Location Ho Chi Minh
Job-type Permanent
Salary £Dependent on Experience
Reference BBBH9144_1580914864

Acre is delighted to be retained by Clarks, the iconic heritage footwear brand, to recruit a VP, Supplier Working Conditions. Reporting to the Chief Legal Officer, you will lead and manage activity related to improving worker conditions across the organisation's direct managed and finished goods supply base.


Founded in 1825 and still privately owned, C & J Clark international have defined modern day British footwear and have since expanded to provide footwear globally with the Americas being the brand's second largest market. Sustainability for the organization is well embedded, and the working conditions of their supply base is of paramount importance, ensuring maintenance of Clarks' prestigious reputation and associated consumer confidence.


You will be based ideally in Ho Chi Minh city or alternative offices across APAC (Donguang & Singapore), where Clarks' supply base and team are located, such as Singapore.

Responsibilities Include:

  • Leading and monitoring the supplier working conditions agenda, ensuring supply base compliance and associated continuous improvement against Clarks' code of practice and broader industry best practice

  • Managing a team of 6 working directly with suppliers to develop measurable action plans and ensure these are delivered by tracking and monitoring

  • Effectively communicating supplier working condition activities to all internal and external stakeholders

  • Collaborating with other brands and organisations to support the understanding and improvement of working conditions with Clarks global supplier work base, and wider industry practice

  • Identifying and supporting the development of programmes that improve or enhance, the health, education and welfare of workers, continually improving their working conditions

  • Setting standards and approach for auditing suppliers against Clarks Code of Practice and regularly reviewing such standards to reflect regulation changes and external best practice

You will be an experienced leader in social compliance programme development, having managed teams in the past to deliver against best practice standards in either another apparel or footwear brand across the APAC region.

Requirements Include:

  • Significant understanding of social compliance auditing of manufacturing facilities within complex global supply chains, ideally across the personal goods sector

  • Written and spoken Chinese, an advantage

  • Knowledge of relevant global and local regulations including health and safety, modern slavery and labour laws, with emphasis on APAC countries

  • Ability to build excellent internal and external relationships across a variety of stakeholders

  • Experience in leading and inspiring high-performance teams

This is an incredibly exciting opportunity to work for a well renown brand with incredible story and heritage, leading the agenda to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers across the APAC region.

For an informal first conversation, please get in touch with Chloë Hunt, Head of Research & Project Deliveat Chloe.Hunt@acre.com.