Creating a variety of foods that are both appealing to look at and tasteful to eat. Engage my creative side with new recipes, food arrangements, and menus providing a tasty, relaxing meal in every situation to ensure clients and attendees enjoys their food experience. Work with clients directly to deal with special requests, dietary needs and requirements and create menus for in-home dining and/or special events. Design and create menus for special events both large and small, and organize all items needed for delivery and meal preparation. Ensure that all menu items meet the expectation of the customer through advanced tastings and practice runs. Organize and source all ingredients needed for every item on the menu for all events. Finalize menu items and head counts before the event to guarantee your team is prepared for the job. Transport food, tables and other items needed to serve food during an event to ensure that all catering jobs move smoothly and efficiently. Prepare and organize the serving of the food in order to adhere to food safety requirements. Assist with clean up after an event to guarantee that no items are left behind, all the while promoting my brand. Manage other individuals, including caterers and servers as needed, to keep the flow in the kitchen moving smoothly and to provide a memorable food experience.

Assist with several fundraising events such as selling 50/50 tickets, tickets for the Home Improvement Lottery, Walk for Alzheimer’s, It’s Five O’clock Somewhere, and Anything for Alzheimer’s taking direction from the Event Coordinator to ensure that everything runs smoothly from start to finish. Help with set-up and take down; registration; directing attendees; answering questions and/or directing them to a member of the staff; promote and support various events; and sit on event committees to help with planning all the while acting as a brand ambassador.

Responsible for managing of branch activities including providing exceptional experiences to our Members, customers and Associates; responsible for sales and marketing, administration, security and financial success of the store; responsible for coaching and leading the Travel Agents and Member Service Consultants in achieving the goals and objectives of the branch and organization; provide leadership and effectively manage the daily store operations to ensure CAA SCO Quality Standards are upheld; work closely with other lines of business to ensure a coordinated and high level of Travel and Member Services; develop and implement store business plans and budget; provide direction and scheduling to ensure the store is fully operational at all times and working to optimum productivity levels; monitor store performance indicators and identify opportunities to create efficiencies, improve product quality, and customer service; analyze sales statistics to determine full sales potential, inventory requirements and monitor preferences of customers; support the overall vision and business planning of both the store and CAA by participating in cross functional projects; attract, hire and retain talented Associates.

Drive shareholder value by driving comp sales and ATV; manage customer relationships by modeling superior customer service for others; get work done through others by applying Situational Leadership to fit the unique needs of each individual or situations; inspire others by enabling and promoting an inclusive and diverse team and working environment; manage work processes through roll out of new programs/processes successfully through effective communication and training of associates.

Establish short and long term business plans; recruit and maintain a strong, highly skilled and professional in-home sales force to maximize lead productivity; assess manpower requirements to ensure adequate sized sales force/installation base is available to handle lead demand; develop and implement local market contests and incentive programs to stimulate sales and lead development; conduct local market comparisons for competitiveness; accountable to manage gross profit to potential; establish standards of performance and goal setting for sales staff; arrange and/or conduct selling skills training/product knowledge/team meetings; establish standards of performance for sales support team and installation base to optimize cycle time.

Managed 12 Sales Team Leads and 140 Associates; business goals included executing a Value Strategy to develop a solution based focus to each customer interaction; optimize associate potential and deliver continuous performance improvement; achieve sales plan through the provision of leadership in the execution of Corporate initiatives and programs; engage and support the store team in the pursuit of growth; provide leadership to ensure a consistent shopping environment that exceeds both customer and corporate needs and expectations; provide team leadership to the store as well as to direct reports through coaching, performance management, associate engagement, recruitment and selection.

Nationwide coordination of 550 participants; managed and assist in preparing pre-work, travel plans, hotel accommodations and communication of the conference; liaise with the Production Company, host hotel and other vendors to ensure project outcome; manage daily detail of conference planning; coordinate with Headquarters teams regarding details of the agenda and their role; ensure details of the design elements were complete; assist in managing the budget.

Ensure efficient management of inventory accuracy and recovery for all departments in order to reflect all customer and corporate requirements; manage and support the physical inventory taking process for the entire store, inclusive of divisional inventories, removal of seasonal inventories and tracking of missing merchandise; develop detailed plans to achieve unit targets relative to inventory productivity, identifying critical factors to maximize return on investment; monitor inventory data and systems, discover weaknesses or missing data, investigate and resolve accordingly; full supervision of inventory team, including day to day operations, scheduling, training/coaching, and performance assessments; consult and collaborate with regional, operations, and IT Managers about corporate processes and practices regarding store inventory data; liaise and consult with other Associate Store Managers to ensure cross-functional effectiveness; responsible for entire store operations in the absence of the Store Manager.

Manage day to day operational activities of various departments, interacting with customers, and supervising employees; provide leadership to a sales team of 30 people inclusive of coaching/counseling, training, and performance assessments; ensure that all Human Resource policies and procedures are in place and adhered to at all times; collaborate with key decision makers in development, implementation and evaluation of sales plans, floor plans, customer loyalty index; maximize the sales through excellence in customer service, development of the sales teams, and maintenance of merchandise presentation to company standards.

Responsible for overall departmental profitability; accountable for fiscal management of departmental inventory and turnover rates; responsible for coordinating/implementing/results of yearly stock taking; full supervision of a sales team consisting of 13 associates; responsible for hiring and training and conducting employee reviews; accountable to department finances and budgeting; initiate and supervise in-store and corporate promotions; participate and represent the company at various outbound marketing events; develop and implement action plans for poor performing departments; conduct quarterly meetings with teams and participate in weekly business reviews with the Store Manager.