Sr. Merchandise Planning Manager, Retail Sea

**Primary Purpose**:The Senior Manager, Merchandise Planning is responsible for overseeing all merchandise planning and allocation strategies and activities associated with Coach SEA direct to consumer (DTC) and Coach International wholesale business channels. This role requires managing and developing a balanced assortment offering based on market needs and company strategic goals. This includes but not limited to sales plans, pricing and promotional activities, gross margin targets, pricing premiums and overall inventory management. The Senior Manager plays a key role in driving performance KPIs such as sales, margin, SKU productivity, and sell through optimizing inventory and cross channel opportunities. This role manages a team of Merchandise Planners and Allocation Analysts across Singapore and Malaysia.

**The successful individual will leverage their proficiency in merchandising to **

**Assortment Planning and Product Development**
- Develop financial assortment architecture (FAA) frameworks each season to address regional trends and market demands.
- Collaborate with Global Merchandising Teams to identify product opportunities, regional exclusives, special projects and artist collaboration relevant to the SEA region.
- Provide input during seasonal line reviews, highlighting current selling trends.
- Manage all merchandising strategy for special projects, collaborations, and SEA exclusives
- Present seasonal merchandising strategy during line opening to all CI wholesale accounts, internal cross-functional teams.

**Seasonal Open to Buy (OTB) Management**
- Develop and maintain seasonal OTB plans including sales, gross margin, receipts, inventory turn, and weeks-on-hand (W-O-H) targets at departmental/class level across multiple time horizons.
- Coordinate with the regional inventory management team to ensure effective communication and alignment.

**Regional Market Analysis**
- Understand the product nuances of each region in SEA/CI and analyze consumer retail trends, market landscape, and competitive environment.
- Stay up to date on latest market trends to drive assortment strategies.
- Develop and maintain all store level door profile analysis strategies ensuring a balanced assortment and product offerings.
- Create assortments tailored to SEA/CI region, considering store door profiles, visual merchandising space capacity, and SKU productivity.
- Utilize POS data analysis to understand sell thru and identify pre-season planning opportunities and in season SKU productivity optimization.

**Collaboration with Cross Functional Teams**
- Work closely with Global Merchandising and Global Merchandise Planning teams to communicate SEA regional strategies, priorities, and new product opportunities.
- Partner with retail management team to gather product feedback from stores and incorporate into assortment planning and decision-making processes.
- Connect closely with finance (FP&A) to ensure top line sales targets are in line with product assortment strategies.

**Managing and Developing High Performing Teams**
- Manage a team of 3 (2 Merchandise Planners and 1 Allocation Analysts)

**The accomplished individual will possess...**
- 8-10 years’ experience in retail, B2B, franchise or wholesale experience.
- Proven track record of buying/merchandising success for multinational brand/company
- Experience in managing multiple direct reports
- Analytical skills and ability to translate data into action points with clear communication
- Ability to perform well under pressure with multiple deadlines
- Experience in merchandising/planning systems and SAP a plus

**An outstanding professional will have...**
- Clear written and verbal communication skills
- Comfortable in presenting and communicating to upper management
- Self-starter and able to work independently and as a team player
- Intermediate to Advanced Excel (vlookups, pivot tables, macro building a plus)
- BA/BS university degree or its equivalent in merchandising, business, finance, economics, or supply chain.