Department Manager – Category Management

Department Manager – Category Management

Requirements

• 10 plus years of retail product and assortment experience.
• Bachelor’s Degree in Business or related field (Master’s Degree a plus)
• Strong visionary and strategic leadership skills
• Proven ability to lead and manage team members
• Ability to develop relationships and credibility with individuals at all organizational levels
• Strong research and analytical skills.
• Proven experience of turning data into actionable insights with clear articulation and influence
• Proven project management experience
• Demonstrate proficiency with MS Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• A broad scale understanding of business, finance and the retail marketplace.
• Experience uncovering performance and profit drivers based on primary or secondary research and understanding the efficient practices necessary to achieve or maintain sustained competitive advantage
• Ability to discover category performance and sales and profit drivers in view of the entire store operation is paramount to a successful retail program.
• Experience or understanding of Ace’s cooperative structure and field staff organization.

Responsibilities

• Integrate with Merchandising to influence the category review and strategic planning process- developing end-to-end strategies for assortments
• Support Merchant team with category performance analytics, consumer insights, key trends and root cause; communicate effectively across all levels of Ace – Officer down to Retailer
• Partner with Merchandising and Field leadership to define and manage to corporate and retailer performance targets of key category metrics and improved Discovery Acceptance
• Develop critical retail execution plans for updated assortments and strategic plans with specific implementation guidance for New Stores, Remodels and Multi-Store chains
• Build, maintain and grow strategic and analytically driven approach to space optimization, including profitability analysis, competitive analysis, retail positioning, & inventory position
• Create locally relevant planograms, utilizing clustering and customer segmentation to identify regional, demographic or niche assortment opportunities
• Develop strategic approach to macro assortment strategies, including reduction of unproductive Discovery inventory across all categories
• Own, manage and communicate all assortment and space planning strategies, systems and processes
• Partner with the visual team (fixtures, décor and signage) to deliver retail ready planograms that maximize use of space yet remain shoppable for the consumer
• In conjunction with Merchandising manage the yearly Category Review schedule and process and determine category review candidates
• Work with analyst teams to ensure category, strategy, goals and KPIs are met and that we are considering all cluster/regional opportunities
• Partner with vendors to gain industry knowledge and access to customer data
• Connect cross-functionally to get analysts access to all relevant data points required for analysis
• Lead the development and implementation of our programs requires buy in, support and substantial teamwork between numerous departments; including IT, Retail Dev, Store Systems and Ops, Marketing, Merchandising, Order Entry, Inventory, Distribution and Credit.
• Leverage internal and external data sources, including rich Ace Rewards customer data, to identify emerging consumer trends and opportunities within various customer segments
• Study competitors & industry best practices to stay on top of trending merchandising techniques and visual merchandising opportunities
• Work closely with the Store Environment team to identify space saving fixtures/alternatives to improve linear foot productivity
• The planning and execution of the Discovery Edge Booth will require considerable leadership and involvement from the Department Manager
• The coordination of show efforts is a shared responsibility, but the Department Manager will play a key role in the planning, space allocation and launch of the assortments in the Discovery Edge booth
• Lead the development of tools to execute and market all planogram resets to aide planogram changes for retailers
• Lead team to support vision of strategic and dynamic management of assortment, space and visual communications across Ace
• Enforce a culture of creative curiosity that will drive actionable insights based on robust analytics
• Grow top talent within the team and feed other Ace Corporate teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s Degree a plus