Job description
The Director of Planning will oversee companywide planning, buying, and analytics for our growing brand which began in the children’s apparel space but has expanded into multiple adjacent categories. Our business operates 3 channels currently: DTC/ Digital is our primary driver, followed by Wholesale and Amazon. Robust experience with a digital native brand is preferred. This role is responsible for building financial sales and inventory plans for all departments across these channels, identifying risks and opportunities to maximize profits. It is an exciting opportunity for someone comfortable flexing between a high-level birds-eye view and an entrepreneurial/ building mindset. Our brand is like no other- we feel strongly that the right person will approach this role ready to learn the nuances and ways in which we are different, harness that information and then leverage their experience and skill set to craft a pathway forward. Ultimately responsible for many contributors to the financial health of our business, the ideal candidate must be comfortable taking extreme ownership, communicating clearly and succinctly cross-departmentally, and leading the development of this department from the ground-up!RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Employ multiple channel strategies within our company to achieve varied turn and margin requirements.
• Develop plans and ensure execution at the buy level ensuring financial objectives align with product opportunities.
• Assess need for and institute structures and processes; ultimately building out the Buying/ Planning department and team underneath them.
• Roll-up responsibilities:
o Revenue/ sales and stock forecasting and planning
o Turn analysis, markdown suggestions, margin maintenance/ projections
o Buying / Open to buy
o Inventory management
o Selling analytics & hind-sighting
• Monitor product lifecycle to optimize sales and profitability - from buying and inception through exit strategy. Ensure replenishment, inventory transfers and production orders are crafted to maximize revenue and profitability.
• Assess selling performance, hind sighting with multiple perspectives, such as style, department, category, color/ print, thematic, and size analytics.
• Work together with other departments- Marketing, Merchandising, ECom, Finance, Wholesale. Share data, highlighting actionable recommendations. Gain insights which better inform forecasts. Lead discussions which provide relevant analysis and forecasts to enrich each of those team’s success.
• Assess existing processes as well as the technical infrastructure that supports this department to suggest improvements.
• Ensure reporting and data integrity. Work with data team to craft an infrastructure of sku-level attributes to optimize analytics.
• Collaborate with senior management to pinpoint opportunities, helping develop both long term and short term company goals.
• Key contributor to weekly KPI meeting- communicating state of business and future forward.
• Ensure high level of accuracy in department’s work product.
EXPERIENCE/ REQUIREMENTS:
• Robust Digital-DTC experience required; preferably with digital-first brands. Wholesale and Amazon business a plus. Better brands preferred.
• Minimum 2+years in a manager role, with direct reports.
• Minimum 10+ years in similar roles: buying, retail planning, analytics.
• Must be practiced in managing apparel, accessories, or other high-sku, limited lifecycle products.
• Comfortable with working in and bringing digestible/actionable conclusions to large sets of data.
• Exhibits leadership qualities in a cross-functional environment; collaborative with strong communication skills.
• High proficiency and rate of accuracy in forecasting and analytics, retail math and open to buy plans, ladder and replenishment modeling, category and merchandise planning.
• Advanced Excel including pivot tables, v-lookup, index match. Ideal candidate can generate reports in Tableau.
• Enjoy helping others in a team atmosphere.
• Grasps new concepts quickly.
• Driven to learn and grow
• Can synthesize and be informed by historical data, but also comfortable with a high number of exceptions. Ready to question assumptions.
• Prioritizes effectively. Related or advanced degree a plus.
• This is an onsite role
• Eligible for a 10% bonus
• Must have apparel/fashion industry experience
Expired job