asia and Global store concept and format development, ensuring new design solutions are relevant to China, through a partner implementation lens.

External Partner & Market Collaboration Serve as the primary Retail Development counterpart to local partners, landlords, brokers and other external real estate stakeholders, building strong relationships to identify opportunities, align expectations, resolve execution challenges and advance approved expansion and portfolio optimization initiatives.

Internal Cross-Functional Collaboration Collaborate closely with KAMs, who own the overall partner relationship, as well as all China Retail Development functions, to align expansion priorities, secure internal alignment, coordinate execution requirements and ensure partner-operated store plans are delivered with pace, quality and consistency.

Business Case Support & Committee Readiness Contribute to the preparation of robust real estate business cases for internal Real Estate Committee review, ensuring site recommendations are supported by clear market rationale, commercial assumptions, investment considerations, partner input, key risks, and strategic alignment.

Pipeline Governance & Portfolio Performance Own the end-to-end real estate pipeline for partner-operated stores as defined by strategic City Blueprints and annual plans, providing portfolio oversight, risk management, performance tracking, and executive reporting to ensure expansion targets and strategic priorities are achieved.

Play your part in our team succeeding

Retail Development is responsible for shaping and delivering the physical retail experience across LEGO® branded stores, from footprint strategy and real estate through retail design, implementation and portfolio evolution. The function plays a critical role in ensuring our stores are commercially strong, operationally executable and distinctive expressions of the LEGO® brand.

China is one of our most important and complex retail markets, with a network of 400+ LEGO® branded stores and significant opportunities across owned and operated stores and LEGO Certified Stores managed by third-party partners. Reporting to the Senior Director, Head of China Retail Development, the Senior Manager – Real Estate & Partner Implementation role is critical to shape our next chapter of retail growth in China.

Do you have what it takes?

• 10+ years’ experience in retail real estate, with strong expertise across site assessment, location evaluation, market mapping, lease negotiation support, commercial deal input, and understanding what makes a location commercially viable and brand-appropriate.

• Proven track record implementing China retail footprint plans through external partners or franchisees, ensuring clear alignment on priorities, timelines, investment requirements, and execution standards.

• Strong commercial acumen, with the ability to translate footprint strategy into practical portfolio decisions that balance growth ambition, site quality, financial viability, risk, and long-term brand impact.

• Strong understanding of critical Store Development functions, including Footprint Strategy, Real Estate, Store Design, Construction, and partner implementation.

• Strong ability to collaborate across multiple stakeholders, including KAMs, local partners, landlords, brokers, all China Retail Development functions, and construction/implementation teams.

• Strong project management and governance skills to manage the real estate pipeline, track progress, identify risks, remove blockers, and ensure store rollouts move efficiently from business approval through internal project management to final handover.

• Proven experience working with premium lifestyle or brand-led retail environments, where location quality, customer experience, and brand expression are critical drivers of commercial success.

• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to clearly articulate complex real estate, portfolio and implementation topics to senior stakeholders, internal teams and external partners.

• Work independently, recognized subject matter expert, able to coach others, tasks are independently identified and defined.

• Communicate with senior management and handling conflicts in negotiation independently

• Bachelor or master’s degree in real estate, architecture, business administration, engineering or another relevant field preferred.

• Advanced English and Mandarin communication skills, both written and spoken are required

NICE TO HAVE:

• Familiarity with design, construction, project management or store maintenance operating models

• Experience working for international brands, with exposure to global standards, cross-market ways of working and the ability to adapt brand requirements to local market execution.

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