Senior Director, Merchandise Business Planning & Operations

The Sr. Director of Merchandise Business Planning & Operations is the strategic lead for analytics, forecasting, and cross-functional alignment. Leading the business capability group, this role drives the end-to-end planning cycle, ensuring seamless integration across Planning, Merchandising, and all cross-functional partners. As the champion of data-driven decision-making, they establish the quantitative methodologies and advanced analytics that drive buying, assorting, and forecasting. Leveraging strong financial acumen, this leader translates complex data into actionable strategies and frequently presents these insights to executive leadership. Furthermore, they oversee supply and order management operations, ensuring efficient inventory flow, and act as the principal business leader for the enterprise-wide implementation and optimization of our new end-to-end planning Merchandise Planning system.

This is an on-site position (Monday through Thursday) based out of our Northbrook, IL office with the flexibility to work remotely on Fridays.

A day in the life as a Sr. Director of Merchandise Business Planning & Operations...

• Executive Strategy & Presentation: Present strategic plans, financial forecasts, and business performance metrics to executive leadership, distilling complex data into clear, compelling narratives.
• Enterprise Forecasting & Integration: Drive brand-level roll-ups and enterprise forecasting to deliver a single source of truth across Planning, Finance, and Supply Chain. Apply deep financial acumen to interpret data, align growth with operational capabilities, and recommend action.
• IT Partnership & System Implementation: Serve as the primary business lead for IT infrastructure initiatives and new system rollouts (e.g., Blue Yonder). Partner with IT to champion outcome-driven technology solutions, manage system configurations, and optimize inventory management dependencies.
• Analytics & Tool Development: Lead a team focused on developing advanced reporting, analytical tools, and actionable insights. Direct strategic projects to empower active, data-driven decision-making across Planning, Merchandising, and Sourcing.
• Process Engineering & Best Practices: Own the creation, training, and maintenance of methodologies, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and best practices for testing, analysis, and brand metric definitions.
• Operational Execution & Product Lifecycle: Oversee product lifecycle management and inventory operations. Ensure data integrity and manage the flawless operational execution of purchase orders (POs) from inception to handover.
• Team Leadership: Lead the Outlet Merchandise Planning Team.
  
  

What You’ll Bring To The Table…

• Financial & Data Acumen: Expert financial acumen with a proven track record of understanding, forecasting, and acting on complex business data to proactively solve problems and drive profitability.
• Executive Communication & Influence: Exceptional presentation skills; highly capable of translating complex data into clear narratives for the Executive team, while building strong, collaborative relationships across all levels of the organization.
• Domain Expertise: Deep technical and strategic knowledge of inventory management, IT systems implementation, product pipeline design, and promotional strategies.
• Leadership & Team Development: Superior leadership skills managing both direct reports and cross-functional teams, with a strong focus on training and talent development.
• Strategic Execution & Change Management: Proven ability to manage change, drive alignment across a matrixed organization, and prioritize key initiatives to translate high-level vision into tactical operational success.
  
  

We’d love to hear from you if you have…

• 10 years of experience in retail finance, planning, or inventory management, with a minimum of 5 years in a direct team leadership role.
• 10 years of experience in retail merchandising, planning, buying, or a highly equivalent field.
• Demonstrated success in leadership, team development, and coaching capabilities.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Economics, or a related field.