Position Purpose:

Support the Sr. Manager in executing strategic assortment initiatives, process improvements, and tool development. Act as the execution lead and primary domain partner for active development initiatives. Collaborate with merchants, planners, data science and product teams to deliver scalable solutions and actionable insights that enhance category performance and operational efficiency. Own the detailed business requirements definition, validation for assigned solution features, ensuring seamless integration into the business operating model.

Key Responsibilities:

• 80% Work in collaboration with Merchants to determine category review goals and objectives, conduct standard and ad hoc analysis to identify key drivers of performance, recommend assortment decisions that will improve category performance and develop financial plans that reflect category changes. Typical analysis will include: (a) marketplace and macroeconomic trends impacting the category including competitive assessment, (b) vendor portfolio strengths and weaknesses including private brand, (c) line structure, (d) store clustering, (e) customer and store feedback, (f) identifying key product attributes and (g) regional performance. Develop executive-level presentations that summarize analysis including historical category performance, strategic rationale underpinning assortment decisions and expected financial impact. Report out to all levels of management. Accountable for accuracy, thoroughness, thought process, timeliness and viability of recommendations.
• 10% Support to develop and maintain a calendar of category reviews.
• 10% Own MVP/DMM and Merchant/Associate Merchant relationships for designated department. Strategic projects. Ad hoc analysis and reporting.

Direct Manager/Direct Reports:

• this position reports to the Senior Manager, Assortment Planning
• No direct responsibility for supervising others

Travel Requirements:

• Typically requires overnight travel less than 10% of the time.

Physical Requirements:

• Most of the time is spent sitting in a comfortable position and there is frequent opportunity to move about. On rare occasions there may be a need to move or lift light articles.

Working Conditions:

• Located in a comfortable indoor area. Any unpleasant conditions would be infrequent and not objectionable.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Must be eighteen years of age or older.
• Must be legally permitted to work in the United States.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in assortment planning, analytics, or related merchandising roles.
• Strong analytical, initiative management, and communication skills.
• Strong track record of managing scope, timelines, and cross-functional dependencies for business and technology initiatives.
• Skill in designing "To-Be" business workflows that maximize the impact of new data-driven capabilities.
• Ability to synthesize complex process findings, domain strategy & stakeholder insights into concise, actionable business requirements.
• Experience translating strategic business priorities into clear value-based inputs for technical delivery teams, ensuring a high ROI on development efforts
• Proven ability to define Detailed Business Rules, Functional Specifications, and Operational Use Cases.
• Collaborative mindset and ability to work cross-functionally.

Minimum Education:

• The knowledge, skills and abilities typically acquired through the completion of a bachelor's degree program or equivalent degree in a field of study related to the job.

Preferred Education:

• No additional education

Minimum Years of Work Experience:

• 3

Preferred Years of Work Experience:

• No additional years of experience

Minimum Leadership Experience:

• None

Preferred Leadership Experience:

• None

Certifications:

• None

Competencies:

• Ability to partner with cross-functional teams at all levels across a complex organization
• Ability to get results despite a large workload, competing demands and working in a fast paced environment
• Ability to effectively prioritize multiple demands, adjust to change quickly and work constructively under pressure
• Ability to structure nebulous projects and to work constructively under tight deadlines
• Ability to influence peers and business partners without authority