POSITION SUMMARY STATEMENT

Responsible for creation and maintenance of weekly, monthly, seasonal and annual merchandise and forecast plans. This position holds full responsibility for continually analyzing business results and producing merchandise forecast plans in order to capture upside potential and conversely minimize downside sales risk. Responsible for creation and development of business strategies to maximize sales profitability.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
• Create, develop and communicate comprehensive OTB reports, departmental, financial, and inventory strategies in order to drive and maximize sales.
• Continually and rigorously analyze all sales data/trend/results utilizing all tools available (POS, Traffic counters, KPIs, Event results, CRM, etc.) in order create accurate, productive financial sales plans and forecasts.
• Partner with Buying team to develop strategies to be executed against the merchandise OTB plan.
• Drive the formulation and profitable execution of forecasting, planning, and inventory management for any replenishment programs
• Continually analyze historic performance, trends and previous sales strategies to identify, communicate and create plans to address areas of opportunity or risk in current plans and provide solutions to Senior Management.
• Develop, maintain and update tools, reports, etc., to support the business and complete ad hoc reporting as needed to drive or react to the current or future business needs.
• Manage inventory plans from investment through allocation execution; including ongoing evaluation of business results and trends and create updated data reacting to and in order to anticipate business exposures.
• Continually review and evaluate product forecast strategies against target thresholds and sales trend data and develop strategies to address any shortfall.
• Identify and prioritize strategic business issues for the company using rigorous quantitative analysis integrated with consumer insights.
• Work cross-functionally with Finance, Buying and the Allocation department; leading teams to develop work plans to address key strategic issues.
• Establish relationships and communication with all retail functional teams: Buying, Marketing, Events, Visual, Field Leaders to incorporate all aspects into forecasting
• Confidence in reporting accurate projections and strategic recommendations to senior management
• Ad hoc analysis with conclusions and action plans as requested by senior management and cross functional teams

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES
• May directly supervise other planner(s).
• Provides coaching, direction, develops and empowers direct reports.
• Ensures work flow and processes are to maximum efficiencies for business necessity.

ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
• Interacts with all levels throughout organization including executives, employees and outside vendors.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: The following are the minimum qualifications which an individual needs in order to successfully perform the duties and responsibilities of the position.

COMPETENCIES:
• Leadership – Must be able to work well with and influence others at all levels within organization to be successful.
• Analytic Skills – Must be able to think objectively and interpret meaningful themes from quantitative and qualitative data
• Financial Business Acumen – Must be able to evaluate financial and business indicators and translate data into actionable information to drive results; with strong proficiency in math
• Results Oriented & Solution Oriented
• Accurate, Detail Oriented and Thorough
• Strategic Problem Solving & Decision Quality- Able to evaluate financial and business indicators and translate data into actionable information to drive results
• Strong Organizational and Time Management skills
• Teamwork
• Risk Management- Anticipates risk and identifies contingency plans and processes to prevent disruption when risks occur
• Initiative
• Communication – Must have excellent listening, verbal, written and presentation skills and is effective in a variety of presentation settings including; one-on-one, small and large groups, and with peers and supervisors
• Influencing and Negotiation-Can present ideas and direction that leads others to action

Education/Experience:
• Bachelor's Degree highly preferred
• 5 - 10 years in merchandise planning (apparel and luxury preferred)
• Advanced knowledge of Excel; Pivot Tables and VLookup functions
• Advanced retail math/data analytical skills
• Other computer programs: NSB, Movex, Crystal (internal knowledge preferred) - desirable, but not required

PHYSICAL DEMANDS: In general, the following physical demands are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to allow differently-abled individuals to perform the essential functions of the job.

• Must be able to see, hear and speak in order to communicate with employees and other customers
• Specific vision abilities include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and ability to adjust focus
• Manual dexterity required using hands to finger; handle, feel and type; reach with hands and arms
• Must be able to lift, move and carry up to 20 lbs