Senior Manager, Merchandise Planning - Wholesale

Company Description

Vuori is re-defining what athletic apparel looks like: built to move and sweat in but designed with a casual aesthetic to transition into everyday life. We draw inspiration from an active coastal California lifestyle; an integration of fitness, creative expression and life. Our high energy fast paced office environment is reflected in the clothes we make. We aim to inspire others to take on all aspects of their lives with clarity, enthusiasm and purpose…while having a lot of fun along the way. We are proud to be an outlet for opportunity and for personal growth and success.

Job Description

The Senior Manager of Merchandise Planning will focus on building out a high performing merchandise planning function and lead the successful development, communication, and execution of sales and inventory strategies that support the financial plan. This individual is responsible for supporting the team with developing strategic merchandise plans and targets for key categories to maximize sales, optimize inventory, and increase margin through the analysis of historical sales trends, current in-season patterns, and future forecasts. 

The ideal candidate will have experience with inventory planning processes (including open-to-buy, replenishment processes, category planning, and gross margin) for an apparel business or similar. Ability to be flexible, multi-task, comfortable with high sku counts, and able to prioritize under tight deadlines. It is critical to take initiative, particularly when working cross-departmentally with merchandising, production, finance, and marketing to support our evolving business needs. This individual has a broad skill set including strong Planning and Allocation, Category management skills, Analytical horsepower, excellent business judgment, and deep curiosity about how things work. 

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Manage open-to-buy process for assigned categories across Wholesale, providing top-down guidance and direction around key initiatives. 
• Manage the creation, review and execution of the Open to Buy budget to meet revenue and margin and expectations. 
• Analyze the business on an on-going basis to understand core drivers; identify opportunities and risks and partner with divisional leaders to respond appropriately. 
• Provide both qualitative and quantitative insights at seasonal hindsight and investment reviews, drawing conclusions to inform future product line architecture. 
• Build annual plans in partnership with SVP to support sales and margin growth and development of assigned product categories and wholesale accounts while supporting brand initiatives. 
• Provide high-level analysis, business reports, and qualitative and actionable feedback and recommendations to senior leadership, including contributions to quarterly hindsight and investment reviews. 
• Lead the strategic financial objectives for Wholesale through accurate and proactive management and forecasting of sales, margin, and inventory levels to achieve targets for the Vuori Wholesale business. 
• Develop and share merchandise analysis to inform and lead decision making, including upcoming buys, current opportunities, and risk management scenarios. 
• Develop a comprehensive merchandise planning strategy, forecasting and reporting by category, franchise, and SKU based on selling and bookings data, customer analytics, category dynamics and market conditions. 
• Partner with merchandising on the selection of core items, timing, and quantity of new and existing product to flow and balance inventory across product categories and product hierarchy to support sales targets and increase inventory turns. 
• Partner with Inventory Deployment & Allocation, Production and Merchants to ensure right levels of inventory are ordered and allocated. 
• Evolve product line architecture as needed and develop pre-season range plans that tie to topline strategies and offer guidance on channel segmentation. 
• Partner with Finance and Merchants to develop seasonal margin targets and work closely to drive for margin improvements. 
• Create short- and long-term product assortment strategies in partnership with Merchandising that align with the Brand vision, financial plan targets and customer experience goals, full-price and off-price product. 
• Participate in costing reviews and report on margin updates throughout the product development process. 
• Elevate in-season performance management cross marketplace units to drive productive conversation and key gate decision-making to hit business goals. 
• Partner with Production and Raw Material Planning teams to review pre-season key programs and fabric platforming to ensure never-out-of-stock on core essentials and on-time delivery to accounts. 
• Work closely with the Finance team to support a