Sawdust and Clay Collaborative connects locals to local art by providing a place where people can buy, sell, learn and create art together in their local community.

I was recruited by the eighth-largest retailer in the U.S. to oversee a high-volume location with 250+ combined employees and serve as the District Service Captain across 13 stores due to my comprehensive industry expertise. During my tenure, I placed significant focus on designing improved curricula for leadership development programs to enhance manager engagement and performance. Our annual goals included maximizing sales, customer satisfaction, client retention, and employee engagement.Under my leadership, our store achieved its achieve its annual loyalty goals and 104% of our 2021 revenue goal while improving performance across 13 operational metrics. Additional successes include boosting our District’s Net Promoter Score (NPS) from 60 (last place) to 80 (1st), winning the 2020 District Service Award.Last, but not least, I continually elevated productivity through the launch of ongoing employee development initiatives leading to the promotions of seven team members into leadership roles. While I am proud of all that I accomplished in this role, I am anxiously awaiting the next challenge to conquer!

I earned four promotions within a leading fashion retailer and assumed accountability for directing the daily operations of high-volume stores with a 10-member leadership team and 150+ total employees. By leading my teams to aggressively pursue their sales targets, the Durham location increased comparable monthly sales for three consecutive years to a record-setting sales in 2016. Other claims to fame include earning the South Region’s 2015 Store Manager of the Year Award for sales production/goal attainment, averaging an 80 NPS by training both management teams to rapidly resolve escalated issues and ensure exceptional service delivery (earned two District Customer Service Awards in Bloomington), and increasing employee retention at the Bloomington location by 15% (in a market with an extremely low unemployment rate) by fostering an environment that valued individual accountability and the collective pursuit of shared goals.I am also credited with conducting market research and competitive analyses to identify emerging consumer trends and recommended sourcing high-demand products that led to a 20% increase in women’s merchandise sales, and developing an improved succession plan by constructing a pipeline of potential leadership personnel, and spearheading candidate assessment and selection to ensure our ongoing acquisition of top talent, as well as new hire training to elevate individual and team goal attainment. Lastly, I always made time to mentor high-potential employees, enabling the promotions of over 20 team members into more senior-level and/or management positions.

n this role, I was tasked with supporting the conceptualization and implementation of visual merchandising strategies for 13 high-traffic locations in collaboration with a 30-member retail management team. I also managed vendor relationships to maximize service quality, and liaised between regional leadership and buying teams to optimize demand planning.My most impactful contributions were assisting with the generation of 20% YoY designer apparel sales growth by organizing promotional events including the largest and most successful Designer Preview event in the region’s history and boosting sell-through rates at key locations by optimizing product mixes based on extensive knowledge of the designer apparel industry resulting in a significant revenue increase.I also managed to play a key role in launching an enhanced outfitting process for customers that contributed to a significant companywide sales increase, and I was selected by senior leadership to train new Regional Merchandise Managers and coach underperforming peers due to my consistently high performance.