Sr. Manager, Distribution

Pure Fishing•Kansas City, MO

11d•Onsite

About The Position

The Sr. Manager of Distribution is responsible for leading a large, complex omnichannel distribution center supporting retail, wholesale, marketplace, and ecommerce fulfillment operations. This position provides strategic and hands-on leadership for daily operations, people development, safety, service, inventory accuracy, cost management, and continuous improvement. The role is accountable for building scalable processes, developing high-performing teams, and ensuring the distribution center is prepared to support significant ecommerce growth while maintaining strong service levels across all channels.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in supply chain, logistics, operations management, business, industrial engineering, or related field preferred; equivalent experience may be considered.
Minimum 10 - 15 years of progressive leadership within warehouse, fulfillment, distribution, logistics, or supply chain operations experience.
5 - 7+ years of leadership experience managing supervisors, managers, and large hourly teams in a high-volume distribution or fulfillment environment.
Experience operating in an omnichannel environment with ecommerce, retail replenishment, wholesale, parcel, LTL/FTL, or customer-specific fulfillment requirements.
Strong knowledge of WMS, labor planning, inventory control, receiving, picking, packing, shipping, replenishment, returns, and performance management.
Demonstrated success leading continuous improvement initiatives with measurable results in productivity, cost, safety, quality, or service.
Experience managing budgets, labor cost, overtime, capacity constraints, service levels, and operational KPIs.
Ability to work flexible hours as needed to support multi-shift operations, peak periods, and business-critical events.
Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Black Belt, APICS, CSCP, CPIM, OSHA, or similar certification.
Experience with automation, conveyors, sortation, pick-to-light, goods-to-person, robotics, cartonization, slotting optimization, or labor management systems.
Experience scaling ecommerce fulfillment operations through rapid growth, new channel launches, network changes, or facility expansion.
Strong financial acumen with experience building business cases, tracking savings, and managing return on investment for operational improvements.
Experience working in a metrics-driven culture using dashboards, BI tools, daily management systems, and structured operating rhythms.

Nice To Haves

Ability to work in a distribution center environment with exposure to warehouse equipment, varying temperatures, noise, and active material handling areas.
Ability to stand, walk, and move throughout the facility for extended periods as needed.
Ability to work flexible schedules, including evenings, weekends, holidays, and extended hours during peak business periods.
Must be able to comply with all safety requirements, personal protective equipment standards, and site operating procedures.

Responsibilities

Lead and direct daily distribution center operations, including receiving, put-away, replenishment, picking, packing, sortation, staging, shipping, returns, inventory control, and value-added services.
Provide leadership to managers, supervisors, leads, and hourly associates across multiple departments, shifts, or operating windows.
Ensure operational execution supports omnichannel fulfillment requirements, including ecommerce direct-to-consumer orders, retail replenishment, wholesale distribution, marketplace activity, parcel shipping, LTL/FTL shipments, and customer-specific requirements.
Develop labor plans, staffing models, operating schedules, and workflow priorities aligned to volume forecasts, promotional activity, seasonality, peak periods, ecommerce growth, and service-level commitments.
Monitor and improve facility performance against key operating metrics, including safety, quality, inventory accuracy, productivity, cost per unit, order cycle time, on-time shipping, dock-to-stock time, throughput, and customer service.
Partner cross-functionally with transportation, planning, customer service, merchandising, technology, finance, human resources, safety, maintenance, and senior leadership to align distribution center execution with business priorities.
Maintain a visible leadership presence on the floor to remove barriers, coach leaders, reinforce standards, validate process compliance, and drive accountability.
Ensure compliance with company policies, workplace safety standards, OSHA requirements, equipment safety practices, and applicable regulatory requirements.
Manage operating budgets, labor expense, overtime, supplies, equipment utilization, vendor support, and cost-control initiatives.
Support and optimize warehouse technology and operational systems, including WMS, LMS, OMS, TMS, RF equipment, material handling systems, automation, and business intelligence tools.
Design and scale fulfillment processes that support rapid ecommerce growth while maintaining service levels for existing distribution channels.
Balance competing channel priorities, including parcel fulfillment, LTL/FTL shipping, retail replenishment, customer-specific routing guides, marketplace requirements, and expedited orders.
Lead capacity planning for labor, space, slotting, equipment, automation, and carrier throughput to support future order growth.
Partner with technology and operations teams to optimize WMS/OMS logic, wave planning, batch picking, cartonization, inventory allocation, routing, and exception management.
Prepare the operation for peak periods, promotional surges, holiday demand, product launches, and new customer/channel onboarding.
Develop and lead a continuous improvement roadmap focused on safety, quality, cost, service, productivity, space utilization, labor efficiency, inventory accuracy, and ecommerce scalability.
Apply Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, 5S, standard work, visual management, root cause analysis, value stream mapping, and DMAIC methods to eliminate waste and improve process flow.
Establish baseline performance, define target conditions, prioritize opportunities, and track financial and operational benefits from improvement initiatives.
Lead cross-functional improvement events involving operations, engineering, maintenance, technology, inventory control, transportation, HR, and frontline associates.
Create and maintain standard operating procedures, job instructions, process controls, daily management routines, and audit mechanisms to sustain improvements.
Use operational data, WMS reporting, labor management insights, dashboards, time studies, and floor observations to identify bottlenecks, defects, rework, excess travel, poor slotting, congestion, and capacity constraints.
Drive improvements in picking paths, slotting strategy, replenishment logic, pack station design, dock flow, wave planning, returns processing, inventory control, and carrier handoff.
Build associate engagement by creating feedback loops, recognition programs, problem-solving boards, and structured methods for frontline employees to submit and test improvement ideas.
Partner with finance to validate savings, productivity gains, cost avoidance, and return on investment for labor, equipment, automation, and process changes.
Ensure change management is embedded into every improvement project through communication plans, training, leader standard work, readiness reviews, and post-implementation audits.
Develop supervisors and managers in continuous improvement thinking so the site can sustain a daily improvement culture rather than relying only on project-based events.
Report progress to senior leadership with clear metrics, project status, risk mitigation plans, and recommendations for additional investment or support.
Build a high-performance leadership team through coaching, accountability, succession planning, and development of managers, supervisors, leads, and associates.
Create a culture of safety, ownership, urgency, collaboration, inclusion, and continuous improvement.
Set clear expectations, inspect performance, provide timely feedback, and hold leaders accountable for results and behaviors.
Partner with HR on staffing strategy, recruiting, onboarding, retention, performance management, engagement, and workforce planning.
Lead communication routines such as shift start-up meetings, tier meetings, KPI reviews, action planning sessions, and business reviews.
Promote cross-training and flexible staffing models to support changing volume, channel mix, and ecommerce demand variability.