The North Face: Senior Planner, Apparel

At The North Face we dare to lead the world forward through Exploration. We were born to Explore, Disrupt and to Lead. We were born to Love Wild Places and to Spark Curiosity. We believe that exploration is a mindset - both on the mountain and off the mountain - and it infuses everything we do. As a community of explorers, we stay curious about new ideas, places, and people. 

So, before we get to the job details, take a minute to learn a little more about us – our values and our culture. If you can see yourself working side-by-side with a team of adventure-loving people, The North Face just may be the place for you.  

To learn more about our values and our culture, visit The North Face Careers or www.thenorthface.com.  

The North Face: Senior Planner, Apparel

As part of the Global Merchandising Planning team, this position will own assigned category and product planning across Globe and all regions. The Senior Planner will work collaboratively with Global Category Planning, Operations, Sales, Regional teams and Finance departments in creating a demand plan to achieve brand strategic, financial, and distribution goals. This role reports into the Director, Apparel Planning and is based in Denver, Colorado (3 days/week in the office, 2 days/week from home).

Let’s break down that day-in-the-life a bit more. 

PRODUCT

• Develop analytical framework used to inform strategically merchandising strategies, providing qualitative and quantitative analysis on business and product performance, globally and regionally
• Provide SKU count guidance to using analysis of historical trend and market opportunities
• Build bottoms-up plans by classification and channel at the style and color level to align with financial plan based on Global category insights, regional sell-in and sell-thru data, historical trend, and seasonal initiatives
• Report on SKU count and conduct SKU rationalization exercises using ABC analysis or other quantitative analysis

OPERATIONS

• Responsible for the global and regional plan that connects sales and product strategies to Ops/Supply Chain
• Support the development of planning calendar to align merchandising, finance, sales, RD&D, and operations milestones/deliverables
• Partner with counterparts in the Regions to develop global merchandising plan
• Own handoffs of seasonal merchandising plan to forecasting and operations team, briefing big ideas and key brand initiatives
• Ownership of merchandising planning tools aim to plan and track the seasonal assortments and to provide support to the merch team and other business stakeholders

FINANCIALS/REPORTING

• Develop seasonal revenue targets by channel and category that align with financial and brand strategies
• Partner with Global category team to achieve global and regional revenue & productivity target through collaboration with finance, sales, and operations
• Ensure Global and regional product merchandising plans by channel and category align with financial and brand strategies
• Partner with Demand Planning, ensuring forecasts are connected to strategic focuses
• Conduct ad-hoc analysis in support of the organization
• Roll up and report global and regional forecast figures down at style level
• A key part of this role will also be in data management and building reports in either excel or PowerBI/tableau

What do you need to succeed? 

We all have unique skills that we bring to work and celebrate every day. For this role, there are foundation skills you’ll need to succeed and excel. Additionally, while formal education in a related field is great to have, we are most interested in your 5+ years of experience and professional achievements.

• 5+ years of professional experience in merchandise planning, forecasting, or buying
• Computer/Software Applications: Microsoft Office Suite – very strong Excel r