Senior Manager, Brand Management - Licensed & Exclusive Brands
Position Summary
The Senior Manager, Brand Management leads the strategic positioning, governance, and cross-functional execution of Walmart’s proprietary and licensed brands. This role serves as the brand steward—ensuring each brand has a clear role, differentiated positioning, and disciplined execution across assortment, pricing architecture, customer experience, and partnerships.
What you'll do
Define and maintain clear brand positioning, guardrails, and value tiers (Good/Better/Best) across assigned brands.
Translate customer insights, competitive assessments, and performance data into actionable brand strategies.
Ensure assortment decisions align with brand architecture and long-term growth platforms.
Lead brand refreshes, relaunches, and disciplined exits when brands no longer meet customer or business needs.
Develop and maintain brand books, style guides, and “brand on a page” tools to drive clarity and consistency across teams.
Lead negotiation and management of licensing agreements and brand partnerships.
Forecast and oversee royalty structures, ensuring margin accretion and financial compliance.
Partner with Legal and Finance to structure contracts that mitigate risk and protect Walmart’s interests.
Monitor performance against contractual obligations, service level agreements, and brand standards.
Identify and resolve contract discrepancies, audit findings, and compliance risks.
Lead structured sell-offs, renewals, exclusivity agreements, or brand exits when necessary.
Establish and manage milestone processes that ensure brand integrity across product development calendars.
Partner closely with Product Development & Design, Sourcing & Quality, Merchandising, Marketing & Site to ensure proprietary and licensed items are aligned to approved brand categories and properly coded.
Drive disciplined launch execution, including clear roles, timelines, and post-launch reviews.
Remove operational barriers that create brand inconsistency or customer confusion.
Monitor brand-level performance metrics including GMV, margin, royalty impact, and inventory health.
Provide performance readouts to licensors and internal stakeholders.
Anticipate financial risks (inventory exposure, contract obligations, marketing commitments) and develop mitigation plans.
Ensure pricing architecture supports EDLP and long-term brand equity.
Safeguard brand integrity across in-store, digital, marketplace, and marketing channels.
Lead brand-gating and enforcement efforts to prevent third-party misuse of proprietary brands.
Ensure launches deliver a cohesive and customer-right experience across all touchpoints.
Align assortment, storytelling, and pricing to create intuitive, trust-building customer journeys.
Drive execution of complex, cross-functional initiatives in ambiguous and high-pressure environments.
Influence without direct authority across internal and external partners.
Coach and mentor associates and cross-functional team members.
Promote a culture of ownership, urgency, and operational excellence.
Key Skills & Capabilities
Strong brand management expertise
Licensing negotiation and contract acumen
Financial literacy (royalty modeling, margin impact, inventory risk)
Benefits & Perks
Beyond competitive pay, you can receive incentive awards for your performance. Other great perks include 401(k) match, stock purchase plan, paid maternity and parental leave, PTO, multiple health plans, and much more.
Equal Opportunity Employer
We believe we are best equipped to help our associates, customers, and the communities we serve live better when we really know them. That means understanding, respecting, and valuing unique styles, experiences, identities, abilities, ideas and opinions- while welcoming all people.
Minimum Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in Business, Communications, Marketing, Business, or related field and 4 years’ experience in brand development and management, developing creative briefs, marketing, or related area OR 6 years’ experience in brand development and management, developing creative briefs, marketing, or related area.
Preferred Qualifications
Masters: Business Administration