Director, Merchandise Development - National Retail Partners

Ashley Furniture Industries•, AR

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Merchandise Development leads the end-to-end development of furniture assortments and product programs for assigned National Retail Partners. This role serves as the primary bridge between retailer strategies, consumer insights, and Ashley's product-development capabilities, creating commercially successful products that deliver against customer expectations for design, quality, value, profitability, and speed to market. Working closely with retailer merchants, account leaders, and cross-functional partners, the Director identifies assortment opportunities, translates market and consumer needs into product concepts, and leads execution from ideation through commercialization and post-launch performance evaluation.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Industrial Design, Furniture Design, Product Design, Engineering, Business, Merchandising, or a related discipline, or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
10+ years of progressive leadership experience in furniture product development, merchandising, design, engineering, manufacturing, or related fields.
Proven experience leading products from concept through commercialization and market launch.
Experience working directly with retail customers and developing products to defined price, margin, quality, and timing objectives.
Demonstrated expertise in upholstery, case goods, or both, with the ability to lead broad product-development initiatives across categories.
Experience leading cross-functional teams and managing multiple complex product-development programs simultaneously.
Deep knowledge of furniture construction, materials, finishes, mechanisms, manufacturing processes, quality systems, testing standards, packaging, and logistics.
Strong ability to translate consumer and customer insights into commercially successful product solutions.
Excellent strategic thinking, project management, communication, presentation, facilitation, negotiation, and decision-making skills.
Strong financial acumen with the ability to evaluate product economics, margins, pricing, and business cases.
Ability to influence and collaborate effectively across organizational functions and leadership levels.
Proficiency with Microsoft 365 and product-development, specification, visualization, project-management, and product lifecycle management tools.
Demonstrated integrity, accountability, curiosity, urgency, and resilience.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree in a related field.
Professional certifications in project management, Lean Six Sigma, product safety, engineering, or design disciplines.

Responsibilities

Lead the complete product development lifecycle for assigned retail partner programs, from opportunity identification and concept creation through commercialization and post-launch assessment.
Partner directly with retailer merchants, product teams, and account leaders to understand customer strategies, shopper behaviors, assortment gaps, competitive dynamics, and growth opportunities.
Translate consumer insights and customer objectives into comprehensive product briefs that define target customer, use case, design direction, features, materials, quality standards, pricing objectives, margins, packaging requirements, and launch timing.
Develop and guide product concepts across upholstery and case goods, including styling, product architecture, materials, finishes, color direction, features, and functionality.
Establish product roadmaps that align innovation priorities, customer reviews, development milestones, testing requirements, production readiness, and launch objectives.
Collaborate with Design, Engineering, Manufacturing, Sourcing, Quality, Supply Chain, Finance, Operations, and Sales teams to develop scalable, manufacturable, and commercially compelling products.
Lead design reviews, prototype evaluations, sample approvals, and stage-gate decisions while maintaining accountability for product direction, timelines, and business outcomes.
Ensure alignment between product vision, customer requirements, manufacturing capabilities, and operational readiness.
Drive timely resolution of project risks, trade-offs, dependencies, and execution challenges.
Partner with commercial and finance leaders to establish target cost structures, margin objectives, and pricing strategies.
Identify value-engineering opportunities that improve profitability while maintaining customer expectations for quality and design.
Support retailer line reviews, customer presentations, assortment recommendations, competitive analyses, and product storytelling initiatives.
Evaluate category performance, market trends, and competitive offerings to inform future development priorities.
Partner with Customer Supply Chain and Operations teams to validate production capacity, lead times, inventory strategies, packaging requirements, logistics readiness, and delivery expectations.
Maintain accurate product specifications, bills of material, testing requirements, approvals, and development records throughout the product lifecycle.
Monitor project status, development metrics, and launch readiness through dashboards, reviews, and cross-functional operating rhythms.
Analyze post-launch performance, including sales productivity, customer feedback, quality trends, returns, ratings, costs, and margins to drive continuous improvement.
Develop and enhance merchandising and product-development processes, tools, governance models, and stage-gate disciplines to improve speed, quality, consistency, and scalability.
Build organizational capabilities that strengthen product-development effectiveness across retail partner programs.
Mentor and develop team members while fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement.
Ensure compliance with product safety, testing, regulatory, confidentiality, intellectual property, and customer exclusivity requirements.