Our client is looking for a dynamic, creative and resourceful Planning Manager to join its Lifestyle team. This individual must be a self-starter and team player who takes initiative, thrives in a fast-paced environment, and is excited about joining a team on a journey to accelerate transformation across the organization. This position will report to the Director of Planning as well as collaborating with Sales, Demand Planning and our account partners to proactively manage the business and achieve our financial goals.
Key Responsibilities
A Retail & Financial Planning Manager plays a critical role in driving the company’s retail performance through strategic financial planning, analysis, and collaboration with cross-functional teams. This position focuses on optimizing sales, margin, inventory, and overall health and profitability of our business.
- Manage and analyze weekly sales reports to track performance trends, identify growth opportunities and support strategic decision making
- Create and/or set up reporting weekly/monthly/seasonally
- Actively participate in weekly meetings internally and with external counterparts where you will speak to the business and areas of opportunities or addressing issues
- Create and maintain ladder forecasting files to forecast sales, receipts and markdowns at a program level
- Own and maintain account level seasonal open-to-buy (OTB’s) to assist in monitoring sales, markdowns, receipts and stock levels with retail partner in order to make strong business decisions
- Develop and execute comprehensive retail financial plans, including sales forecasting, budgeting, and margin analysis aligned with company objectives
- Partner with Sales on go to market recaps and pre-market assortment strategies to ensure we are maximizing profitable growth in appropriate categories
- Drive continuous improvement in financial planning processes, tools, and systems to enhance accuracy and efficiency
- Perform ad hoc analysis for management requests
Our Best Fit Candidate Would Have
- Bachelor’s degree
- 5+ years related experience
- Retail planning knowledge or experience required
- Demonstrates firm understanding of wholesale and/or retail financials
- Highly proficient in Microsoft Excel (Including pivot tables, lookups, etc.)
- Strong mathematical and analytical skills, including retail math (Ability to calculate margins, ST%, AUR, WOS, etc.)
- Ability to think both strategically and execute tactically
- Ability to partner and collaborate at all levels with multiple areas of the business
- Be able to influence others based on analysis and forecasting
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills to convey point of view
- Must be proficient at creating new reporting tools to help analyze and drive the business
- Entrepreneurial mindset and resourceful – Capable of problem solving
- Foster a collaborative, positive, results-driven work environment
- SAP experience, a plus
- Tillerman experience or Account portal experience, a plus
Christine Appleton