Danielle Benton Email & Phone Number

San Francisco Bay Area

• Maximized the sales and profitability of the combined Sears/Kmart Women’s Apparel business via development and implementation of seasonal strategies, resulting in $767M in annual sales volume.• Managed, trained, and developed a team of 30 merchants responsible for 10 internal brands and five domestic brands.• Collaborated with Design and Sourcing to design, develop, and produce product for five key floor sets per year across modern, classic, junior, and active lifestyles. Effort resulted in increased sell-through and selling margin rate of 40.7% vs 37.7% from previous year. • Partnered with both import and domestic vendors to develop quality, brand-appropriate product engineered with a successful value proposition.

San Francisco Bay Area

Sears Holdings is an American holding company that was the parent company of the chain stores Kmart and Sears. It was founded after Kmart purchased Sears in 2005. It was the 20th largest retailing company in the United States in 2015. • Participated in senior leadership strategic planning sessions focused on future sales goals, strategic initiatives, cost savings, and organizational structure. • Completed talent assessments and succession planning for merchant team in collaboration with Human Resources.

Kmart is an American big box department store. At its peak the company operated over 2,300 stores and Super Kmart Center locations. It is now a subsidiary of Transform Holdco LLC. • Achieved sales of $165M; improved in season sell through from 55% to 72% via the use of SKU rationalization, fixture plan-o-grams, and price simplification.• Managed advertising and pricing initiatives for the Women’s division, resulting in a cohesive promotional message. • Selected by senior management to represent merchant team on first international sourcing trip to India and Bangladesh.

Charlotte, North Carolina Area

Belk is an American department store chain with 300 locations in 16 states, offering apparel, shoes, accessories, cosmetics, and home furnishings.• Achieved sales of $63M, a $5M increase to LY, while improving gross margin by 555 bps or $4.6M. • Responsible for the Belk E-commerce site. Grew sales by 78% while improving store ranking from #31 to #17. Maximized an over indexing Lauren dress business through additional assortments. Collaborated with direct mail marketing on a wardrobing event that drove increased items per transaction.

San Francisco Bay Area

Was a longtime division of Macy's Inc. Headquartered in San Francisco, this particular group of stores included 258 sites and included locations in Arizona, California, Colorado, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, western Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. • Managed autonomous Charter Club Sportswear division consisting of Collection, Items, and Seasonal product.• Achieved sales of $80M with an annual turn of 4.50.• Strategized new advertising formats and marketing handles since adopted by Corporate.

• Achieved combined Missy/Petite sales of $134M, an increase of $5.3M over previous year.• Oversaw consolidation of all size zones into one office.• Unified the Assistant Buyer, Lead Coordinator, Coordinators, and Shop Managers into one team, resulting in standardization of business processes and store execution.

Bachelor'S Degree, Business Administration/Marketing

Associate'S Degree, Fashion/Apparel Design