My team and I empower our Product Design, Development and Merchandising teams to create epic products that consumers will love. We do this through:- Data & Analytics: Infusing advanced insights into decisions made at every stage of the product creation process, from initial ideation and design to merchandising the assortment- Technology: Leading-edge tools for visual merchandising; Harnessing GenAI tools to improve our ability to rapidly iterate on product designs- Process Automation: Savings our teams thousands of hours a year through automation of manual tasks, as well as identifying areas where we can simplify work by eliminating before we automate

Powering our product creation and merchandising engines through the use of insights and analytics.

I am responsible for Enterprise Data & Analytics at Converse. In my role I have the privilege to lead an organization of Analytics Product Managers, Data Engineers, Architects, and Data Scientists with a mission to transform Converse into a data and insights-driven organization. Areas that I am accountable for include:- Enterprise Data Strategy: Designing, building and maintaining our cloud-based enterprise data lake and data warehouses (AWS/Snowflake) as one "source of truth" for data and insights within the company. Sourcing and ingestion of data from across systems including transactional ERP, point of sale, digital/consumer, and product creation. - Data Governance and Master Data Management: KPI/Metric alignment across stakeholder teams, data cleansing and quality, processes and operating model around data stewardship; Documentation and data catalogue; Partnering closely with Corporate Information Security and Data Privacy to ensure our data is protected and is being managed against the highest level of legal requirements (GDPR, CRPA)- Enterprise Analytics Operating Model: Partner with functional and geo teams to implement an analytics operating model, empowering the organization to drive value from data & analytics: Defined the organizational template including key roles, areas of focus, intake & governance, etc. and working with teams to implement the operating model across Converse- Culture of Data & Analytics: Drive enablement and training for teams across Converse on the tools and technologies for Analytics, as well as developing "data thinking" skills; Accountable for building and nurturing our enterprise analytics community- Advanced Analytics/Data Science: Empowering data scientists to drive value through data foundations & engineering and platforms like AWS Sagemaker; Defined the intake model for ensuring data science initiatives drive value for the company

As one of the early founders of Hearful, I was responsible for Product Management and Strategy, in addition to driving business development and customer success. I led our journey from defining and iterating on the business problems we were solving to defining problem/solution fit, development of our MVP and product/market fit. I also led sales cycles and closed deals with our first customers (global, multi-billion dollar Footwear and Apparel companies) by consulting with them on how Hearful's technology could solve critical problems in the areas of product design, development and merchandising. I was also accountable for our company pitch deck, messaging and leading our initial marketing efforts, crafting our "story" and developing the first version of our website. I had the opportunity to pitch Hearful to several members of the Research Triangle VC community as well as investors, potential board members and advisors outside of the Triangle. Finally, I led our engagement model with our initial Board of Directors and Advisors, facilitating board meetings and partnering with them on areas of strategic opportunity.

I led the Retail and Consumer Goods Analytics Practice at Merkle, the leading performance marketing agency in the industry. The team comprised analytics experts in the US and China, with a focus on helping Retail and Consumer Goods companies maximize the value of their 1st party data to drive personalized, relevant customer engagement across media and channels through advanced analytics and insights. Our projects range from customer analytics and modeling in support of omnichannel marketing campaigns (direct mail, email, social, display, search), advanced customer segmentation and audience definition, site analytics (specifically tying together site and in-store behavior), to cross-channel personalization (category/product affinity, customer experience personalization).

In my role as Director of Retail/CPG Analytics Consulting at SAS Institute, I led a team of Senior Analytical Consulting professionals who each possess deep expertise in the application of SAS advanced analytics capabilities to solve Retail and CPG business problems. The projects we focus on cover the spectrum of retail processes:Customer Analytics: Application of predictive analytics to support personalized, real-time customer engagement; for example, building a predictive modeling platform which will support a retailer’s strategy of engaging customers with personalized offers/communications via a mobile device. We are also focusing on the use of unstructured data from the web, social media, surveys, etc. can be used to gain deeper insights into customers.Pricing Analytics: Leveraging predictive modeling and optimize to optimize regular, promotion and clearance prices, as well as providing insights into the impact of promotional strategies on demandSupply Chain Analytics: Demand Forecasting and Optimization to help retailers balance and optimize inventory at DCs and stores; for example, recent engagements have focused on how inventory should be balanced across the supply chain to support a strategy to fulfill on-line demand from stores.Merchandising Analytics: Application of predictive analytics to the merchandise planning process; projects have focused on integrating a demand forecast into the merchandise plan, using advanced statistical techniques to cluster stores for the assortment plan, incorporating insights into customer behavior into the assortment planning process.

As Director of Global Retail Consulting at SAS Institute, I focused on the implementation of SAS Merchandise Planning and Analytics solutions for retailers worldwide (Merchandise and Assortment Planning, Demand Forecasting, Size and Pack Optimization, Store Clustering and Segmentation). • Led a global team of highly skilled retail business domain experts and technical consultants to complete implementation projects with retailers in The Americas and Europe• Acted as Executive Sponsor for strategic projects with multi-billion dollar retail clients• Built relationships with retail senior executives• Global business planning for SAS Consulting Services, analyzing global, regional and country market opportunities, setting strategic financial and organizational goals, and defining plans to achieve these goals. Collaborated closely with SAS regional and country managers in The Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific

In this role I was focused on developing SAS' Retail Solutions business primarily in Canada and Latin America, with a secondary focus on our European and Asia-Pacific markets. Prior to my starting in this role SAS had little to no presence with retailers in these regions.• Opened new markets for SAS Analytical Solutions for Retail; grew revenues in the Canadian market from less than $100,000 to over $10M in 2 years; grew revenues in Latin America from less than $100,000 to over $5M in 2 years• Responsible for all aspects of strategic global business planning, including: assessing market opportunities, setting strategic financial targets, and creating go-to-market plans at the global, regional and country levels. Collaborated with senior SAS executives and country office managers on the development of business plans.• Sold complex analytical solutions and multi-year, multi-million dollar implementation projects to senior executives at multi-billion dollar retailers in the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Helped executives craft business cases and value creation roadmaps for these projects, focusing on financial benefits • Spoke at retail industry events in several countries to audiences of senior executives; conducted interviews with local business press

Marketmax was a software company founded by Lori Schafer focused on the Retail industry-Marketmax solutions provided retailers with a Business Intelligence platform to support better planning and decision-making, as well as the leading Integrated Merchandise Planning solution in the market.• Led a team of Training Consultants responsible for design, development and delivery of training programs for external and internal retail customers.• Played a key role in several Marketmax implementation projects, helping customers apply concepts learned in training courses to real-world business problems.• Implemented a comprehensive on-line training program comprising both synchronous and asynchronous web-based training options• Developed and implemented a rigorous certification program for internal consultants and external partners, ensuring a high degree of quality in our software implementation services