Reporting to the Chief Supply Chain Officer, responsible for a team of 63 merchandise planners, demand forecasters and analysts in managing all aspects of inventory management for 383 stores in categories of general merchandise, consumables, grocery, seasonal, and fresh produce. This also includes managing all the inbound appointments and ownership of the item master data set up, and working with the logistics and transportation teams to optimize routes. Led projects related to optimizing both DC efficiency and transportation costs by updating delivery schedules for both perishable and non-perishable routes, which led to less carrying inventory and better in-stocks.• Working closely with the CMO, establish monthly financial lock forecast meetings to instill OTB disciplines, and to discuss specific supply chain and merchandising strategies.• Partnered with the Business Intelligence and IT teams to create transaction basket analysis to create analytics in Power BI to better stand the customer shopping patterns, which were incorporated into merchant category plans and initiatives.• Implemented on time and on budget the Anaplan (a SAS based) financial planning system to provide better visibility to OTB risks and opportunities.• Established disciplines in managing aged and non-productive inventory, including enhancements to Power Business Intelligence reporting, to proactively address slow turning inventory and prevent excessive markdowns.• Provided financial risk assessments of future buys working with the CFO and merchants, creating what-if scenarios with the planning teams to create contingency plans in season.

Led a team of 55 Inventory Planners and Analysts in charge of inventory management for 400 stores and online businesses across all apparel, footwear, fine jewelry, and home categories. Working closely with merchant and finance teams to integrate inventory management strategies to maximize profitability of the OTB financial targets. Partner with DC and transportation teams to identify opportunities in shortening lead-times to reduce carrying cost and create more of a just in time replenishment flow to both channels of business.• Coordinate with the merchant teams on buy plans and receipt flow on both replenished and seasonal categories, ensuring the assortment planning process incorporates receipts that reflect historical store volume grouping sales and falls within the OTB constraints.• Working with the store services each month to create optimal allocation of product categories to the selling space of the stores creating the maximum rate of return on the space invested using specific KPIs, and making appropriate recommendations on changes as needed.• Successfully converted to Infor ERP as a member of the IT/Business Unit steering committee to identify needed changes to process and reporting, while ensuring the business does not get interrupted in the transition.

Led a team of 22 planners, allocators, and analysts managing 340 stores with total annual volume of $800M. Working closely with the merchant, finance, and supply chain partners in establishing both short term and long term process improvements to maximize sales and reduce overall costs for the company.• Established a formal financial forecasting process for total company to ensure the OTB is being monitored and maintained.• Reviewing opportunities to reduce in-transit lead times and drive better predictability of shipments to stores with improved receipt forecasting and aligning store receiving resources with their respective freight.• Enhanced the assortment planning template to reflect actual receipt targets that tie back to the OTB, versus only fixture fill needs.

Reporting to the CEO, involved in all aspects of inventory management, financial planning, and merchandise strategy to ensure that the total company meet or exceeds the budgeted sales and profit. Initiated processes and reporting to drive more analytical disciplines within both the buying and planning organization to better hind sight the business, and create risk assessed strategies going forward.• Identified opportunities for size selling through more accurate use of history in the SAS sizing tool, and currently in partnership with SAS to enable better predictive size modeling going forward.• Created an OTB summary process with the CEO and merchant leadership to identify gaps that currently existed in the planning system used, to mitigate both sales and profit loss.• Launched a more deliberate hot and cold weather strategy, using a specific buying assortment guide and partnering with the merchants to ensure on time deliveries.• Successfully brought on board a senior eComm planner to create a separate eComm OTB, which was needed to guide the purchasing and promotional activities for this channel of business.

Reporting to the CEO and President, responsible for all aspects of merchandise planning for both bricks and mortar and online businesses across 43 countries. Established more strict disciplines in inventory management, sales forecasting, and strategic pre-season planning through a team of 72 merchandise planners, allocators, and analysts.• Improved inventory turn for Fall 2012 by 38%, driving more efficient inventory levels in both stores and the distribution centers across the globe. • Introduced season coding on all merchandise, to help monitor and control seasonal carryover which helped drive a 230 bps improvement in gross margin for Q1 of 2013.• Identified assortment gaps with the GMM, leading to the purchase of Oracles’ APT which went live in Spring of 2014.