Nancy (O'Donnell) Dalton Email and Phone Number

Leader of North America Merchandise Team (6 members), Demand Planning Team (6 members) for retail, web, and wholesale businesses; and Allocation Team (4 members) for 150+ retail boutiques, outlets and café stores in US, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Leader of North America Demand Planning Team (5 members) for retail, web, and wholesale businesses; and Allocation Team (5 members) for 200+ retail boutiques and 20 outlet stores in US, Canada and Puerto Rico. • Built, cultivated and led highly engaged teams. Restructured roles and responsibilities; hired & trained new members; refocused teams on key metrics, reporting and communications. Resulting in improved forecast accuracy (67% to 80%), inventory flow to stores, service levels for web & wholesale customers (80% to 98%) and achieving reduction in inventory goals.• Collaborated with merchant partners to develop and lead the processes of strategic long range product category plans, tops down plans, bottoms up item forecasts, and pre-season & in-season item forecasting and inventory buying. • Created a merchandise financial planning tool for both retail and web businesses: MTD, YTD, YTG and Year view of inventory, sales, markdowns, product margin and receipts by category. Managed the process to achieve sales and inventory goals.• Key senior leader driving Sales and Operational Planning (S&OP) processes. Developed executive sales reporting by product category and business channel, created forecast accuracy and bias reporting for month and year-to-date. • Orchestrated monthly forecast consensus meetings for all 3 business units with high-level / cross-functional leadership teams, ensuring S&OP objectives were met and critical path decisions were made.• Recognized as key leader and go-to person for cross-functional groups of Merchandising, Marketing, Supply Chain, Finance and Senior Management; managing and resolving any sales and inventory planning questions / concerns and challenges.• Acted as the business Project Manager on Demand Solutions DSX software implementation that provided SKU-level forecasting solution for a multichannel business (retail in units and retail $ and wholesale in cases and list $).

Appointed by senior leadership to be key member of the global transformation project. Managed and owned global process design and implementation strategy for SAP Retail Merchandising, for North America, Europe, Hong Kong, China and Japan roll out. • Established global template for Retail transactions (Sales, Pricing & Promotions, Inventory, Allocation & Replenishment) between stores and home office that defined people, processes, and systems connectivity. • Created numerous PowerPoint presentations, delivering to 5 global audiences, including each regional senior leadership team and executive management at corporate headquarters. Received high commendations for compiling and utilizing regional feedback that ensured buy in for 1 global strategy. • Identified change management concerns and opportunities, uniqueness of each global region, as well as each merchandising departments strengths and weaknesses, while still utilizing 1 global template.

Led team of 7, managing 45K active items and 300+ vendors, with forecasting, buying and sourcing responsibilities.• Linked sales and inventory planning at company and department levels by introducing merchandise financial planning and open-to-buy practices, resulting in reducing inventory levels and increasing service levels to 97.8%.• Developed proactive reports for never-out and promotional items, month-end and year-to-date sales and inventory reporting, leading to better understanding of trends and daily to YTD service level results.• Improved engagement with Merchandising and Operations Departments by establishing governance model of weekly / monthly meetings to review current results with common reports and goals, as well as planning future months.

Directed Inventory Planning & Allocation Department (20 members) through successful retail expansion from 5 to 15 stores. • Exceeded sales goals for all new store openings through improved inventory planning and replenishment (+20% in 05, +60% in 06, +80% in 07) and contributed to positive comp store sales results for those same years. • Led migration from catalog-centric forecasting methodology to retail planning approach more appropriate to company’s rapidly growing retail business. Developed and implemented necessary tools, metrics and reporting that supported this evolution.• Developed short-term proto-type tools that modeled building of new inventory planning system.• Designed curriculum and led weekly learning sessions with Merchandising and Inventory Department. Topics included Retail Math and use of new tools; introduced new processes and problem solving discussions for immediate business challenges.• Utilized team building skills in developing and promoting people, with 2 achieving management positions.

Clients: Ballard Designs, French Country Living, Ross-Simons, Forerunner Systems, Inc. Implemented merchandise planning calendars, inventory management processes, product classification structures, organizational structures, and system install & training.

Worked out of the Westbrook, Maine - Georgetown Collection Office• Directed three departments (Inventory Planning, Quality and Sourcing) in four locations (Maine, California, China and Thailand) with a total staff of 30 people. • The Collectibles Division included: Georgetown Collection, Magic Attic Club, Marie Osmond, Annette Funicello, Richard Simmons, and Knickerbocker Toys.

(Wholly owned subsidiary of The LL Knickerbocker Company, Inc. as of 1997)• Managed all functions of the Inventory Planning, Quality and Sourcing Departments for both Georgetown Collection and The Magic Attic Club.• Significantly improved the relationships with the existing manufacturing partners by sharing planning and quality standard information in a timely manner. This resulted in increased sales and profitability due to improved inventory flow and in-stock levels, improved quality standards and reduced returns. • Increased efficiency and quality of sourcing operation by consolidating three Asian offices (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan) and combined them into one new sourcing & quality assurance office in ShenZhen, China.