Director, Merchandising, Outlet Leathergoods

About the role

Since its launch in 1993 with a collection of six essential handbags, Kate Spade New York has always been colorful, bold, and optimistic. Today, it is a global lifestyle brand that designs extraordinary things for the everyday, delivering seasonal collections of handbags, ready-to-wear, jewelry, footwear, home décor, and more. Known for its rich heritage and unique brand DNA, Kate Spade New York offers a distinctive point of view and celebrates communities of women around the globe who live their perfectly imperfect lifestyles. Kate Spade New York is part of the Tapestry portfolio – a global house of brands committed to stretching what’s possible. A member of the Tapestry family, we are part of a global house of brands that has unwavering optimism and is committed to being innovative and wholly inclusive.

Responsibilities

• Develop, lead and communicate the merchandising product and assortment strategy for Outlet Handbags and Small Leathergoods
• Create relevant, cohesive and compelling brand-right product assortments that drive business, building newness while not excluding the needs of current customers
• Partner with Design and Product Development to build and execute an assortment that addresses brand strategies and customer needs
• Drive communication of costing needs to maintain margin targets
• Partner and build effective relationships with Global Merchandise Planning (GMP) and Business Units to effectively influence and drive objectives/customer needs and identify product opportunities globally
• Actively partner with merchandising peers to ensure synergy across the total product strategy and execution
• Analyze sales on a weekly basis to gain comprehensive understanding of the state of the business and make recommendations to drive business growth; provide global analysis that drives decisions and overall strategy
• Identify product opportunities through regular hind-sighting that incorporates consumer research, business feedback and sales performance analysis and trends
• Maintain an in-depth and up to date awareness of the competitive landscape through store visits, on-line review, events, markets, and other means to identify opportunities for future growth and opportunities for the category
• Maintain updated knowledge of key competitor distribution and pricing strategies
• Manage team to meet key deliverables, while successfully supporting their growth and development

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and experience will be considered
• 10+ years merchandising/buying experience with a focus on Leathergoods
• Minimum 4+ years people management experience

Skills

• Excellent product sensibility and conceptual ability with on-trend vision, balancing high taste level and data points with gut instinct
• Demonstrated experience partnering closely with internal Design teams to translate brand vision, customer insights, and business objectives into compelling product assortments and category strategies
• Previous experience owning product assortment and development
• Comprehensive understanding of retail math and financial acumen
• Strong analytical, communication, and presentation skills
• Experience driving process improvements
• Ability to take initiative, ownership and accountability for business
• An exceptional communicator up, down and across the organization
• Strong sense of teamwork and ability to multi-task
• Strong leadership and managerial skills with ability to motivate, develop a team and influence partners
• Courage: Doesn’t hold back anything that needs to be said; provides current, direct, complete, and “actionable” positive and corrective feedback to others; lets people know where they stand; faces up to people problems on any person or situation (not including direct reports) quickly and directly; is not afraid to take negative action when necessary
• Creativity: Comes up with a lot of new and unique ideas; easily makes connections among previously unrelated notions; tends to be seen as original and value-added in brainstorming settings
• Customer Focus: Is dedicated to meeting the expectations and requirements of internal and external customers; gets first-hand customer information and uses it for improvements in products and services; acts with customers in mind; establishes and maintains effective relationships with customers and gains their trust and respect
• Dealing with Ambiguity: Can effectively cope with change; can shift gears comfortably; can decide and act without having the total picture; isn’t upset when things are up in the air; doesn’t have to finish things before moving on; can comfortably handle risk and uncertainty
• Drive for Results: Can be counted on to exceed goals successfully; is constantly and consistently one of the top performers; very bottom-line oriented; steadfastly pushes self and others for results
• Interpersonal Savvy: Relates well to all kinds of people, up, down, and sideways, inside and outside the organization; builds appropriate rapport; builds constructive and effective relationships; uses diplomacy and tact; can diffuse even high-tension situations comfortably
• Learning on the Fly: Learns quickly when facing new problems; a relentless and versatile learner; open to change; analyzes both successes and failures for clues to improvement; experiments and will try anything to find solutions; enjoys the challenge of unfamiliar tasks; quickly grasps the essence and the underlying structure of anything
• Strategic Agility: Sees ahead clearly; can anticipate future consequences and trends accurately; has broad knowledge and perspective; is future oriented; can articulately paint credible pictures and visions of possibilities and likelihoods; can create competitive and breakthrough strategies and plans
• Developing Direct Reports and Others: Provides challenging and stretching tasks and assignments; holds frequent development discussions; is aware of each person's career goals; constructs compelling development plans and executes them; pushes people to accept developmental moves; will take on those who need help and further development; cooperates with the developmental system in the organization; is a people builder
• Building Effective Teams: Blends people into teams when needed; creates strong morale and spirit in their team; shares wins and successes; fosters open dialogue; lets people finish and be responsible for their work; defines success in terms of the whole