Chief Merchandising Officer

Location: Markham, Ontario

Job Description:

At Pet Valu we understand that your pet is a part of the family because we’re devoted pet lovers too. We have been providing pets with everything they need to live healthy, happy, and active lives for more than 40 years.  

 

Our employees are the key to our success! As a growing organization, our employees apply their creativity and innovative ideas as they take ownership of their projects and growth. We pride ourselves in providing an open environment by managing with approachability and providing support to allow for career development.  

 

From distribution centers to stores to home office, we're supporting pets and their owners, and together we're making a difference! 

Job Summary

Top Executive with overall responsibility for merchandising, private brands development, and inventory demand and replenishment for the entire organization. Oversees, plan, and directs all aspects of a retail organization’s merchandise buying activities. Develops overall product assortment strategies to meet customer demand, maximize sales and profiles.  Establishes and maintains programs, procedures, and guidelines to ensure brand and financial objectives are achieved.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Safety – Operate in a way that builds trust with our customers, pets, and ACEs.
  • Make the physical and mental safety of team, others, and customers a top priority
  • Ensure an inclusive environment for team, others, and customers to feel safe asking questions without judgement
  • Follow the safety requirements of the role to ensure a safe workplace for self and team
  • Ensure the safety of the products sourced

• Compassion – Communicate and act from the heart with genuine care and courtesy. 

• Models compassion for each other and our pets

• Expertise – Provide knowledge in an understanding and informative way.

• Long range planning and development of merchandising strategies
• Development of sales promotion plans
• Directing team in the purchase and pricing of merchandise
• Development of private brands portfolio
• Oversee layout plans for stores and maintain store shelves and inventory
• Accurately forecasts profits/sales and plan budgets
• Analyze market trends to anticipate product needs
• Oversee monitoring of stock movement and consider markdowns, promotions, price changes, clear outs
• Build strategic relationships and team with channel partners to build pipeline and negotiate deals
• Remain up to date with industry’s best practices

• Efficiency – Use time and resources responsibly.
  • Ensures that work is distributed among the team in the most efficient and productive manner
  • Ensure that the systems and work flows are working efficiently
  • Development of tools that ensure productivity

Skills, Experience, Education, Certifications

• Proven experience leading merchandising departments or retailers in similar categories
• Up-to-date with the latest merchandising trends, technologies and best practices
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills
• Strong listening, presentation and decision making skills
• Commercial acumen and the ability to understand our customers
• Financial analysis and budgeting skills
• BS degree or MBA preferred
• Brand management skills preferred

Competencies

• Building Effective Teams
  Blends people into teams when needed; creates strong morale and spirit in his/her team; shares wins and successes; fosters open dialogue; lets people finish and be responsible for their work; defines success in terms of the whole team; creates a feeling of belonging in the team.
• Strategic Agility
  Sees ahead clearly; can anticipate future consequences and trends accurately; has broad knowledge and perspective; is future oriented; can articulately paint credible pictures and visions of possibilities and likelihoods; can create competitive and breakthrough strategies and plans.
• Process Management
  Good at figuring out the processes necessary to get things done; knows how to organize people and activities; understands how to separate and combine tasks into efficient work flow; knows what to measure and how to measure it; can see opportunities for synergy and integration where others can't; can simplify complex processes; gets m