Vice President, Planning & Allocation

]Responsibilities:

The Vice President of Planning & Allocation will be responsible for leading the development and directing the execution of merchandise plans across our DTC channel (specialty, outlet and e-commerce). This person will be expected to deliver to corporate financial plans by strategically driving metrics including sales, margin, turn and GMROI across channel initiative and guide all activities supporting the top down/bottom up planning process.

This person will lead a team of 10 -15 and work closely with the heads of Merchandising, Marketing, Store Operations, Production, Finance, IT and Supply Chain, in a highly collaborative and cross-functional partnership to build annual and seasonal merchandise plans. He/she will be critical in setting the strategic direction for our Planning organization and establishing new processes critical to our continued growth, profitability and future expansion.

• Provide functional expertise as a partner to Merchants, Operations, Finance, Company Planning, Store Operations, eCommerce and Marketing to achieve agreed upon financial targets
• Develop and implement strategies to maximize inventory performance
• Partner with IT to develop and execute a tactical plan to make necessary improvements to the current systems to achieve increased adoption, as well as introduce new process and tools
• Provide leadership, professional development, guidance and support to continually upgrade the performance of the Inventory Management team
• Develop and manage seasonal and annual merchandise plans for sales, gross margins, and inventory; proactively identifying and implementing ways to improve performance diagnostics and providing early warning risks and opportunities
• Develop multi-year Planning strategy that supports brand initiatives
• Activate and operationalize strategies that produce clear ROI to five year LRP
• Develop in-season sales trending, inventory forecasts and margin projections; managing weekly, monthly and quarterly Open-to-buy, Inventory and Receipt plans; proactively interfacing with department leadership as necessary to ensure creation of accurate, timely and insightful analysis.
• Ensure integrity of sales, inventory, markdown and promotional planning and forecasting
• Optimize inventory flow to stores to maximize sales and gross margin in the stores and partnering closely with management to manage on-going inventory levels
• Assess existing and implement new systems
• Analyze current sales, inventory and margin trends, market data, benchmarking, as well as historical data to course correct in-season inventory to maximize margins; focusing team on action-based results versus simply reporting
• Assess impact of price change and special events; assessing price position relative to top-line and margin realization in keeping with category positioning
• Provide ad-hoc analysis and requested by management and key business partners

Qualifications:

• 15+ years of progressively responsible experience in inventory management, with the majority of that experience in a merchandise planning and allocation roles for companies with revenues >$500M.
• Multi-unit retail experience required.
• 4 Year degree in Business or related field, MBA preferred
• Proven ability to build strong business relationships at all levels throughout an organization.
• Experience as a strategic thinker and the ability to effectively translate strategies into financial plans.
• Demonstrated success at driving real sales growth versus simply maximizing risks; a track record of risk-taking and positively impacting sales and margin dollars.
• Ability to train and educate the organization on process and system best practices to maximize sales/margins with appropriate inventory levels
• A self-directed individual able to adapt quickly to changes in priorities and business conditions.