VP, Merchandise Planning

Serving the needs of all families with young children, Carter’s Inc. is the largest North American apparel retailer exclusively for babies and young children, encompassing Carter’s, OshKosh B’gosh, Skip*Hop and Little Planet brands. Meaningful work, constant learning, genuine people, and a community guided by core values that promote inclusion and innovation is in everything we do. There are many reasons to build your career at Carter's.

HOW YOU’LL MAKE AN IMPACT:
The VP, Merchandise Planning is responsible for developing and executing omni channel strategic merchandise financial plans to support the company's sales, product, inventory, and marketing objectives. Lead a team to maximize sales and margins, and continuously improve planning, pricing, and merchandising processes. Collaborate with various functional areas to align on strategic growth objectives, profit maximization, and promotional plans. Develop the style level pricing and unit buys for both stores and ecommerce. The ideal candidate should have 10+ years of financial planning and retail experience, strong team leadership skills, analytical proficiency, and the ability to influence at all organizational levels.

This role will report to the SVP, Merchandise Planning & Operations, manages 2-3 direct reports (total team size of 10-12) and is based in our Buckhead office (4 days a week on-site).

40% Strategic Leadership:

• Collaborate and influence senior leaders in various functional areas (Merchandising, Allocation, Store Operations, Finance, Wholesale, Real Estate, Marketing, Supply Chain, etc.) to solve complex business issues, and drive incremental sales and margin while maximizing complex inventory assortments.
• Lead the development and continuous evolution of retail processes related to assortment planning, pricing, promotions, and category planning. Navigate ambiguity and adapt to changes in strategies and market shifts. 
• Inspire a high-performing team of Planning Directors and associates responsible for financial and assortment buy plans for +1000 multi format stores and ecommerce in varying growth stages.
• Storytelling and effective communication: craft a narrative from strategy and insights to bring others along. Cascade communication and inspire teams to improve the customer experience. 
• Present KPIs and financial fundamentals supporting the strategic intent of the buy plans to senior leaders.

40% Financial Forecasting and Execution:

• Develop, execute, and communicate strategic merchandise financial plans that support the company’s financial sales, product, inventory, and marketing objectives. 
• Drive top line financial plans from a multi-brand and multi-channel level to a department and category level.
• Lead Planners in execution of pre-season assortment buys to in-season optimization, adjusting objectives based on more recent market conditions. Shift financials goals among channels, brands, and SBUs accounting for initiatives.
• Strategically manage weekly, monthly, quarterly financial reviews to maximize profit and inventory (top down and bottom up).  Identify corrective actions and spearhead communication to leadership and business partners. 
• Manage monthly Open-To-Buy (OTB) process. Adjust top line financial flash weekly in coordination with FP&A. 
• Recommend merchandise flow and store assortment strategies to maximize inventory turns. Analyze depth and breadth productivity and recommend adjustments to merchandising. 
• Manage continuous improvement of forecast accuracy and provide timely updates to DC and store operations partners. 
• Develop and contribute to initiatives to ensure that all planning activities support annual goals. 
• Monitor KPI performance in both stores and e-commerce. Develop analytical methods to hindsight, report, and action plan monthly. Assist functional leaders to develop regular business updates for executive team.

20% Process Enhancements and Efficiency:

• Devise and leverage insights to frame problems and measure progress. 
• Support development of business cases to lead systems and process enhancements aligned to ROI
• Develop roadmaps, prioritize, and measures of success
• Manage change management and adoption of new systems and business strategies.
• Provide ad hoc analytical support to other functional areas.

WE’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU IF:
Must have:

• 10+ years of financial planning, merchandise planning, allocations, operations, retail, project leadership
• Bachelor’s degree required
• Prior Planning experience required with multi-channels and multi-brands 
• Strong leadership skills, with the ability to prioritize and deliver on multiple concurrent initiatives that have significant financial impact
• Knowledge of planning principles, promotional planning, financial budgeting, retail fundamentals, project management, ad hoc reporting and analysis
• Strong analytical skills, proficient with planning systems, proficient with Microsoft Excel
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to influence at all levels of the organization. Keen ability to distill complex ideas into frameworks and illustrations
• Outstanding strategic thinking and analytical skills, ideally for a specialty business. Demonstrated ability to vision the future state, test hypotheses, and synthesize facts and insights into concrete, actionable strategies and tactical plans
• Ability to synthesize large amounts of data into trends
• Able to manage team of analytical people, work cross-functionally with GMM, DMMs, Finance, Operations and Marketing
• Influencing and negotiating at a variety of levels; develop Director and Manager level roles
• Results driven, with a desire to work in a fast-paced environment

Preferred skills and experience:

• Master of Business Administration preferred
• Experience in multichannel or omnichannel pricing, promotion, digital merchandising, and/or marketing roles
• Experience in complex organizational-wide problem solving, analyzing and synthesizing disparate sources of data, and developing actionable end-to-end analytic solutions with an eye towards usability/how the approach would be implemented to solve for high value business problems
• Superb organizational, time management and interpersonal skills. Ability to multi-task, working on several projects or tasks at once
• Structured and organized thinker who can drive analytical projects to completion with minimal direction; intense analytical ability, attention to detail and ability to deep-dive when necessary
• Proven success in presentation of analysis with recommendations to stakeholders and senior executive leadership
• Able to effectively work with, and influence, senior business and functional leaders

OUR TEAM MEMBERS:

• Lead Courageously: Have a strong sense of personal values that align with our Company values
• Collaborates Broadly: Build cooperation, trust, and thrive in a consensus driven environment
• Customer Focus: Proactively seek opportunities to leverage data and fact-based insights to serve customers and/or internal clients
• Drive Growth: Set aggressive goals and implement plans precisely
• Cultivates Innovation: Respectfully challenge the "we’ve always done it this way" mentality and explore new ways to achieve desired outcomes

MAKE A CAREER AT CARTER’S: 

• Career Development: Success starts from within, and we have several paths from which you can choose to enhance your career evolution. From Carter’s University to Toastmasters to mentorship programs and more, we encourage you to utilize these tools to elevate your professional prowess. 

Carters is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status, or any other status protected by federal, state, or local law.