Dir GM Sourcing and Planning - Hardlines

at Follett Higher Education Group Inc in Westchester, Illinois, United States

Job Description

Westchester
Merchandise Buying
Full-time
#LI-DG1

Position Overview
Join the Follett Team where employees are valued, respected, and offered career paths throughout its many campus locations.
Follett serves over half of the students in the United States and works with 80,000 schools as a leading provider of education technology, services, and print and digital content. We're higher education's largest campus retailer and a hub for school spirit and community as we operate nearly 1,200 local campus stores and over 1,600 virtual stores across the continent. We take pride in the fact that for more than 140 years, we have been helping to improve people's lives by supporting a lifetime of learning and education.
Reporting to the Vice President of General Merchandise, the Sourcing Director of General Merchandise plans, develops and directs merchandising business plans, strategies, processes and policies, and assortments that improve the profitability of the General Merchandise business and maximize shareholder value through increased revenues, improved margins, inventory turnover and/or productivity and process improvements. Maintain awareness of current market trends and conditions that affect suppliers, cost of services, and pricing that may have operational or strategic implications for the company.
Directly supervise, develop, and lead a team in analyzing and assessing current merchandising strategies and environment against future business objectives, developing and leading merchandising initiatives that support the achievement of those objectives.
Responsibilities
Assortment Planning: Leads assortment planning and the curation of trend-right assortments to ensure better, differentiated products and competitive pricing. This may include product development with key suppliers. Manage negotiation with suppliers for the lowest pricing, favorable payment terms, rebates, and co-op advertising. Drive analysis of category spending to identify opportunities to optimize total category spend, utilizing all savings levers.
Cross-Functional Management: Partners with the VP of General Merchandise and the Planning Director to develop annual department, sub-department, and store-level financial plans. Partners in monthly KPI reforecast, in collaboration with the Planning Team, adapting to in-season business trends. Manages inventory liquidation strategies and prioritization in support of financial plan and gross margin goals. Leads Team in Collaboration with Planning, Marketing, E-commerce, and Field Teams to execute seamless omnichannel and local merchandising and marketing campaigns.
Talent Development: Mentor, train, and develop sourcing team. Collaborate to create and align individual team member goals and objectives. Provides continuous leadership to business units to assist in the achievement of their goals and the overall enterprise strategies. Anticipate future talent needs and proactively recruit and source new talent.
Process: Improve speed to market through the development of new processes and tools and refining of existing processes and tools, supporting the business needs of the General Merchandise function.

Bachelor's degree in a related field or equivalent.
7-10 years of experience in Retail Buying and Planning to include leading departments or functions.
Specialized computer experience and knowledge.
Excellent interpersonal communication (oral and written).
Excellent influence and negotiation skills.
Moderate travel is required, ranging from 10% up to 50%.

Equal opportunity employer.  This company considers candidates regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.