Merchandising Manager, Global Key Accounts

New Balance•Boston, MA

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

Develop and implement the New Balance Footwear and Apparel seasonal directed assortments for the Must Win & Priority key accounts, consistent with key brand initiatives and financial expectations. Drive the Go-To-Market process and execution, in cooperation with the respective Global Business Units, North America Sales and Account Marketing. Drive differentiation & product segmentation for key retailers. Drive model and style efficiency and eliminate product redundancy.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required, with 5+ years of industry experience preferably in footwear and/or apparel buying and/or merchandising.
Experience with product planning, sales forecasting and working to budgets
Knowledge of account segmentation & differentiation, range architecture, product assortments, concept drivers, and product flow.
Leadership skills with the ability to influence, both formal and informal.
Excellent interpersonal skills with the desire to build lasting relationships internally and with key retail partners.
Strong problem-solving and decision-making skills are essential.
Superior communication skills, especially presentation skills.
Computer skills including advanced Excel
Travel required

Responsibilities

Drive the footwear product & apparel distribution, segmentation strategy and account category mix for our must win & priority accounts.
Develop Seasonal Must Land Assortments, from the Regional Footwear/Apparel product line, for these specific key accounts, to support key brand initiatives and delivers financial objectives across categories, price and margin, as well as turn.
In cooperation with RBU Merchants, Sales and Marketing, develop best in class Go-To-Market process, timing and execution.
Evaluate and implement seasonal introduction strategy.
Define key merchandising touch points and function ownership.
Ensure alignment within and across the RBUs to support key drivers and “Head-to-Toe” merchandising.
Develop seasonal story/product introduction timing and flow consistent with Customer Seasonality and balanced with supply chain capacity considerations.
Drive model and style efficiency; tighter assortments, eliminate overlap between categories and price points, increase expectations within categories we compete – reduce non-strategic and/or non-high volume models, and increase style level expectations – tighten up excessive color options.
Develop mid and long-term key account product line-ups that clearly communicate model/style lifecycle.
Identify gaps and opportunities in the range architecture and brief into the Global Business Units accordingly.
Generate SMU requirements when considered appropriate or essential to meet or exceed commercial goals.
Track financial results by key accounts against plan (annual budgets and 3yr OGSP targets); category mix, unit, revenue, go in and standard gross margin, ASP and forecast accuracy
Track product sell through and market share by account (monthly)
Style efficiency (pairs/style)
Lead, coach, and train direct report merchandising manager