WHO YOU’LL WORK WITH

In this role, you will have the opportunity to work as a central member of the GPM product and merch creation landscape. You’ll be the liaison between Global Product Creation, Merchandising GPM and GPM product creation. You’ll need to be the product lead in GPM which means collaborating with factory partners, the GPM design team, the GPM marketing team, the GPM merchandising team, and the global product team. There will be a heavy emphasis on growing Digital so partnering with the Digital teams across the GPM territories is a must.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We are looking for a Consumer-led, product obsessed, and marketplace focused candidate to seek and pursue opportunities to drive progress in the world. This candidate should maximize our resources to experiment, learn, and grow the brand and business to achieve consumer and financial targets. As the Sr Product Merchandiser, you will thoughtfully plan the product range by leveraging strategy, data, and insights. You’ll balance our investments to provide the consumer with foundational, fashionable, and innovative products.  This candidate needs to be a great communicator and convey the insights, emotions, passions, and innovations that are built into the products to inspire and delight our customers & consumers.

· MARKETPLACE KNOWLEDGE: Be able to manage the segmentation & differentiation plans driving clear channel strategy to build long term product franchises. Manage the key accounts assortments by influencing the commercial team.

· ENERGY UNIQUE COMPETENCIES: Partner relationship management - Athlete, Third Party, and Licensee

· READING & LEVERAGING DATA: Understands how to leverage and study retail and marketplace data, identifying opportunities, solve problems and make informed conclusions.

· PHYSICAL & DIGITAL RETAIL PROFICIENCY: Understand and leverage retail math to build product and financial plans. Leverage retail sales, marketplace insights, and consumer insights to regularly read and respond to business performance.

· DRIVING PROFITABILITY: Understands and partner with other functions to translate product vision into actionable and scalable plans that drives profitability and sustainable growth.  Expert in product costing to hit target margin goals per season.

The ideal candidate for the Sr Product Merchandiser, GPM role will bring the following experiences and knowledge:

• 8+ years of meaningful experience in product creation, product merchandising, or a related field

• Strong verbal and written communication skills 

• Proven ability to leverage standard tools and resources to communicate / present in a powerful, effective, and compelling way

• Proven ability to work cross-functionally in teams, be a team player

• Strong time management and organizational skills

• Ability to work independently and cooperatively in a diverse group

• Ability to network, influence, and utilize internal and external resources

• Ability to travel internationally a couple times per year

• Ability to travel domestically in Brazil quarterly

• Fluent in English, ability to speak Portuguese and Spanish is a plus

• Proficient in PowerPoint, Excel, Keynote, Miro, FlexPLM, and Box

• Physical & Digital Retail Proficiency:  Understand and leverage retail math 

WHAT YOU’LL WORK ON

The Sr Product Merchandiser, GPM will be responsible for developing and driving GPM’s product and channel strategy while building GPM specific footwear and assortments based on the Global Product line and regional needs.

CONSUMER: In partnership with cross Functional partners (Design, Consumer Insights, and Brand) set inspiring consumer centric vision and identify how to best serve our key consumers segments. Brief and partner with Consumer insights teams to identify areas for analysis and interpretation of macro trends.

OWN LINE ARCHITECTURE: Create and drive the creation of a unified strategy and quantitative effort to determine the size and shape of the product line through the lens of SKUs, Units, Revenue, and Margin aligned to growth opportunities by gender and category. It is built in partnership with Finance, Marketplace Planning, and Geo Merch and includes an Invest/ Divest view by Gender, Franchise, Category, Product Engine, and Price. It leverages qualitative and quantitative inputs (e.g. sales data, demand planning, and geo inputs) and accounts for newness, innovation, and carryover.

TRANSLATE LINE PLAN INTO CONSUMER-LED PRODUCTS: Provide strong product perspective based on Product Strategy, Product Line Architecture, Franchise Plans, Long Term Product Road Maps, and Consumer/Marketplace Insights. Create actionable plans for the triad to execute on by identifying qualitative attributes such as color, material types, silhouette, graphics, costing target, consumer focus, and innovation. Define & manage Line plan placeholders in partnership with Geo Merch and CTM. Define product pacing strategy based on process optimization (holding a conclusion that can be taken at a later stage). Ensure the product line remains with the capacity constraints (set by line plan) through out the creation workflow.

FRANCHISE MANAGEMENT & CATEGORY EXCELLENCE: Partner with Finance, Marketplace Planning, Geo Merch and Design to Create and drive franchise and category strategy to hit long term growth, by leveraging consumer, marketplace, and geo inputs. Informs product line architecture, long term roadmaps, and line plans

PROCESS EXCELLENCE: Manage complexity (i.e. multiple projects & overlapping seasons) and demonstrate a clear on understanding of the Converse business and processes. Ensure tracking to moments and deliverables. Partner with cross functional partners to share best practices, learnings and enable excellence and efficiency throughout the creation process.

CHANNEL MANAGEMENT : Manage the consumer right assortment for each channel by driving long term segmentation strategy and connecting with target consumer

KEY ACCOUNT ASSORTMENT: Lead and influence commercial partner teams to execute the consumer right assortment in all regional key accounts. Be able to ready and analyze business data to take accurate decisions.

GLOBAL TO GEO TRANSITION: Lead and facilitate all merchandising facets of the E2E product creation workflow from Line Architecture to Geo pivot (AF), to enable product excellence and readiness. Partner with functional partners to ensure all deadlines are met.  Be accountable for the accuracy, timely updates and delivery of merchandising inputs, across systems and tools. Priority focus on merchandising outputs (pricing, revenue, margin, unit forecasts, product intent, marketplace strategy, and product journeys).

READING & LEVERAGING DATA: Understands how to leverage and review retail and marketplace data, identifying opportunities, solve problems and make informed conclusions.

SAMPLE MANAGEMENT: Ensure Digital and Physical samples are clearly captured in the VMLP/Line Plan. Manage the sample process in collaboration with Development, including samples preparation for key meetings and other sample requests, archiving and storage.