Director of Buying

Company Overview
The company is an Omni-channel retailer. The company merchandises apparel, accessories and personal care products for men, women and children through its retail stores, franchised stores, and e-commerce portals. The company also offers various Omni-channel services such as curbside pick-up, buy online pick-up in store, order-in-store, find-in-store, and ship-from-store. It also provides license to various third parties to sell and market these products. The company has business operations across the US, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

Job Description
General Summary:
The Director of Buying is responsible for partnering with the cross functional team and leading and developing a team of Managers, Buyers and analysts to develop, communicate and execute the assortment and financial strategy for their division. The Director ensures that hindsight, assortment and financial strategies are built in service to the Japan customer. This position is the hub of the organization, the business leader and is the main contact point for NA merchandising, allocation, marketing, stores, visual and online.
What you’ll do:
• Coach and train buyers and senior buyers to identify key learnings and develop future strategies.
• Hire, train and develop a best in class buying organization who understands the marketplace and can build assortments that satisfy the needs of the customer.
• Lead cross-functional team, including allocation, E-COMM, store ops and marketing to ensure all partners are aligned on the product strategy both pre-season and in-season.
• Partner with Japan and North America based product leads to ensure all market level needs are met.
• Lead team priorities and initiatives, organize tasks, monitor workflow, and remove roadblocks to support team in meeting deadlines.
• Identify product, financial and white space opportunities through internal and competitive hindsights.
• Develop and communicate comprehensive pre-season strategies that meet customer demand and align with financial targets across multiple categories.
• Develop an assortment aligned with pre-season financial and product strategies, that meets style/sku, product architecture and time on offer goals.
• Manage the reconciliation of category assortment strategy, financial plans and bottoms-up sku level investments
• Responsible for style level investments that achieve tops down sales, margin and inventory plans.
• Responsible for all analysis across the category ownership. Responsible for identifying trends and actioning on mitigating risk and seeking opportunity.
• Drive profitability through leading and executing promotional and markdown strategies which align with divisional and brand financial goals.
• Deliver results through everyday management of the business that align to the overall brand strategy, resulting in increased earnings and financial success.

Core Competencies:
• To support Product Love, the candidate will have passion for product. They will put customer first in all decisions while maximizing sales and GM. The candidate will execute a demand driven buying model by focusing on fewer, bigger, better, analyzing and reacting quickly and being OMNI focused.

• To support Team & Values, the candidate will be a team leader and player. They will have passion for training and development and be a key leader in the organization. They will be the key cross functional partner that leads the organization in business analysis and execution.

• To support Be Customer Curious, the candidate will put the customer at the forefront of every idea, decision and interaction, with empathy of their experiences.

Requirements
Minimum Experience:
• Minimum 8 + years of buying, merchandising and/or inventory management experience required. Minimum of 6+ years of supervisory experience
• Four year college degree or equivalent required.
• High Business level of English and Japanese required (both Written and Verbal).

Physical Requirements:
• Ability to travel internationally or domestically

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