Thad English Email & Phone Number

Egg Harbor Township, Nj

Leading the planning team and responsible for all Non-Apparel & Non-Jewelry parts of the business in the brick and mortar channel.

- Create accurate item level unit sales forecasts using relevant data for business portfolio in the Amazon eCommerce channel. - Provide management with relevant, accurate data analysis and reporting to make decisions which drive maximum return on investment. - Maintain appropriate inventory levels for 120 unique items across the Amazon, Target, and Walmart eCommerce channels in support of company financial goals.

Burlington, Nj

- Identified sales and merchandising opportunities, validated financial impacts of initiatives, and used data storytelling to influence leadership for approval of budgets and forecasts in multiple businesses in the Mens and Handbags Divisions. - Led comprehensive business hindsight review process to evaluate return on investment of initiatives and strategies, then applied learnings to go-forward fiscal planning development. - Developed and taught the Introduction To Planning class as part of the Assistant Buyer Training program. For 5 years, every Assistant Buyer to be on-boarded learned the basics of retail planning in my class room. - Developed and mentored multiple associate chain planners, securing promotions for all. - Core member of College Internship Program evaluation team. Interviewed, trained, developed, and assessed interns in 2019, 2021, and 2022. 100% of the interns assigned to me were offered jobs at the end of their internships. - Burlington Excellence Award winner for Q4 2021. Largest increase to sales plan in the Mens Division.

Burlington, Nj

- Member of the pilot Location Planning program to review, test, and improve business processes to achieve maximum positive impact of total company roll out. - Interviewed and made hiring recommendations to fill 18 newly created Location Planning Analyst roles.- Trained and developed a team of four Location Planning Analysts to successfully implement and execute the Location Planning process. - Created, reviewed, and implemented store level sales and inventory plans to drive sales, increase inventory turnover and reduce markdowns at a region and store level. - Improved sales by 12% to over $100M and improved merchandise turnover by 11%. - Built solid partnerships with the Juniors buying team to change historical buying patterns and support new seasonal and geographic sales trends. - Increased gross margin rate through strategic geographic allocation of seasonal products, e.g, shorts, tank tops, and sweaters.

Burlington, Nj

- This newly created entrepreneurial role’s primary focus was to develop and manage the grab-and-go queue business located at the front of the store. This unique role required a strong merchant skill set, as well as a highly developed planning/forecasting skill set. All processes and strategies were clean slate ideas unique to the queue business. - Led the creation of merchandising strategies, defined product space allocations within the queue, developed/managed sales plans and OTB, and consistently evolved the assortment to generate increasing sales and profit.- Built a highly desirable assortment of high margin, impulse items (e.g. cell phone accessories, pet accessories, healthy snacks) that could update constantly with new merchandise. Added holiday themed items (e.g., Valentine's Day, July 4th, Halloween) to be seasonally relevant. - Initiated and implemented operational processes to support the store teams to merchandise and manage the queue.- Created unique reporting for queue businesses including fixture level reporting to show productivity per linear foot of space. - Influenced General Merchandise Managers, Divisional Merchandise Managers, Allocation Managers, Senior Store Merchandisers, and Planning VPs to execute queuing strategies.- Consistently surpassed performance metric benchmarks: Sales, Markdown Rate, Average Unit Retail, Inventory Turn, and Gross Profit.- Developed an aggressive expansion strategy and successfully lobbied senior management for capital expenditure to roll out the queue business to 200 additional stores.

Burlington, Nj

- Planned the Mens Big & Tall and Mens Activewear businesses and consistently surpassed sales expectations. As a result of strong performance, was given increased responsibilities to plan the larger sales volume Men’s Personal Furnishings, Men’s Gifts, and Electronics businesses. - Received CEO Award in Q3 2012 and Q4 2012 for highest comparable store sales increase against last year and highest increase to sales plan among total Men's business group.

Bensalem, Pa

- Coached and developed team of four allocation analysts, one replenishment analyst, and one assortment analyst in the non-apparel businesses: Intimate Apparel, Hosiery, Jewelry, Leather Accessories, and Shoes.- Led team to create strategic allocation and replenishment plans to support sales, inventory, and gross profit goals. - Balanced financial goals with current sales forecast and the ability to distort store inventories in order to maximize sales and gross profit in each location.

Philadelphia, Pa

- Developed and directed four allocation analysts to maximize inventory allocation with emphasis on weekly distributions to 100 plus stores. - Partnered with divisional merchandise managers and buyers to optimize sales gains in trending stores by analyzing sales and stock at the department, class, vendor, and item level. - Created all new-store-opening inventory plans and resolved over/under stock situations as necessary. - Initiated the usage of the Island Pacific dynamic replenishment system to replenish more than 2500 unique items multiple times each week to 100+ stores; increased in-stock rates, decreased aged inventory ownership, and drove sales increases of more than 6%. - Supported rapid growth from 60 to 120 stores; opened all stores within 10% of unit inventory plan.- Analyzed seasonal business performance by store, directing allocation analysts to adjust allocations so that all stores exited each business at end of season with minimal inventory ownership. Seasonal sell through increased from 65% to 85%.

Media, Pa

- Created Excel based planning tool to manage inventory flow at the individual style level based on each retail partner’s planned sales and historical ordering trends. Managed inventory order flow to maximize warehouse processing speed and minimize inventory ownership. - Planned vendor-managed wall décor businesses for Kohls, Target, JCPenney, and smaller regional department stores. Responsible for all wholesale inventory planning, ordering, overseas containerization, and delivery to local warehouse facility to support weekly orders from retail partners. - Accurate sales forecasting and strong inventory management resulted in a year over year sales increase of +48% for the Spring ’08 season - Partnered with Product Development Department to consolidate production to fewer factories to gain efficiencies in containerization per factory resulting in decreased cost per unit in each factory of approximately 6%- Analyzed and forecast sales and inventory plans monthly for over 450 unique items from 8 different trading partners and factories for 15 retailers resulting in a 35% decrease of non-go-forward inventory

Philadelphia, Pa

- Created and maintained seasonal financial plans at the division, department, and class levels incorporating sales, inventory, markdowns, turn, average unit retail, and gross profit for 50+ stores. - Completed monthly analysis of stores’ inventory, recommending style markdowns to the Divisional Merchandise Manager and buyers to ensure timely liquidation of slow turning merchandise.- Allocated merchandise in the Housewares and Accessories divisions to 90+ stores to maximize annual sales of $54+ million.- Created store inventory plans on a class level using the NSB planning and allocation tool and monitored each store’s variance to the sales and inventory plans on a weekly basis, adjusting allocations accordingly.- Partnered with Divisional Merchandise Manager and Buyers on new business allocation strategies and execution.