MBA Scholarship for Achievement recipient

The Women's Buying role at Backcountry.com has given my passion for the outdoors new life, as I've delved deeper into the world of outdoor recreation! At Backcountry, I helped create the merchandise strategy and managed a budget of $14M across Women’s Active & Women’s Casual apparel, driving $24.5M in annual sales. I devised a strategic direction for the product assortment, identifying the category and brand mix for e-com and brick & mortar, as Backcountry announced 10 new store openings! I attended the Outdoor Retailer trade show in Denver, which helped me meet a lot of our vendors, source new vendors, as well as get to know my Backcountry team in person. In addition to managing the 60+ brands in my portfolio of Active & Casual, I built relationships with key brand partners like Levi, Lee, and Wrangler to establish the Women’s Denim assortment, increasing new brands overall by 27%. This culminated in sales volume growth of $572K YOY within my brand portfolio, during the second half of 2021 alone. I was also tasked with cutting an $800K aged inventory risk, which I had reduced by half in my first 30 days on the job, through strong negotiating. There was always a lot to manage at Backcountry, but we operated a strong team and navigated each challenge gracefully!

In February 2021, I was offered an Associate Buying role with DD's Discounts (a division of Ross, Inc.), buying Fashion Tops within the Junior Plus Size division. In addition to managing an Open-To-Buy of $7M annually, I was challenged to find ways to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to viral apparel trends on social media. In addition, I had the added complexity of ensuring every piece we bought was at the right price value. I flexed my strong negotiation skills and retail math skills on the fly in order to negotiate compelling deals which help our division hit topline margin and revenue targets. The off-price market is very volatile, so negotiating closeout deals in the market had to be delicately balanced with planning and developing own-brand products to ensure we were giving the customer the right merchandise mix, as well as maintaining a steady stream of inventory slowing out to our stores.

Next, I made the jump into a new market by accepting a Retail Buyer position for Yogaworks. Entering the health and fitness industry, along with buying the product categories of apparel and yoga accessories, was thrilling as I'm personally quite passionate about yoga! At YogaWorks, I not only got to experience the assortment planning for our boutique retail locations, but I also got to flex my visual merchandising and team coaching skills. I trained field staff on merchandising basics, kept field teams informed about the brands carried, and advised them on best sales techniques. Sourcing new brands at trade shows like the LA Market and Active Collective always was a fun opportunity at YogaWorks. YogaWorks offered me the unique experience of being not only the Retail Buyer - but my own Allocator, Planner, and Production team. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic hit the fitness industry quite hard, and brought my time with YogaWorks to a close in late 2020 when the company had to file for bankruptcy. Despite the challenges, YogaWorks was an absolute blast to be a part of, and I learned so much during my time there!

In April of 2018 I was promoted to Buyer I, and given full responsibility for the Electronics category, the Home division's largest category! In my two years with the division, we expanded the product offering to encompass 8 product categories in total - Electronics & Tech, Travel, Room Decor, Stationery, Bedding, Bath, Novelties, and Kitchen. I personally designed and developed 150 or more products a month, ranging across all Home product categories. I also was given the opportunity to manage our full-time Sample Coordinator, and in addition, acted as Senior Buyer from August through October during a management transition. One of my most exciting projects at this time was establishing the Import Home & Gift business for Forever 21’s new sister brand, Riley Rose.

In October of 2016, I moved to the West Coast and became an Associate Buyer on the newly established Home & Gift team at Forever 21, which was only two team members at the time! Through my time there, we expanded to be a team of 7; 4 production team members, 1 packaging designer, and 2 buyers. I supported the Senior buyer in all different types of product development, planning, problem solving, and logistics. I managed the procurement of brand appropriate merchandise assortments for the Home & Gift business, maintaining a budget of roughly $8.8M annually. The products that we offered were successful, as the business scaled from $8M in sales for FY2016 to $24M in sales for FY2017, a 310% increase. We also increased gross margin dollars from $2.4M in FY2016 to $7.2M in FY2017.Additionally, I helped expand our vendor base from 15 to 122 vendors in 2017, and identified 20 core factory direct suppliers, securing sharp costs. I also represented the Home & Gift division at the Canton Fair in China in October 2017, sourcing product with 107 new vendors. In this role I got to work across all Home & Gift material suppliers - hard goods as well as textiles. Though the first half of my time at Forever 21 was focused heavily on product development, I also flexed my old logistics expertise to resolve and streamline a lot of our production process issues. I wrote SOPs for many production procedures, including Freight Cost and Duty Rate references, Packaging & Labeling requirements, a Testing Guide for import product, all of which eventually culminated into the Home & Gift Vendor Routing Guide.

