Senior Merchant, Emerging Businesses
Victoria's Secret, Reynoldsburg, OH, United States
This is a hybrid position that can be based out of our Columbus, OH or New York City headquarters.
Your Role
The Senior Merchant develops and drives strategies and seasonal assortment plans for categories of business based on detailed knowledge of the brand, intimate understanding of the customer, and studied appreciation of the competition and overall marketplace. The Senior Merchant connects financial strategies and related merchandise objectives and can critically evaluate the assortment to react to in-season performance/trends. The position collaborates with various cross functional teams and must possess strong leadership skills as they are ultimately responsible for driving cross-functional communication and for motivating the team to be customer-focused, curious, and team oriented in their work. The Senior Merchant supports prioritizing workload and in training merchandising talent.
Why You Belong Here
At Victoria's Secret, we acknowledge your value. We recognize that every associate has something unique to add to our brand and business. We strive to recruit, retain, and advance diverse talent that reflects the customers we serve and the communities where we live and work. We foster a culture where everyone belongs because we know our business thrives most when we look for, listen to, and amplify diversity, equity, and inclusion.
We place the customer at the heart of everything we do. We dream big, embrace curiosity and creativity while always learning from our mistakes. We lead with integrity, trust, and respect to achieve the best outcomes as one team.
Your Impact
Leadership
- Lead and foster strong cross-functional partnerships with clear and accurate communication
- Influence solutions-based thinking, conflict resolution, and productive dialogue in meetings
- Layer strategic thinking and business ownership on top of business execution
- Contribute to corporate culture through diversity, equity, inclusivity, open-mindedness, collaboration, and positive intent
- Lead and demonstrate company values of Love the Customer, Passion with Purpose, Better Together, DEI is Everything
- React with urgency while comprehending overall strategy
- Begin to develop leadership presence and cast positive leadership shadow
- Remain curious about the customer to better understand their current demands and seek to learn more through store travel and taking on the customer lens
- Translate and apply customer and competitive patterning insights into actions that will drive the business and assortment forward
- Partner across product categories to connect dots on larger, total brand trends and patterns
- Understand the customer's lifestyle by staying on top of trends, social media, and pop culture as it specifically relates to the customer, in stores, online, or wherever they shop
- Drive customer insight strategy via the internal teams and external focus groups
- Develop the seasonal financial plan into a product assortment while preserving brand position and brand image
- Turn product insight into actionable recommendations as it relates to assortment strategy
- Accountable for key meeting prep with sample availability, style and color ranking, deck preparation, and ad hoc requests and analysis, always staying agile and flexible
- Conduct trend analysis and reporting, inclusive of competitive landscape and competitive patterning
- Drive development of a robust testing agenda to identify and unlock future growth opportunities
- Accountable for sales and margin targets for category(s) of business
- Develop roadmap and lineplan architecture by season and align with Planning partners in lineplan reviews to present to Senior Leadership
- Ensure price-value relationship is in line with customer expectation
- Utilize product trends and historical data at the category level to manage in-season opportunities
- Actively participate and influence in costing meetings by floorset
- Select, train, coach, retain, and develop a diverse team to ensure effective performance and growth through consistent on-the-job training
- Manage yourself as well as your team (i.e., handling high pressure situations, proactive problem solving, positive leadership shadow, maintaining healthy relationships across the organization)
- Actively give, seek, and act on feedback to and from all levels to enable growth and development in role
- Lead a team of two direct reports
- Cultivate and promote talent within Merchandising
Your Experience:
- Bachelor's degree in Fashion Merchandising, Business Administration, or relevant area
- 7+ years of experience in merchandising with 2+ years of management experience
- Prior experience in wholesale, brand collaborations, and licensing experience desired
- Ability to run market appointments, and attend and lead trade show conversations on behalf of the brand
- Strong communication skills: able to lead internal team and manage external vendor relationships
- Strong understanding of vertically integrated retail operations
- Displays an entrepreneurial risk mentality, strong analytical skills, and strategic thinking skills
- Acute sense of brand and customer intimacy
- Acute eye for product and trend with proven talent to envision and interpret fashion trends
- Proficient in conflict management and problem-solving
- Exceptional ability to bridge and enhance cooperative working relationships
- Strong organizational skills
- Ability to multi-task and prioritize
- Demonstrated ability in presentation, negotiating, and influencing skills
- Ability to lead and inspire with unquestionable integrity and trust
- Systems and computer proficiency (MS Office, Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel)
We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with arrest records, conviction records, or other criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of any applicable state and local laws. Please see links: California Fair Chance Act, Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, Philadelphia Fair Chance Law, San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance
An equal opportunity employer, we do not discriminate in hiring or terms and conditions of employment because of an individual's race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, sexual orientation, marital status or any other protected category recognized by state, federal or local laws. We only hire individuals authorized for employment in the United States.