Director, Footwear Merchandise Planning

Who We Are:
At Brooks, we believe movement is the key to feeling more alive. That’s why we’re driven to create gear and experiences that take people to the place that makes them feel more alive — whether it’s a headspace, a feeling, or a finish line.  Everyone who works at Brooks is propelled by a company culture that sparks excitement, fuels collaboration, inspires creativity, and ignites innovation. Our brand values help bond us together and drive our success:  ·      Runner First We act in the best interest of the runner·       Word is Bond  We do what we say we’ll do ·       Champion Heart We give our all in everything we do·      There is no “I” in RunWe stay generous with our humanity ·       Keep MovingWe find ways to move every day, because joy is kinetic!  We welcome everyone from every walk of life looking to inspire others through the power of movement — because we’re all moving towards something. Let’s run there.   
Your Job: The mission of the Merchandise Planning Team is to optimize product sales and profit across categories and channels to deliver on the company’s strategy, targets, and objectives. As the Director, Merchandising Planning, you will lead the product creation planning process and the merchandise financial plan for our global footwear business. You will be accountable for meeting 5-year Footwear business targets through forecasting, short and long-term go in margin strategy, pricing strategy, and product performance efficiency through partnering with cross-functional teams and utilizing market analytics.
As the leader of product creation planning process, you will drive extreme enterprise accountability and will play a significant role in Brooks’ overall profitability. To do this effectively, you must be a confident and flexible leader of interdisciplinary, global teams where collaboration is imperative. You have an approach and point of view that starts and ends with the runner. You leverage product and business scenario planning to create and nurture a cohesive and aligned product direction that elevates and drives the impact of our product line to meet the company’s business objectives. You will support, motivate, and influence a global footwear team spanning multiple time zones and cultures.  You will lead the Merchandise Planning team responsible costing and planning, forecasting and planning and market analytics to optimize our product calendar, expedite time to market and ensure alignment with enterprise growth objectives. Your Responsibilities:

• Merchandise Financial Plan

• Own the build of the season Footwear Merchandise Financial Plan (MFP) to align the strategic financial 5YP with season product strategies and seasonal line plans to hit financial targets.

• Establish clear, quantifiable goals for global and regional revenue and unit growth, as well as go-in margin to act as a roadmap, guiding decisions to optimize financial performance.

• Leverage the MFP as a tool to model  scenarios and understand the impact of levers we can use to optimize the line plan and business.

• Set product and line productivity goals to maximize article impact and efficiency.

• Product Forecasting

• Lead the strategic direction for product forecasting:

• Accountable for building the regional 5-year forecast that maps to the 5-year upper bound business growth plans, incorporating insights from PLM and Merchandising and aligning those forecasts and assumptions with key regional Sales leaders, S&OP and FP&A at key milestone moments.

• Utilize the 5-year market growth assumptions and enterprise growth targets provided by FP&A  as a baseline for product planning and forecasting.

• Build and maintain long-term assumptions about competitive market share, using market analytics and brand growth data.

• Collaborate with Product Management and Merchandising to develop forecasting frameworks that clarify product volume assumptions through growth bridges, cannibalization equations, and market penetration expectations. Present forecast to the sourcing and supply and demand planning teams on a seasonal basis.

• Own product forecasts and volume expectations to key stakeholders in season product alignment meetings.

• Be a key stakeholder in overseeing long-term business planning and forecasting as it relates to assortment productivity, target style and article growth, and margin optimization.

• Define and design the tools, reporting and analytics to optimize product forecasting and pricing strategy and inform our product roadmap:

• Manage the creation and maintenance of analytical tools for managing pricing strategy, product line evolution, SKU performance, revenue, and gross margin optimization on a global level.

• Ensure Product Line Management and Merchandising functions are provided with key data reporting, dashboards, and analyses including product sales and profitability by region/channel and SKU efficiency; propose recommendations based on analyses.

• Oversee the creation of reports to track key financial metrics and targets including Units, Revenue, and Margin on a weekly, monthly, and seasonal basis to inform decisions on the product roadmap.

• Lead improvement in Footwear teams’ intuition for business throughout the I2R process, promoting business thinking through input, guidance, and analytics.

• Create and maintain a functional resource tool to support yearly business growth and inform the annual business resource plan.

• Scenario Planning

• Lead scenario planning for product direction and seasonal mix decisions

• Provide the product team with real time business impact scenarios to inform product direction decisions during milestone meetings.

• Partner with the Merchandising Team to model various line plan scenarios to identify the best seasonal mix and assortment that meets global and regional business goals.

• Pricing Strategy and Go-In-Margin

• Oversee the creation and evolution of tools, metrics and targets to support pricing and Go-In-Margin strategies

• Create and maintain analytical tools for managing product pricing recommendations that align with the footwear pricing strategy framework.

• Responsible for maintaining the weighted target global and regional GIM for each season.

• Collaborate with the VP of Product to develop a weighted margin strategy for each footwear category, establishing a framework for financial targets based on product type, price, and volume.