In August of 2015, I was offered the Merchandise Coordinator position within Anthropologie Home's Decorative Division, particularly for the Garden, Storage, Bath Hardlines and Decorative Accessories product classes. There, I worked closely with an Associate Buyer to build and buy assortments of merchandise that were brand appropriate and balanced across different price points and aesthetics. During my time at Anthropologie, I surpassed sales goals for FY2016 in 3 of 4 product classes, driving overall growth of $1.2 million in my business area. I also increased IMU percentages by 2% in FY2016. Most thrilling for me was getting to independently design and develop product. In addition, I sourced, planned, and bought the Ecommerce Garden collection for Fall 2016, and introduced a trinket dish program as the top Bath Hardlines investment for Fall 2016. I continually evaluated and reported weekly, monthly and seasonal reporting data to buying teams and senior executives to monitor and maximize product performance. I also managed reorders for the carryover assortment for each product class, working collaboratively with cross functional teams as needed.Another facet of my role at Anthropologie was that I attended trade shows on behalf of the Decorative Division. I took three buying trips in total, where I met with 50+ vendors over the course of a couple days. These trips helped me expand our domestic supplier base to 40 new market vendors, increasing vendor relationships by 44% percent. Other facets of my role were more tech focused. I was given the opportunity to oversee our web content, providing the product information and written copy, and ensuring that the product was shot correctly. I also planned and conducted store visits, communicating my takeaways to other buying teams as needed. This role ignited my passion for product, and defined a future career for me in the retail industry!

At DB Schenker, I coordinated logistics and communications between foreign offices, customs officers, and transport vendors to locate and ensure on-time freight arrival to multiple clients. I advised compliance procedures to clients, ensuring that their imports met all trade law regulations. To create more efficient shipping procedures internally, I created and maintained master customer profiles, guaranteeing consistent customer service and minimal operational issues for clients, company-wide. I also acted as a point of contact for customer concerns, solving logistical import and export complexities within stated deadlines, while creating long-term solutions to previous recurring issues. In addition, I executed multiple accounting functions, ensuring payments to third party freighters and accurate client billing.

In September 2013, I was offered a unique opportunity to teach English abroad through an international government program. I was selected from thousands of candidates from Canada, the United Sates, and the United Kingdom, and I received a placement in the Baleric Islands (Spain) for the length of one school year. There, I created, developed and implemented curriculum useful for students of all ages, within schools with very limited resources. I regularly assessed student progress and lesson effectiveness through exams and class activities. I also developed and maintained an extensive network of after school tutoring sessions with students, coworkers, and acquaintances in my free time. This experience enhanced my invaluable skills of flexibility, adaptability, problem solving, and dealing with the unexpected within, and outside of, the workplace.

I started my experience with Banana Republic as a sales associate, and quickly learned I had a passion for sales and customer service. I was quickly promoted to the Customer Experience Lead position. During my time as part of the management team, I led the sales floor and supervised twenty retail associates at $2.1 million (annual revenue) retail environment, ensuring the achievement of our financial goals. I consistently exceeded goals for monthly credit card enrollments, and trained our associates on selling the store credit card. Our store even received attention for our efforts at the national Gap Inc. Field Leadership Conference. I was responsible for supervising monthly store audits and daily bank deposits. When needed, I helped create action plans for associates struggling with store standards, and provided in the moment "coaching" for associates. I also contributed to the visuals team, by managing the processing of weekly inventory replenishment shipments, directing in-season management and markdown re-merchandising, and creating and maintaining visual displays.

At Conrad, I worked to create unique, standards-based unit plans for 5 classes of 7th grade world history students with varying ability levels. I designed weekly lesson plans that focused on diverse student learning through primary source readings, lecture, simulations, and classroom technologies. I also attended and was involved in parent conferences, faculty, team and department meetings, and county wide professional development days, which helped me foster a collaborative effort to better student achievement. Last, I observed student growth and development by charting meaningful education data and adjusting my teaching patterns through formative and summative assessments.

At Cephalon Pharmaceuticals, I participated in the implementation of SAP software for the Human Resources department. I wrote, executed, and managed the testing of test scripts in the Organizational Management/Personnel Actions and Compensation areas of SAP software. I also aided HR Employees with their SAP testing and SAP navigation; meanwhile managing and tracking the progress for all test scripts through 3 cycles of testing within Excel spreadsheets.