Head of Retail Development

Meta Reality Labs brings together world-class experts to develop and ship groundbreaking products at the intersection of hardware, software, and platform. Meta Reality Labs includes Quest and Ray Ban Meta, work products, augmented and virtual reality software and content, and research and development labs. We plan to release multiple products and technologies over the next few years that will define new categories and advance Meta’s mission of bringing the world closer together.

The Head of Retail Development will focus on the success of 1P and 3P retail channels and serve as a cross-functional partner for 1P Meta Lab stores. You will be responsible for driving innovation—including AI integration—across the retail domain, defining the "Business Brief" for retail locations, and managing the day-to-day retail budget. You will ensure all physical retail initiatives align with hardware product goals and operational standards.

Responsibilities

• 1P & 3P Channel Leadership: Own the strategic business roadmap and commercial partnership frameworks for all first-party and third-party physical retail footprints globally
• Retail Budget Coordination & Financial Controls: Serve as the primary lead for the retail organization’s annual budget; track and report on OPEX and CAPEX spend for store operations, maintenance, and 1P/3P initiatives; establish and monitor financial controls and performance metrics to track ROI on retail operations and identify cost-saving opportunities, ensuring alignment with Reality Labs’ financial targets
• Business Requirement Definition (Real Estate): Partner with Real Estate to provide the necessary trade-area profiles, store-size parameters, and consumer-flow objectives required to meet hardware sales goals
• Cross-Functional Operational Lead (Store Concepts): Partner with Design and Creative teams to influence store layouts, fixturing, and new store concepts, ensuring these operational needs are ready for handover to execution teams
• Market, Consumer & Portfolio Insights: Leverage AI and advanced analytics to monitor store-level performance and consumer behavior; provide data-driven insights to help the Real Estate team optimize the broader portfolio; surface operational risks and opportunities and recommend adjustments to store formats or 1P/3P strategies based on market trends and consumer behavior
• Internal Stakeholder Management: Build and maintain relationships with internal partners (Legal, Finance, Construction, Facilities) to ensure retail operations are funded, compliant, and operationally supported
• Investment Intake, Governance & Business Cases: Create and own an intake and evaluation framework for new Retail initiatives—standardizing required inputs (costs, risks, benefits), defining approval/stage-gate criteria, and establishing experiment designs with clear pre-launch success metrics; own investment portfolio governance across Retail channels and initiatives by setting prioritization frameworks, running stage gates, and driving reallocation decisions to maximize overall ROI; partner with Finance when changes are material or would drive divergence from the budget POR; establish investment-level business cases and post-investment tracking that quantify unit growth impact and fully loaded cost per unit in collaboration with Finance/Analytics; partner with Data Science to provide incrementality estimates and causal evidence, and packaging those inputs into a clear business case narrative
• Performance Readouts & Decisioning: Deliver channel- and initiative-level performance readouts that clearly articulate returns, tradeoffs, and provide decision-ready recommendations (continue / scale / optimize / stop)

Minimum Qualifications

• BA/BS degree
• 12+ years in retail business development, retail operations, or retail financial coordination
• 10+ years experience in retail, with significant exposure to managing large-scale retail budgets and physical store scaling
• 10+ years experience in tech and/or consumer electronics
• Demonstrated expertise in stakeholder and vendor management across complex organizations
• Demonstrated experience conveying information clearly and effectively in both written and verbal communication

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated ability to integrate AI tools to optimize/redesign workflows and drive measurable impact (e.g., efficiency gains, quality improvements)
• Experience adhering to and implementing responsible, ethical AI practices (e.g., risk assessment, bias mitigation, quality and accuracy reviews)
• Demonstrated ongoing AI skill development (e.g., prompt/context engineering, agent orchestration) and staying current with emerging AI technologies
• Bachelor’s degree in Business Management, Finance, or related field
• 15+ years of experience in retail development, sales strategy, or business operations, with at least 7 years in an executive leadership role
• Experience working in a global retail organization, with an understanding of international markets and cultures
• Proven track record of implementing AI or advanced analytics to inform retail business requirements and portfolio performance
• Demonstrated knowledge of compliance, budgeting, and financial controls in large-scale retail environments

$242,000/year to $296,000/year + bonus + equity + benefits