Senior Merchandiser Strategic Partnerships. 9-12 Month FTC

Department: Merchandising

Employment Type: Fixed Term Contract

Location: Head Office, Chelsea House

Reporting To: Sarah Eldridge

Description

The Senior Merch is responsible for supporting the Merch Lead in forming and delivering the wholesale strategy in line with the River Island Brand. They are the key point of contact for Wholesale and B&M, responsible for but not exclusive to, buying and merchandising planning and trading across core wholesale accounts. They will work with the partners and merchandising team to shape the buying and merchandising plan They will build strong cross functional working relationships and undertake company projects to support new initiatives. A River Island Senior Merchandiser must successfully train and develop the merchandising teams.

Key Accountabilities:

• Responsible for the core wholesale planning and trading p&l
• Key contact for internal and external counterparts
• Supports in forming and delivering the planning and trading strategy, inclusive of partner and divisional specific strategies. 
• Proposes adjustments to immediate and longer-term financial plans to optimise margin and sales, driving the trading performance by Partner
• Trades effectively, always looking at risk and ways to maximise commercial opportunities
• Ensures the wider business have visibility of Wholesale’s sales/ performance at any point in time, supporting the Wholesale Merchandisers to effective manage the Wholesale sales report and the business’s internal sales reporting system/s
• Leads additional reporting information to support the business’s understanding of International performance and each Partner’s KPIs
• Responsible for delivering the planning and trading strategy, managing stocks within planned levels and agreed KPIs, challenging when needed
• Manages Wholesale’s total liable stock position to ensure minimal impact to the business’s terminal stock position
• Ensures management of the department critical path for timely delivery of product
• Responsible for working with the Wholesale SLT to bring forward and drive key initiatives by account and ensure alignment on delivery against the Wholesale strategy in year 1
• Works closely with the Wholesale Merchandising teams to direct and sign off on range plans considering Option width, ALB, pre-season buys, OTB and in season trading budgets
• A key stakeholder in portfolio meetings for the future of wholesale
• Manages the merchandising teams effectively, setting the direction and objectives to be achieved for the department, ensuring the team is aligned and working towards those objectives, and providing timely feedback and support to enable each person to work to the best of their abilities
• Supports with succession plans to identify and nurture talent. Provides learning and development opportunities, coaching and mentoring
• Challenges all company working practices where appropriate to improve ways of working
• Foster and enable a culture of wellbeing and inclusion through openness, two way listening and owning actions needed to create a great workplace for our Islanders
  
  

Key experience required:

• Previous experience at mid level management in a role comprising of multiple stakeholder relationships
• Experience in an omni-channel business is highly desirable
• Proven results in formulating and delivering a strategic plan
• Track record of delivering and exceeding sales and margin targets is essential
• Track record of identifying and delivering on new product opportunities
• Track record of driving strong team and individual performance and engagement
• Advanced Excel skills
  
  

Job role competencies:

• Passion for the RI brand and customer
• Excellent verbal and numerical reasoning skills
• Excellent commercial awareness skills
• Advanced analytical skills
• Strong influencing skills
• Manages complexity and able to make sense of complex, high quantity and sometimes contradictory information, to effectively solve problems
• Excellent attention to detail and accuracy 
• Strong interpersonal and collaboration skills, emotional intelligence and self-management
• Skilled at presenting new ideas, flexing style and approach to gain buy-in
• Excellent people management and coaching, mentoring and development skills
• Highly organised, good prioritisation skills
• Ability to communicate and align teams to strategy and vision
• Disciplined and conscientious, results oriented
• Tenacious, resilient and adaptable to