Manola Soler
Ms. Soler has led numerous strategy and transformation initiatives for global companies in the apparel and consumer goods space. During her time in the retail industry, she held strategy, planning, and business development roles for companies operating in the US, Mexico, and Canada. Ms. Soler held the General Manager role for a key category at a multibillion-dollar, publicly traded apparel company, overseeing the successful relaunch of the category under an expedited timeline. In this role, she was involved in product development and vendor selection, category strategy development, and inventory and financial planning for the category.
Ms. Soler led the development of a three-year strategy for a multibillion-dollar prestige beauty brand, working with the brand’s cross-functional leadership team to develop a roadmap to tackle mission-critical requirements across product, consumer engagement, and global distribution. She also designed and piloted a fast-fashion process for a leading prestige beauty player. In this role, Ms. Soler worked with an end-to-end cross-functional team to deliver the brand’s first-ever fast-fashion launch in under one third of the timeline typical for new product launches in the category.
Ms. Soler also developed the cross-category procurement strategy for a global prestige beauty player, identifying an optimal third-party supplier mix to deliver evolving requirements on cost of goods sold, regional footprint, and innovation capabilities.
Prior to joining A&M, Ms. Soler held a business development position for a hardlines trading company with retail presence in the US, Canada, and Latin America, where she developed a growth strategy for a multi-brand portfolio across key retail accounts in the US and Mexico and established an organizational blueprint to integrate acquisitions.
Ms. Soler earned a bachelor’s degree in textile design from the Ibero-American University, Mexico, and a master’s degree from Columbia Business School. She is fluent in English and Spanish.