­Are you a result driven person with a strong business mindset who is working strategically? We are looking for an experienced Lease Manager with responsibility over Hungarian and Romanian market within Region East Europe in H&M!

H&M group comprises of the following independent brands: H&M, COS, Weekday, Monki, & Other Stories, ARKET and Afound. We have over 4,900 stores across 74 markets worldwide.

Our values reflect the heart and soul of H&M. They define what it takes to work here and how we do things. When we interact with colleagues and customers around the world, our values help us develop and grow.  We want to be at the forefront of both fashion and sustainability. Our employees play a key role and can contribute to more sustainable fashion, today and in the future.

Region East Europe is one of the 10 regions within the H&M Group and has its headquarters in Warsaw, Poland. The Region portfolio consists of more than 500 stores across 16 markets divided into 2 Sales markets – Sales Market Poland and Sales Market Greece.

The mission of the Expansion function is to support Meaningful Growth.  We are responsible, in partnership with our brands, for all aspects of creating and maintaining our real estate portfolio: we lease, design, draw, buy, build and maintain each store and constantly follow up on the existing portfolio to ensure high profitability. We add new stores and optimize the current portfolio through rebuilds, extensions, renegotiations, relocations and consolidations.

As a Lease Manager within the Expansion function, you will be responsible for the Hungarian and Romanian markets. You will work closely with the Sales Market Expansion Manager to execute the expansion strategy and targets in your countries. Together with the team, you will manage our store portfolio (which includes 46 stores in Hungary and 57 in Romania), undertake negotiations and set a foundation for collaboration and alignment across expansion functions on strategy and projects.

The scope of Lease Manager responsibilities includes:

Enabling long term growth:

• Creating growth strategy and ensuring full selling potential by developing and maintaining the road map for the geographic region
• Responsibility for creating and following up on pipeline

Obtaining the best possible deals:

• Enabling the optimization of each deal’s selling, location and profitability
• Recommending the full business case in terms of fit with market strategy, location requirements, commercial idea, configuration of space, economic and legal terms and present ready negotiated business cases for approval by country management
• Coordinating in a positive and collaborative way with other functions before finalizing the negotiations (construction, interior responsible, accounting, HR, marketing, merchandising, visual, security, etc.)
• Supporting to facilitate the deal through the legal and construction process, taking into consideration local requirements and dependencies

Optimizing the existing portfolio

• Ensuring that the portfolio is commercially competitive in the geographic area
• Negotiating lease actions for existing stores (breaks, terminations, lease term, extensions, rent reductions)
• Constantly looking for ways to improve the portfolio, keeping in mind long term impact

Collaboration

• Working in a close cooperation with the Expansion Manager to set and implement the strategy in your markets – Hungary and Romania – and to secure the best result for the business
• Involving of all other needed stakeholders and securing their input in the project time plan and service scope delivery

We believe you have the knowledge of how to optimize sales as well as understanding and interest in retail in general. You are a result driven person who is ambitious, competitive, humble and a fast learner. You have analytical skills and leadership capabilities as well as a strong track record of results.  As a person, we believe you value having own responsibility, a fast pace, teamwork and straight forward communication with a flexible attitude.

Besides your personality we see that you have:

• At least 3 years of experience within leasing, real estate or a similar role and preferably in the relevant retail real estate market
• Good understanding of retail customer, lease contracts and legal requirements
• Proven track record of understanding business needs, negotiations and delivering results
• Strong in planning and executing together with a “can-do attitude” and self-motivating way of working
• Entrepreneurial spirit and that you like to negotiate and find new potential
• Very high communication and interpersonal skills with social confidence which supports you to take difficult conversations
• Flexibility to travel within the markets on a frequent basis
• Fluent English and Hungarian; knowledge of the Romanian language is beneficial

Our offer

• Employment contract on a full-time basis
• A chance to experience unique H&M company culture
• Possibility of growing within the company (over 70% of our recruitment processes are internal)
• Extensive internal training and onboarding program
• A fixed 25% discount on purchases in H&M for you and one member of your family
• Sport card

About the recruitment process

This is a full-time position based in Budapest-Hungary.

Sounds interesting? Here’s your chance for a career out of the ordinary! Apply now with your CV in English and start working in your style!

For more information about the company, please visit www.hm.career.com