Free People International Merchandise Planning Manager - Free People

Free People is looking for an International Merchandise Planning Manager who will manage and execute planning and analytical needs of building Free People’s international channels. They will be expected to exceed, sales, MMU, and minimize operational expenses, while strategizing collaboratively on the growth and building of the brand internationally. Key regions of focus: UK, Netherlands, France and Australia.

• Working closely with various departments to ensure that corporate initiatives and strategies are accurately reflected in the plan and forecast of sales, inventory, and receipts.
• Ensure the success of all product categories by meeting or exceeding sales, gross margin, and inventory turn.
• Motivate and push the planning and buying teams to maximize opportunities through key item distortion, top 20 item ownership and seasonal big ideas.
• Managing the OTB and inventory for all divisions; ability to break down the business and find profit driving opportunities
• Manage a subset of the brand open to buy to monitor sales, inventory and margin to budget and forecast.  Identify any corrective action necessary to maximize turn and gross margin independently by channel, along with omni inventory management strategies.
• Taking trend and merchant direction and interpreting it into a profitable strategy across retail and direct channels.
• Demonstrate a clear understanding of managing inventory between channels: US domestic, International direct and international stores.  Recommend purchase order split quantities by classification and style between domestic and international distribution centers to shorten delivery time to customer and maximize IMU.

• Analyze and make recommendations to retail pricing structure and IMU strategy.
• Develop strong partnerships with the global merchants, UK/France direct merchandising teams, and US planners to monitor and evaluate sales of current styles on a weekly basis within international channels and identify business opportunities.

• Work cross functionally as needed to improve size scales and reduce return rates across all channels.
• Managing, coaching, and developing planning and allocation team
• Clearly communicate and provide reporting and analysis to highlight important trends and/or support key initiatives.  Author weekly, monthly and quarterly recaps of country performance to budget and forecast.
• Challenge the status quo
• Aiding in the budgeting process
• Make country specific markdown recommendations that may vary from chain pricing based on sales and inventory ownership by country.
• Develop inventory plans by warehouse site to maximize local fill rate and speed to customer.

• 5+ years experience working in Planning, Allocation, or a related field
• Experience managing direct reports and/or team
• Superior financial and analytical skills
• Strong management skills
• Results oriented
• Creative problem solver/ “outside the box” thinker
• Strong communication skills
• Works well in teams
• Bachelor’s Degree in Fashion, Business, or a related field. 

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URBN offers comprehensive Perks & Benefits to employees. Availability and eligibility to specific benefits may be subject to your location and employment status. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, PTO, generous employee discounts, retirement savings and much more! For additional information visit www.urbn.com/work-with-us/benefits 

URBN celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We are proud to provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, sex (including gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression), religion, creed, age, physical or mental disability, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, citizenship, service in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other protected characteristic as established by law. We believe strongly in fostering a safe, fair and respectful work environment. To ensure compliance with our non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, we offer anti-harassment training to managers and employees.