Carolyn Mele-Marceda Email & Phone Number

Santa Barbara, California, United States

Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara, California Area

Santa Barbara, California

United States

Greater New York City Area

Fully entrusted with a high degree of decision-making. Established and drove talent management initiatives, performance management processes, recruiting, budgeting and daily operations for a multi-million dollar fashion enterprise - Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani, Armani Casa, Giorgio Armani General Stores, Armani Café, and Central Alterations. Strong focus on increasing revenue, customer retention, inventory management, loss prevention, alterations, logistics, policy-procedures and training. • Played a major role in facilitating change to meet the dynamic and constantly evolving marketplace. • Developed selling expense budgets, staffing budgets and managed loss prevention for 33 Retail locations, Central alterations, Cafés, Showrooms and Corporate Operations Department. • Opened 15 new stores to include Armani Casa as a new division, and Armani 5th Avenue Flagship. • Hired well over 800 employees, for all levels of operations. • Created and rolled-out POS systems and user manuals to 31 stores, trained store teams on the system. • Produced and continually updated Operations Manuals, Human Resource Manuals, POS and LP Manuals. • Planned and hosted the annual Operations Manager’s meeting for 5 consecutive years. • Planned and executed General Manger’s meeting and all private in-store events and company parties. • Worked in close partnership with C-level Management Teams. • Chosen to receive “Innovation Award” based on outstanding contributions.

Steadily scaled ranks to Director in charge of developing and continually improving all Flagship Operations. Among the early staff hired, instrumental in supporting the growth of Banana Republic/Gap into a top-tier brand, with 278 stores. • Prepared and planned budgets based on Year 2000 sales of $50M. • Achieved $14.6M in sales goals within a 3-month period in 1999. • Directly accountable for supervising 22 managers and up to 500 employees daily. • In charge of employee relations, dispute resolutions, and consulted management and staff on all issues related to recruitment, performance management, compensation and payroll. • Established an environment with high performance standards and high value on human capital. • Continually initiated and planned for continuous improvement of HR functions. • Directed operations of a 50,000-square foot, three floor location with multiple departments. INTERNAL / FIELD AUDITOR, BANANA REPUBLIC/GAP INC. (1998-1999) Provided leadership as the first Internal-Field Auditor in company history. Investigated and prosecuted the company’s largest fraud case $60,000. • Authored and updated Internal Audit Manuals and Guidelines. • Executive sponsor of IT initiative that launched a vendor based POS exception reporting system. • Traveled to all US stores independently and maintained budget. • Wicklander-Zulwaski Certified Investigator • Extensive Corporate Committee Involvement

Education record

Regents Diploma, 12