VP, Merchandising & Brand Management

Ashley Digital

5h•$180,000 - $225,000•Remote

About The Position

Ashley Digital is the direct-to-consumer arm of Ashley Furniture Industries, operating a portfolio of category-leading sleep and home brands — Nectar, DreamCloud, Awara, Siena, and Newton Baby. The VP, Merchandising & Brand Management is the single owner of what we sell, how it's positioned, and how it's priced across the portfolio. This leader unifies merchandising strategy and cross functional execution with product marketing, pricing & promotion, and new product development under one accountable function. This is a build role. The organization exists in pieces today; the mandate is to consolidate it into a disciplined, analytics-driven merchandising engine that can scale across a multi-brand, multi-category portfolio and deepen the product pipeline. Scope of Ownership: Merchandising (category-led) Mattress · Bedroom Furniture · Accessories · Kids & Baby Assortment architecture, SKU productivity, line planning, and lifecycle management Product content and catalog quality across all brand sites and marketplaces Pricing & Promotion Portfolio pricing strategy, promotional calendar, and margin governance Competitive price intelligence and elasticity-based decisioning Product Marketing Collaborate with Product Marketing on brand and product positioning, value proposition, and claims architecture Lead go-to-market planning and on-site merchandising strategy, partnering with Digital Product to improve discovery, conversion, attachment, and profitable sales mix. New Product Development / Pipeline Multi-year product roadmap by brand and category Partnership with internal teams on cost, sourcing, and manufacturing feasibility Stage-gate process from concept through launch and post-launch review Brand General Management Define Brand management ownership and cross functional touchpoints to drive clarity in ownership and accountability throughout the organization. Establish governance framework for brand P&L inputs — revenue, contribution margin, assortment, and promotional plan

Requirements

12+ years in ecommerce / DTC merchandising, category management, or product merchandising, with 5+ years leading multi-level teams
Experience in home, furniture, sleep, or adjacent considered-purchase categories
Track record building or scaling a merchandising function — process, systems, and team — not just running one
Deep fluency in merchandising analytics: SKU economics, pricing and promo measurement, catalog and content performance
Demonstrated P&L or margin ownership and comfort partnering with Finance
Experience with product content / catalog operations at scale (PIM, taxonomy, attribute governance, marketplace syndication)

Nice To Haves

Multi-brand portfolio experience with distinct brand positioning and price tiers
Exposure to new product development and working with manufacturing or sourcing partners
Experience in a high-growth or transformation environment; comfortable with ambiguity and building from partial structures
Familiarity with agentic/AI-driven commerce and structured product data as a competitive lever

Responsibilities

Build and lead the function
Establish operating cadence: line reviews, pricing councils, launch readiness, quarterly assortment reviews
Define clear decision rights across brand GMs (P&L), category merchants (assortment and merchandising execution), and Digital Product (digital experience, capabilities, and experimentation), aligning on shared commercial priorities so each team can move quickly
Own portfolio merchandising and margin
Set assortment and pricing strategy by brand and category against revenue and contribution-margin targets
Rationalize the catalog: eliminate unproductive SKUs, close assortment gaps, manage good-better-best architecture across brands to minimize internal cannibalization
Partner with Finance on transfer-cost economics with AFI and on promo ROI
Drive the physical product pipeline
Own the physical product roadmap for new launches, refreshes, and category extensions (e.g., bedroom furniture, accessories adjacent to the sleep core)
Run launches end-to-end with Creative, Marketing, Technology, and Operations — from specification through site launch and sell-through
Bring a rigorous test-and-learn discipline to product decisions: pre-launch demand signals, post-launch cohort performance
Make merchandising data-driven
Partner with Data to build the merchandising analytics stack: SKU-level margin, attach rates, price elasticity, content performance, return and warranty signals
Own the quality and completeness of product content and catalog data; partner with Digital Product and to improve their impact on discovery, conversion, and downstream operations
Translate customer and competitive insight into assortment and positioning decisions
Lead cross-functionally
Represent merchandising and brand in planning, forecasting, and capital decisions
Act as the primary counterpart to AFI product, sourcing, and manufacturing leadership for non mattress categories
Partner with Marketing (acquisition/retention), Creative Brand, CX, and Operations to ensure the product story is consistent from ad to unboxing