• Create the seasonal product financial targets (FOB) by style that aligns with the footwear weighted margin strategy and delivers against the seasonal business plan.

• Work closely with the product costing team and product development team to monitor product costing against the product target FOB to ensure final FOBs meet the seasonal expectations.

• Retail Analytics

• Oversee the delivery of regular updates to the merchandising team on real-time product performance and sell-through data from all regions and distribution channels, to guide product direction and decisions.

• Set the direction and approve the methodologies for creating retail models to illuminate product and market opportunities in all regions.

• Lead the review and communication of product performance versus forecast and provide regular updates to the product team to close the loop on outcomes versus expectations.

• Direct the development of models for product teams to assess product opportunities based on market size, competitive set, price point, and distribution strategy.

• Lead improvement in Footwear teams’ intuition for business throughout the I2R process, promoting business thinking through input, guidance, and analytics.

• Guide the creation and refinement of the reporting infrastructure to track key financial metrics and targets including Units, Revenue, and Margin on a weekly, monthly, and seasonal basis to inform decisions on the product roadmap.

• Oversee the development and delivery of key data reporting, dashboards, and analyses including product sales and profitability by region/channel and SKU efficiency; propose recommendations based on analyses for Product Line Management and Merchandising to inform product and roadmap decisions.

• Product Efficiency

• Be a key stakeholder in overseeing long-term business planning and forecasting as it relates to assortment productivity, target style and article growth, and margin optimization.

• Oversee the analysis and visualization of product productivity across the entire product line at the article level, ensuring insights are generated to evaluate performance against key business metrics for GMROI, article efficiency, and contribution margin and margin dollars.

• Work with FP&A to define and align on article growth rates and performance metrics to drive product line optimization while maintaining line hygiene.

• Maintain a healthy product mix where 20 percent of products and articles make up 20 percent of revenue.

• Cross-functional Influence and Alignment

• Champion and act as a key sponsor for enterprise cross-functional initiatives representing Footwear Business to influence stakeholders and drive team POV and a strong business case throughout the approval process.

• Create clarity around shared company goals through integrated department plans.

• Provide insight and expertise to executive leadership on critical business decisions impacting the brand and/or financial performance.

• Build partnerships and alignment with cross-divisional partners to implement functional strategies and achieve company targets.

• People Leadership

• Demonstrate strong people leadership skills rooted in Brooks’ Connect Management principles.

• Promote Brooks’ Core Cultural Values: Responsible for team culture and keeping a pulse on morale to proactively address any concerns. Utilize findings from Cultural Strengths Surveys to build on successes and create a plan for opportunities.

• Demonstrate the ability to lead function(s) not in your area of expertise.

• Lead the Merchandising Planning Team through changing business conditions and uncertainty.

• Prioritize people investment by building a collaborative, open, trusting environment for employees and creating a culture of authentic recognition and giving thanks.

• Regularly check-in and assess the morale, asking for feedback from Footwear employees and partnering with Footwear leadership and/or HR to address any concerns.

• Model leadership behavior across the organization and build leadership capability across the team.

• Innovation

• Challenge leaders on your team and employees to innovate and conceptualize better to find new ways of approaching their work by challenging assumptions and testing new ideas that have impact and potential.

• Encourage diverse thought and innovation by actively encouraging varying POV’s across varying levels on your team. Create platforms for employees to openly share ideas in a manner most comfortable for them, while challenging employees to step out of their comfort zones to contribute.

• Stay current with industry trends and innovation in the Business Process costing space and be a thought leader across the organization.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree (B. A. or B.S.) from a four-year University preferred, preferably in Finance, Industrial or Manufacturing Engineering, Business Management, Finance/Accounting, or equivalent. M.B.A. preferred, but not required. Equivalent years of experience can be considered in lieu of degree(s).
• 10+ years of experience in strategic planning, business forecasting, market research, or an equivalent field.
• 10+ years of related experience in footwear development, engineering, and manufacturing.
• 9+ years of experience in directing, managing, and developing high-performing teams.
• Proven leadership capabilities to supervise a team and lead strategic business objectives with a proven ability to prioritize workload and manage short-term and long-range projects.
• Demonstrated strong financial and business acumen; ability to form and make recommendations and forecasts for future business prospects.
• Demonstrated ability to develop highly productive relationships with individuals and teams that are made up of diverse disciplines and cultural backgrounds resulting in effective working relationships across the company.
• Curious and open-minded; always up for a challenge, inventive and creative. Ability to challenge the status quo- always looking at improving our people, products, and processes while also displaying a willingness to dive into the details.
• Detail-oriented. Strong organizational and time management skills are a must.
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to work in a fast-paced, changing environment, anticipating and resolving problems in a timely manner.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, with an advanced ability to communicate a point of view concisely and functional expertise within project teams and to external stakeholders. Strong storytelling, presentation, and communication skills, including meeting facilitation.
• Expert in MS Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint, and other relevant analytical tools
• Fluent in English (written and spoken); Mandarin is a plus.
• Embraces and lives the Brooks values!