This Chief Digital Officer (CDO) seat at Body Art Alliance is open, and it’s a big one. Here’s the honest version: you’d be stepping into a capable team and real infrastructure across a multi-brand global platform, with real scale across the US and international markets, but growth has stalled and the operating model needs a reset. We want one leader who can see all of it clearly, diagnose what’s actually not working, and fix it, including building the direct-to-consumer channel we don’t have yet.
You’re inheriting real infrastructure and people who know this business well. Your job is to figure out why growth has stalled, rebuild the operating model, and unify the strategy across our brands and markets.
About Body Art Alliance
Body Art Alliance is a global house of brands powering the world of tattooing, piercing, and body jewelry, including Painful Pleasures, Killer Ink, Anatometal, and NeoMetal. Our products fuel creativity, craftsmanship, and self-expression. We move fast, think big, and care deeply about our people and our customers. Operational excellence matters here, and so do culture, collaboration, and having fun while building something great.
The role, in plain terms
We’re building one commercial operating model at BAA, where Product, Marketing, Sales, Digital, Supply Chain, Operations, and Finance actually work together instead of around each other. As CDO, digital commercial capability is yours: ecommerce, digital marketing technology, CRM, customer analytics, loyalty, personalization, merchandising, marketplaces, and a new direct to consumer channel. You’ll lead a team that knows this business well, across a house of brands with real scale in the US and internationally, with the VP of Digital Operations, VP of Ecommerce, and the Product team, as a whole, reporting directly to you. There’s no single head of product today, so how you structure that is part of what you’d build. You’ll also partner closely with our COO, CFO, SVP of Marketing, VP of Supply Chain, and Head of Sales. None of this works if you try to do it alone in a silo, and we’re not looking for someone who wants to.
What you’d actually be doing
Set the digital strategy, then run it
- Set BAA’s global digital and ecommerce strategy and make sure it actually maps to where the business is trying to go
- Push for real, profitable growth across ecommerce, marketplace, and DTC, not just top line revenue
Ecommerce and marketplace
- Get more out of our existing ecommerce platforms across our house of brands
- Sharpen how we show up on Amazon and other marketplaces
- Take charge of CRM, personalization, customer analytics, subscriptions, and loyalty, the things that actually keep customers coming back
- Decide where digital dollars and people go so the money lands on the highest return work first
Build the direct-to-consumer business
- Build a DTC business for body jewelry and aftercare from scratch. This is the headline project, and it hasn’t existed here before
- Set DTC pricing and positioning carefully, so we’re growing it without undercutting our wholesale distributors
- Work hand in hand with our distribution sales team on one shared playbook: they build the relationship, you help scale it through CRM, education, personalization, loyalty, and digital engagement
Own the digital experience, everywhere
- Take ownership of the digital experience across every BAA channel, even the ones where the revenue technically sits somewhere else, working closely with our COO, CFO, SVP of Marketing, VP of Supply Chain, and Head of Sales
- Own the customer facing side: UX, conversion, site search, SEO, taxonomy, product pages, content, and the unglamorous but necessary QA work
- Handle merchandising, storytelling, and cross selling across our house of brands, and whatever DTC brands come next
Get serious about data and the tech stack
- Get us to a place where decisions are actually backed by data: forecasting, channel visibility, real metrics, real accountability
- Work with the COO and Head of Sales on the channel conflict that’s bound to come up between ecommerce, marketplaces, and distribution
- Own the digital tech roadmap: our ecommerce platform, martech stack, and analytics infrastructure
- Make sure digital operations work as well for the new DTC build as they do for our existing B2B and distribution business
Look ahead
- Look for new digital revenue in the markets we’re already in, and help us think through adjacent and international expansion
- Support new product launches and innovation work as it goes to market
Lead the team
- Lead and develop a team that knows this business, and bring the operating rigor and clear expectations it needs to start performing at a higher level
- Hold people accountable and keep pushing for improvement across channels, functions, and geographies
What we’d expect from you in year one
Realistically, within your first year, we’d want to see you:
- Get every digital revenue channel you own back to sustainable, organic growth
- Build a clear prioritization framework for BAA’s digital assets, and actually move team time to match it
- Raise the digital experience across our priority channels, and get the DTC channel for body jewelry and aftercare launched and scaling
- Stand up a digital operating model that works across our global footprint, and get our international brands’ digital assets fully integrated across the US, EU, and UK
What you’d bring
You probably won’t check every box here, and that’s fine. But most of this should sound like you:
- 12 or more years in senior digital, ecommerce, or CRM leadership, including real ownership of a P&L or a channel level revenue number, not just an advisory seat
- You’ve built or scaled a direct-to-consumer business before, ideally one that had to coexist with an existing wholesale or distribution business
- You’re genuinely hands on with ecommerce platforms, martech, CRM, personalization, and analytics, and you know the difference between what’s worth building and what you should just buy
- You’ve led digital across more than one brand or business unit at once, ideally across multiple countries too, in consumer products, beauty, lifestyle, or something in that same family
- You’ve worked somewhere private equity backed or otherwise fast moving, where you had to make real calls with limited resources
- You actually like leading a team and working across a leadership table. This role falls apart if you’d rather build in isolation than lead the VP of Digital Operations, VP of Ecommerce, and the Product team while partnering with the COO, CFO, SVP of Marketing, VP of Supply Chain, and Head of Sales
- You can read the data yourself, and you can also explain what it means to people who don’t live in it all day
How we think about this role
Whoever takes this on is responsible for scaling BAA’s customer relationships through digital, and for making sure every digital touchpoint reinforces our brands rather than working against them. We won’t judge this role only on digital channel numbers. We’ll judge it on how much stronger the whole company gets when digital strategy and execution move as one system across our global portfolio.
Why now
This is a big job, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise. But it’s also the kind of role that doesn’t come open often: a real business to build, brands people already trust, and a CEO who wants a partner in this, not a hire to manage from a distance. This role reports directly to the CEO, with no other executive in between, so the strategy you set is the strategy that gets acted on.
Interested?
If this sounds like you, or you know someone who’d be great at it, we’d love to hear from you. Apply today. We can’t wait to meet you!
Equal Opportunity
Body Art Alliance is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable law.
