Sr Manager Merchandise Planning (Concept Stores)

Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization:

The Senior Merchandise Planning Manager is responsible for the management and development of the merchandise planning team and processes that inform product and category plans, inventory levels, pre-season and in-season planning and trading to deliver against business KPIs and channel strategies to drive profitability for the Full Price Retail Concept Store business.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead Merchandise Planning team including prioritizing, assigning and directing workload, and managing performance to ensure that they are receiving the training and development that they need to be successful.
• Own the OTB process at a category, class, division, product type and model level
• Lead planning for pre-season sales and receipt guidance, in-season trading and post-season hindsight to drive category sales making recommendations at the channel and category level to influence business decisions that align with trends and channel targets & profitability
• Produce buy plans by quarter/season to meet top line sales, margin, and inventory turn targets
• Provide recommendations for space planning, pricing/markdowns and promotional strategies
• Partner with buying teams to provide feedback on assortment strategies and buy depth as part of buy review and GTM milestones
• Contribute to the go-to-market process by aligning high level BU strategies and initiatives with Financial planning team and key cross functional partners
• Lead the Planners in development of new business processes and tools that meet the needs of the business and increase efficiency, productivity and profitability
• Deliver accurate and timely management reporting tools (historical results, forecasts, budgets) on an ad-hoc, monthly, quarterly and annual basis
• Develop best practices for the planning team to ensure that we are getting the best and necessary data to analyze the business and inform actions
• Lead space planning analysis for current and new stores to establish and communicate recommendations to merchandising, store development and VM on strategies that maximize sales and profit through space and option planning guidance by store.

Key Relationships:

• Channel buying and allocation teams
• Channel and Market financial planning teams
• Channel Visual excellence & Visual direction Teams
• Global sales & Retail operations teams
• Market Business Units
• Market FO and eCom buying teams
• Market sales & channel Operations teams
• Market Demand Planning team
• Market supply chain & omni team

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, including strong and flexible personality, to build relationships
• Complex decision making abilities based on a strong understanding of Retail KPIs and retail math and ability to analysis and comprehend this information and to report on it in order to make business decisions based on this analysis
• Strong influencer and natural collaborator who thrives on teamplay
• Proficiency with MS Office Suite and familiarity with merchandising systems/applications
• Advanced Excel skills, and a thorough understanding of macros, pivot tables, lookup formulas, formatting, etc.
• A demonstrated ability to remain calm, positive and approachable during times of stress
• Requires ability to be able to present information and respond to questions from various groups and diverse range on individuals and personalities
• Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists
• Ability to synthesize large amounts of data and create reporting tools from data
• Ability to successfully multi-task and problem-solve while managing multiple projects at the same time
• Ability to travel by air domestically and internationally as needed
• Proven ability to lead and develop teams
• Proven financial acumen and inventory management

Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualifications:

• University degree in business, finance or a related field or equivalent professional experience
• Fluent in English
• 6 years relevant work experience