How to Hire a Home Improvement & DIY Executive

Home improvement and DIY is a large retail and consumer category blending big-box and specialist retail, trade and consumer customers, and project-based buying. Leading in it takes a distinctive mix. Here is how to hire.

A large-scale retail category

Home improvement and DIY — from big-box retailers to specialist stores and increasingly online — is a large, operationally intensive retail category, involving vast ranges, significant inventory, and often large-format stores. Leaders need strong retail and operational capability at scale, much like other large retail categories: managing complex ranges, large stores or fulfilment, and the commercial economics of the business. This retail and operational rigour is foundational to leadership in the category.

Two distinct customers

A distinctive feature of the category is serving two quite different customers: DIY consumers doing their own home projects, and trade professionals (builders, tradespeople) buying for their work. These have different needs, buying behaviours, and expectations. Leaders benefit from understanding both, and how a business serves each, because the trade and consumer sides can require different approaches. Grasping this dual-customer nature is part of understanding home improvement and DIY well.

Project- and seasonally-driven buying

Home improvement buying is often project-driven — customers buy for specific projects, needing the right products, advice, and availability — and seasonally influenced, with demand patterns tied to seasons and home-improvement cycles. Leaders benefit from understanding these dynamics: supporting customers' projects well, managing seasonality, and meeting the category's particular demand patterns. This project- and season-driven nature shapes how the category operates and what customers value.

Advice, service, and increasingly digital

Home improvement often involves advice and service — helping customers choose the right products and succeed with their projects — and, increasingly, digital, as customers research and buy online and expect integrated experiences. Leaders increasingly need to combine strong physical retail with digital and service capability. Define the specific business and challenge — retail operations, growth, or digital transformation — and a retained search can match leaders who fit this large, distinctive category.

Frequently asked questions

What makes home improvement & DIY leadership distinctive?

It's a large, operationally intensive retail category serving two distinct customers (DIY consumers and trade professionals), with project- and seasonally-driven buying and a role for advice and service — so leaders need retail and operational rigour at scale plus genuine customer understanding.

What should you look for in a home improvement & DIY executive?

Strong retail and operational capability at scale combined with an understanding of the category's distinctive customers (DIY and trade), its project- and seasonally-driven buying, and the growing role of digital and service — matched to the specific business.

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