Samara Russell Email & Phone Number

Lake Bluff, Illinois, United States

Homewerks Worldwide a leading import distributor of home improvement products for major retailers. Since its formation in 2006, Homewerks has consistently grown sales by bringing innovative, efficient, and high-quality product solutions to homes.

Lake Bluff, Illinois, United States

• Adapted to reduced headcount in the department, including the loss of the Director in May 2023, by adeptly navigating diverse vendor/supplier portals to manage key data for various Key Accounts' vendor compliance.
• Cultivated collaborative partnerships with vendors and internal stakeholders to uphold compliance with fill-rate, on-time delivery, and operational benchmarks. Successfully reduced fines by proactively communicating.
• Provided comprehensive training and supportive materials to internal teams on vendor management best practices, empowering them to resolve supply chain issues efficiently.
• Prepared and presented inventory scorecard reports to identify the root causes of supply chain issues, facilitating proactive measures for improved compliance.
• Conducted regular reviews of supply chain violations and procedures, identifying areas for improvement and implementing corrective actions.
• Identified a process gap and collaborated with the Business Intelligence team to develop and maintain an inventory runout report, enabling proactive communication of upcoming shortages to customers, which helped win.

• Provided competitive analysis data to the merchant teams to support assortment strategies by outlining competitive marketplace trends, pricing insights, and shifting categories to forecast product demand.
• Utilized excel to analyze data and effectively create reports for various projects and teams; presented findings to merchants weekly.
• Identified brands and products to enhance the sourcing and purchasing process, saving time and costs.
• Worked cross-functionally with departments to create PowerPoint decks with informative datapoints.

Chicago, Illinois, United States

• Leveraged strong interpersonal skills to build strategic B2B relationships with boutique owners, ultimately understanding and supporting unique needs through business insights, assortmentrecommendations, and digital.
• Grew seven international brands within 200+ Midwest retail accounts in addition to increasingshowroom sales by 117% through a proactive approach that targeted new business opportunities.
• Performed engagement analysis on sales outreach to obtain more effective response rates.
• Managed Mailchimp campaigns and social media accounts, strategically utilizing open rate data to track performance and adjust content as needed

Los Angeles, California, United States

• Maintained accurate use of product management programs, supporting internal and external business partners with open-to-buy management, new product documentation, shipping windows, and sales reports.
• Prepared competitive product analysis presentations and presented recommendations at weekly meetings.
• Organized extensive sales reports in addition to devising competitive product analysis spreadsheets with 600+ products to facilitate comprehensive seasonal strategy development.
• Assisted merchants with purchase order (PO) placements, change requests, and flow updates.

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Utilized Salesforce to strategically sell digital advertising solutions in specific territories, calling upon 65+ prospects per day while managing client notes and call cadences to reach targeted stakeholders.