Omni DMM – Women’s Swim

Tommy Bahama•Seattle, WA

About The Position

The role of Director of Merchandising, Women’s Swim, involves owning the end-to-end performance and strategic direction of the Swim business, with accountability for sales, margin, inventory productivity, and assortment effectiveness across channels. This position is responsible for developing and driving merchandising strategies that ensure profitable growth while upholding the Tommy Bahama brand identity. The Director leads assortment, pricing, and inventory strategies, leveraging both data-driven insights and strong merchant intuition to optimize product performance at both category and SKU levels. Managing the entire product lifecycle, from initial concept through in-season adjustments, the role ensures financial targets are met by delivering compelling, customer-relevant assortments. As the business owner for Swim, the Director facilitates cross-functional alignment with Design, Planning, Allocation, eCommerce, Marketing, and Visual teams, influencing decisions and guaranteeing seamless execution. Furthermore, this role is tasked with fostering innovation and category growth through testing, trend identification, and continuous optimization, all while maintaining a strong connection to the customer and market. The Director's functions include owning the end-to-end financial performance of the Swim business, driving sales, margin, and inventory productivity across all channels. They develop and lead both long-term and short-term merchandising strategies to achieve profitable growth aligned with brand and divisional objectives. This involves holistically evaluating business performance and making strategic trade-offs to optimize revenue, margin, and inventory return. The Director leads the development of assortments that reflect the brand vision and maximize productivity at the category and SKU level, applying data-driven insights and merchant intuition to shape product direction for relevance, differentiation, and financial performance. They drive category evolution through a test-and-learn approach, identifying opportunities for classification expansion and growth. The Director acts as a “Student of the Market & Voice of the Guest,” bringing deep knowledge of the target customer through consumer insights, market segmentation, regional/climate needs, and market data (product reviews, focus/fit group feedback) to all key touchpoints. They own margin performance and pricing architecture for the Swim business, making deliberate trade-offs for profitability and customer value, and utilize margin diagnostics to improve financial outcomes. The role also involves leading inventory strategy and flow, ensuring disciplined investment, strong stock productivity, and alignment to demand, as well as driving in-season management with proactive analysis, reorders, exits, and risk mitigation. The Director ensures assortments and strategies meet the unique needs of eCommerce and Retail channels while supporting broader business objectives. They lead cross-functional alignment across various departments to ensure cohesive execution, translating merchandising strategy into clear direction and influencing partners to meet financial and brand objectives. Successful execution of product launches, aligning strategy, financial investment, and cross-functional readiness, is also a key responsibility. The Director drives the adoption and effective use of tools, systems, and processes to enhance decision-making, efficiency, and business performance, acting as the category leader with a high degree of autonomy. They build strong relationships with Retail District and Regional leaders to integrate customer and field insights into merchandising strategies, provide strategic direction to Allocation, and partner with Visual on space allocation to ensure assortments are executed within capacity guardrails and maintain store-level style and SKU productivity.

Requirements

10+ years’ retail merchandising/ buying experience in a fast growth company with a geographically diverse multi-location company.
5-7 year’s apparel buying experience.
Strong negotiation skills and the ability to manage multiple vendors.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
Direct management experience and leadership skills with an understanding of the importance of team building/development.
Proven organizational skills, detail oriented and ability to multi-task.
Exceptional problem solving/ decision making skills.
A keen eye for fashion/trend analysis.
Budgeting, inventory turn, and gross margin experience.
Experience developing systems/processes that will help TB Retail reduce cost and maximize return on investment.
Experience in domestic and international buying/sourcing is required.
Strong computer skills (Word, Outlook), and super user of Excel.
Proficiency in merchandise replenishment software/systems.

Nice To Haves

STS experience preferred

Responsibilities

Owns the end-to-end financial performance of the Swim business, driving sales, margin, and inventory productivity across channels.
Develops and leads long- and short-term merchandising strategies that deliver profitable growth and align with brand and divisional objectives.
Evaluates business performance holistically, making strategic trade-offs to optimize revenue, margin, and inventory return.
Leads the development of assortments that reflect brand vision while maximizing productivity at the category and SKU level.
Applies a combination of data-driven insights and strong merchant intuition to shape product direction, ensuring relevance, differentiation, and financial performance.
Drives category evolution through a test-and-learn approach, identifying opportunities to expand classifications and unlock growth.
Brings deep knowledge and nuanced understanding of our target customer through consumer insights, end-use & market segmentation, regional & climate business needs, together with market data, including product reviews, and focus/fit group feedback, to all milestone touchpoints.
Owns margin performance and pricing architecture for the Swim business, making deliberate trade-offs to optimize profitability and customer value.
Utilizes margin diagnostics across category, item, and lifecycle to identify opportunities and improve financial outcomes.
Leads inventory strategy and flow, ensuring disciplined investment, strong stock productivity, and alignment to demand.
Drives in-season management through proactive analysis and decision-making, including reorders, exits, and risk mitigation strategies.
Ensures assortments and strategies reflect the unique needs of eCommerce and Retail channels while supporting broader business objectives.
Leads cross-functional alignment across Design, Planning, Allocation, eCommerce, Marketing, and Visual to ensure cohesive and effective execution.
Translates merchandising strategy into clear direction, influencing partners to deliver against financial and brand objectives.
Ensures successful execution of product launches, aligning strategy, financial investment, and cross-functional readiness.
Drives adoption and effective use of tools, systems, and processes to improve decision-making, efficiency, and business performance.
Acts as the category leader and primary point of accountability, operating with a high degree of autonomy and ownership.
Builds strong relationships with Retail District and Regional leaders to incorporate customer and field insights into merchandising strategies.
Provides strategic direction to Allocation and reviews execution to ensure product is placed effectively to support sales, inventory productivity, and flow objectives.
Partners closely with Visual on space allocation, ensuring assortments are executed within defined capacity guardrails and holding the merchandising team accountable to store-level style and SKU productivity.