Category Manager

Ernesto Otero “Be The Change You Want To See”

678-***-****, **********@*****.***

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ernesto-otero/44/7b1/954 WORK EXPERIENCE

Category Manager/Merchant – Giant Food April 2021 – Current Led the International/Specialty/Kosher portfolio $150M, +22% v2y, 4500 items, 80+ suppliers:

• Leading the region in market share; strategy includes 4Ps, distinct prioritization & test, measure, learn

• Successfully managed company P&L to deliver on quarterly & annual budgeted targets

• Provided proactive category management including development of multi-category assortments, seasonal and holiday play books, growth initiatives, space optimization and marketing strategies

• Strategically managed & developed supplier relationships, negotiated contract terms & conditions

• Developed and led 4 direct reports and 10+ indirect reports driving portfolio strategy

• Established POC programs i.e “Bulk”, “Local”, “Multicultural” Merchandising Strategy Manager – Giant Food August 2020 – April 2021 Developed & supported insights to business on “Natural” categories Sales $237M, +15%vly:

• Responsible for developing a 5-year roadmap on the progression and development of Natural categories

• Presented competitive insights to all level of stakeholders

• Primed periodic financial reports i.e weekly, monthly, quarterly on natural categories

• Led implementation of new Seasonal Sales Driver program delivering incremental revenue and D&A

• Implemented POC go to market strategy in 40 stores, optimized cross merch strategies Pricing Manger – Dollar Tree/Family Dollar July 2019 – August 2020 Developed & supported Pricing Strategies on Sales$11.2B:

• Led pricing recommendations based on margin targets, competitive benchmarks & index reporting

• Optimized zone pricing for food categories i.e Milk & Eggs, Tobacco, Beverage, Salty Snacks

• Developed guides & trained 8 direct reports on pricing analysis, process and reporting

• Centralized data tables to expedite turnaround on pricing analytics Sr. Analyst, Assortment Planning (Pro Merchandising) – The Home Depot July 2018 – June 2019 Analytics, Recommendations & Automation on $800M Sales$:

• Standardized assortment & import analytics to drive sales, rationalization & cost savings

• Analysis on product hierarchy & ecommerce taxonomy synchronization for merging/integrating businesses

• Built interactive Pro Tableau Dashboards using google big query optimizing assortment planning Sr. Analyst, Pricing Analytics/Solutions – The Home Depot May 2017 – July 2018 Product/Solution & Change Management/ Project Management/ Analytics, Pricing Logic & Price Tests:

• Supported the reduction in price change lead time & analysis of $20M in markdown savings

• Led the finalization & sustainability of pricing markets (store level pricing) & zone pricing

• Used agile methods to lead planning, executing, and monitoring of projects to achieve target metrics

• Implemented pricing strategies based on competitive targets, margin goals and merchant testing Merchandise Planner, D22 Building Materials – The Home Depot January 2016 – May 2017 Category Project Management &Operations/ Solutions & Cross Functional Collaboration:

• Proven success of multiple project simultaneously in an accelerated environment: Portfolio; Roofing 5th OverallR12: $1.4B Sales, +$120M sales growth

• Coordinated with vendors concerning assortment, pricing, availability, damaged product, buy-backs, special orders, sku activation & product creation, set up & dissemination EDUCATION (Bilingual)

Georgia State University, J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Atlanta, GA Fall 2015

• (BBA), Finance (1st Portfolio Mngmt, Hedge Funds Class)

• (BBA), Risk Mngmt & Insurance (CoFounder1st ISACA Student Chapter in the state of GA)

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