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The Director of Assortment Planning is responsible for leveraging consumer and customer insights to drive optimized assortment strategies that meet financial and customer satisfaction goals. This role involves leading a team of assortment planning managers, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and ensuring alignment with overall business strategies. The position requires a blend of strategic leadership, data-driven decision-making, and operational excellence to create a competitive edge in-store and online.

Key Responsibilities:

Leadership and Strategic Projects:

• Provide expert leadership over strategic projects and workstreams with broad cross-functional and enterprise-level impact.

• Partner with store operations, core merchandising, inventory management, and finance to ensure alignment of enterprise strategy and project/program strategy.

• Lead key cross-functional initiatives by evaluating and understanding customer insights, market trends, competitive intelligence, and other forces impacting current and future business performance.

Assortment Strategy Development:

• Develop and execute assortment strategies with a customer-back approach through Product Line Reviews, weekly business reviews, and other company initiatives and processes.

• Collaborate with GMMs and MVPs to define assortment tactics needed to deliver business strategy and category growth.

• Guide the Assortment Planning team to deliver assortment plans for merchant initiatives, end-to-end product line reviews, and business reviews for assigned businesses and store projects.

• Oversee merchandise assortment plans, item and assortment planning to execute the merchant vision in support of strategic and financial objectives.

• Partner with GMM and Category Director to ensure alignment of merchandise assortment and item plans to the category strategy and merchant vision.

Analytical Leadership:

• Analyze, review, and identify assortment opportunities using a suite of strategic and analytical solutions (e.g., Category Optimization, Store clustering, Competitive intelligence).

• Partner with Merchandising, Inventory Planning, and Finance to influence category strategies, create resolutions, and drive execution.

• Technology and Process Improvement:

• Partner with Product, Business Analytics, and Engineering teams to ensure stability of existing tech and development of new tools that drive category growth through analytical decision-making and efficient execution.

• Drive organizational adoption of assortment planning business processes and technology through change management, training, and performance reporting.

Team Development and Training:

• Hire, train, and develop a team of leaders and experts who utilize a balance of design thinking and data-driven problem-solving to drive business growth.

• Establish and implement robust training programs to enhance the skills and knowledge of the Assortment Planning team.

• Provide ongoing coaching and mentorship to associates, guiding them to achieve personal and professional goals and aspirations.

• Foster a culture of continuous learning and development, encouraging team members to stay updated with industry trends and best practices.

• Develop clear career paths and progression plans for team members, promoting internal growth and retention of top talent.

Communication and Reporting:

• Communicate with multiple levels of senior leadership across merchandising, supply chain, and store operations on projects and initiatives.

• Provide ongoing status updates, recommend mitigation tactics, and course-correct decisions to drive continuous improvement.

Customer Experience Differentiation:

• Create a customer experience in-store and online that differentiates products and services from competitors.

• Develop vision and strategy on breadth and depth of assortment by clusters, ensuring a superior on-shelf merchandising experience that aligns with category strategy and meets financial and customer expectations.

This role requires a visionary leader who can integrate consumer insights with strategic planning to enhance the company's competitive edge through superior assortment planning and execution. The ideal candidate will be a strong advocate for talent development, providing direction and guidance to build a high-performing team capable of driving significant business growth.

Experience:

• 6+ years experience

• Bachelor’s degree (BA / BS / BFA) or equivalent

• Deep understanding of and experience in retail planning

• Expertise in planning methodologies including assortment planning, item planning, merchandise financial planning and store clustering

• Strong analytical and financial analysis skills

• Experience collaborating with Merchandising and Inventory Management professionals to deliver business results.

• Strong communication and leadership skills to manage people and teams.

• Excellent communication skills and ability to interact with all levels of management.