Director, Visual Merchandising

Description:

SUMMARY

Working with general supervision, the Director of Visual Merchandising leads a team responsible for store space planning, current and new fixture planning, budgets, and related financial analyses.
 

What will I do?

• Drive space optimization improvements to the in-store experience by providing vision, strategy and direction focused on improving sales, margin, turn, units per transaction and revenue growth.
• Develop and lead the design direction and process for design projects from concept/vision to implementation & maintenance.
• Research design and retail industry trends and innovation. Assess findings and incorporate relevant and brand right trends that ensure best in class store experience and product storytelling.
• Lead and apply the company visual merchandising direction to stores, while ensuring the development of visual merchandise expertise among store and district leadership teams.
• Ability to plan for and meet aggressive project schedule and budgets.
• Serve as the department subject matter expert to the merchant organization, at all levels of leadership, to translate their strategic product vision into the physical space of brick-and-mortar locations. Provide solutions to maximize space, drive growth, enhance brands and the in-store experience.
• Collaborate with internal business partners across Merchandising, Allocation, Marketing, Real Estate, and our stores to develop effective strategic plans based on historical trends, future forecasts, store specific insights and current results.
• Analyze performance metrics and provide solutions to larger Visual, Store Environment and Merchant teams to maximize space productivity. Apply expertise to analyze data sets and extract actionable insights to drive space management decisions across product categories. Provide collaborative resolutions when conflicts arise.
• Own the creation, maintenance, and accuracy of the Visual Planning Calendar. Coordinate timing of required merchandising activities and store workload budget to ensure desired results and efficiencies for the stores. Set expectations on timelines and deliverables with partners and hold teams accountable for results.
• Own alignment of fixtures and signage to ensure alignment with the brand.
• Supports all visual presentation aspects of new store concepts within the company.
• Translate business needs into detailed implementation plans, monitor progress against schedules and budgets.
   

Related Competencies

• Leadership – Able to build highly functional and collaborative teams. Build a robust succession plan and foster a great working environment.
• Building Strategic Working Relationships – Develop and leverage collaborative relationships with other senior leaders throughout the organization to build credibility and strong partnerships.
• Business Acumen – Understand complex business issues and what drives good decision making.
• Navigating Complexity — Proactively and quickly makes sense of complex issues responds effectively to complex and ambiguous situations communicates complex information simply.
• Innovation and Problem Solving — Generating innovative solutions in work situations trying different and novel ways to deal with work problems and opportunities

What do I need?

• Bachelor’s degree in Design, Interior Design, Architecture or related field.
• 10+ years experience of visual merchandising experience, preferred brick and mortar environment.
• Retail industry and project management experience is strongly preferred
• Ability to think strategically, plan, implement, lead, and manage
• Ability to build business relationship across departments and foster a culture of collaboration
• Strong analytical skills demonstrated ability to drive analysis into action
• Ability to lead a team to build and manage a consumer-driven business
• Microsoft Office Suite. PowerPoint proficiency, required
• Demonstrated imagination, innovative thinking and design vision, aligned with strong commercial sense and excellent market knowledge.
• Demonstrated executive presence, ability to influence design decisions by working with creative and technical teams, including collaboration with senior leadership team.