Merchandise Planning Senior Director
Resume:
Kristi James
**** ****** *****, *********, ** ***70
*.*.******@*****.***
PLANNING PROFESSIONAL
Planning professional with years of experience and a proven track record of developing and executing strategic initiatives and analysis that drive revenue, profitability, and growth. Effective leader in identifying sales and inventory opportunities and risks, solving business problems through creativity, research, and teamwork in a fast paced environment. Creative thinker and problem solver with excellent communication and cross functional relationships.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Senior Director, Merchandise Planning
Parachute Home, Culver City, CA Jan. 2022- Mar 2024
Lead a team of 5 merchandise planners, managing all divisions for the company, across ecommerce, brick and mortar stores, international, hospitality, and B2B, driving $200M of revenue on an annualized basis.
Building out and implementing Parachute’s first OTB process to ensure financial rigor. On boarding and training key stakeholders to this new process.
Rolled out Demand Known, a cloud-based planning system to improve sku level forecasting and purchasing.
Built and implemented the swatch process, ensuring the continued growth in trade, one of the main goals for the brand.
Lead and facilitated the strategy and investment review and buying process.
Trained and developed a new team of planners to begin to move from a startup mentality to a growth model.
Director, Merchandise Planning, Apparel, Intimate Apparel, Footwear, Accessories
Torrid, City of Industry, CA 2017 – 2021
Led a team of 9 merchandise planners, managing $800M in revenue across multiple product categories in both ecommerce and brick and mortar channels.
Created and executed strategic initiatives related to pre-season planning, in- season buying, and inventory management.
Implemented a robust merchandise planning process that resulted in a more collaborative effort among the planning and merchant divisions.
Revamped the entire planning process for the organization, leading to greater visibility by channel and increased revenue.
Owner of the promotional plans for the brand, partnering with Marketing and Ecommerce digital marketing teams to execute in season.
Reduced inventory by -16% YOY while resulting in +8% growth in topline revenue, +10% GM$, and improved sku productivity by +20%.
Merchandise Planning Manager
Lovesick- Brand of Torrid, City of Industry, 2015 – 2017
Adapted and continually evolved planning and forecasting methodologies during the startup phase of a brand new brick & mortar and ecommerce concept.
Led and facilitated pre-season/in-season plans reviews that support new assortments. Identified risks and opportunities, flow, seasonality and presentation.
Led and facilitated both the buying and hindsight process at the total, department, class level for the entire brand.
Built and developed companywide tools to identify sales risks, opportunities, and sales cannibalization.
Trained, led, and developed training materials to on board a brand new merchant team for the entire division.
Guided the merchant team into strategic buys with targeted APS, sell through, and SKU productivity goals by category and sub-category.
Partnered weekly with the Ecommerce and Marketing team to improve the site message on the homepage as well as emails.
Senior Merchandise Planner, Tops, Jackets, Active
Torrid, City of Industry, CA 2012 - 2015
Drove double digit sales comp growth increases for three consecutive years, resulting in +54% comp growth from 2012 to 2015.
Developed tops down and bottoms up unit and dollar plans, representing 40% of the company sales volume.
Managed and mentored merchandise planners in the apparel division, with one direct report.
Established a library of several different promos to study incremental lifts and margin impact for the apparel division.
Merchandise Planner, Women’s Apparel
Hot Topic, City of Industry, CA 2010-2011
Ecommerce Planner, Music and License
Hot Topic, City of Industry, CA 2009-2010
Planning Manager, Men’s Apparel, Shoes, Intimate Apparel, Cosmetics
Hot Topic, City of Industry, CA 2004-2005
Merchandise Planner, Men’s Apparel
Hot Topic, City of Industry, CA 2002-2004
Allocation Analyst, Men’s Apparel, Men’s Novelty Tees
Hot Topic, City of Industry, CA 2001-2002
SKILLS:
Proficient in Excel, Looker, Asana, Google docs/slides/sheets, Oracle Retail Analytics, Microsoft Office, NetSuite, and Demand Known Planning system.
EDUCATION
University of California, Riverside, CA – B.A., Economics 1996-2000
Ayala High School, Chino Hills, CA
REFERENCES
Elyse King, Sr Director of Planning, Levis 213-***-****
Rachel Thompson, Sr. Director of Planning, Stitch Fix 213-***-****
Pam Sosa, Director, Torrid 626-***-****
Lindsey Morris, Sr. Merch Manager, Forever 21 520-***-****
Brian Matthew, Sr. Director of Logistics, Parachute Home 646-***-****
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