Associate Manager, Shopper Based Design

Wella Professionals•Calabasas, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Associate Manager, Shopper Based Design (SBD) manages retail merchandising projects from brief through in-store execution, delivering on time, within budget, and to customer standards. The role focuses on OPI and supports the broader Retail Hair, OPI and Prosumer (RHOP) portfolio, including Retail Hair brands such as Clairol, Clairol Professional, and Wella Color Charm. In collaboration with SBD visual merchandising colleagues, channel Trade Marketing, Field Sales, Finance, vendors, merchandisers, and customer partners, the Associate Manager turns agreed plans into clear actions and coordinates delivery.

Requirements

At least 3 years of relevant retail merchandising, visual merchandising, or project management experience, with direct responsibility for vendors, budgets, and multiple concurrent projects.
Hands-on visual merchandising experience, demonstrated through delivery of fixtures, displays, retail resets, or merchandising rollouts.
Experience delivering projects for beauty specialty retailers such as Ulta Beauty or Sephora, as well as Food, Drug and Mass (FDM) customers.
Understanding of retailer calendars, approval processes, and in-store execution requirements.
Ability to build trust across functions and external partners, adapt communication to the audience, and handle competing needs or difficult conversations constructively.
Ability to influence delivery without direct reporting authority.
Clear communication skills, including translating project details into concise updates, recommendations, and requests for decisions.
Ownership, follow-through, solution-oriented collaboration, and the ability to create structure amid ambiguity, maintain accurate project status, and escalate early when needed.
Demonstrated budget, prioritization, and time management skills, with attention to detail.
Proficiency in Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and project tracking tools.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Marketing, or a related discipline.
Experience with retailer merchandising calendars, including the Ulta Beauty MTT calendar.
Experience with planogram tools such as Space Planning, NexGen, or Spaceman.
Familiarity with vendor dielines, schematics, engineering drawings, and artwork review.
Adobe Illustrator experience.
An interest in beauty.

Responsibilities

Own integrated project plans, milestones, dependencies, approvals, and delivery dates across simultaneous projects; keep priorities and project status current and follow actions through to completion.
Coordinate permanent fixtures, temporary displays, planograms, artwork, replacement parts, and maintenance with SBD leads and vendors.
Check specifications, retailer requirements, and approvals before production and installation.
Brief and manage external vendors from scope and quotes through production, delivery, and issue resolution; set expectations for quality, cost, and timing and track performance.
Coordinate with Procurement on required sourcing and approvals.
Coordinate external merchandisers and installation partners, including store lists, schedules, instructions, training materials, and completion reporting.
Verify execution through photos or audits, resolve field issues, and close outstanding work.
Provide timely customer updates in partnership with Field Sales and customer leads, explain impacts, recommend solutions, and confirm decisions, responsibilities, and next steps.
Align SBD visual merchandising leads, Finance, channel Trade Marketing, Field Sales, and other partners on inputs, deliverables, and approvals; establish working cadences, document decisions, and escalate unresolved dependencies.
Manage project budgets, quotes, purchase orders, invoices, accruals, and forecasts with Finance.
Track actuals and commitments against budget, explain variances, and recommend corrective actions before overspend occurs.
Anticipate risks and provide practical recommendations with cost and timing implications.
Balance competing deadlines, communicate tradeoffs, and create trackers, routines, and processes where structure is missing.