Merchandising Design Office Associate

About:

Macy's is proudly America's Department Store. For more than 160 years, Macy's has served generations at every stage of their lives. Customers come to us for fashion, value and celebration.

Macy's Merchandising curates the best national and private brands to support our customer's self-expression from off-price to luxury. Merchandising ensures Macy's is the premier fashion authority using a high acumen for products and trends as well as strong relationships with vendors in the marketplace. Our team maximizes sales and gross margin for each product category by identifying, procuring, and assorting the products that our customers demand.

We are seeking a highly motivated and detail-oriented strategic Merchandising Design Office Associate to join our dynamic team. In this role, you will play a key part in shaping our strategies by leveraging your deep understanding of design, market trends, and consumer behavior to support the VP of Private Brands within our Design Team.

Job Overview:

The Associate, Merch Business Office will work side by side with the VP to lead change management and drive the Division's strategic and operational activities including contenting advertising, driving site merchandising strategies and collaborating with pod partners across the enterprise to ensure Leased partners are integrated within their respective categories. The Associate, Merch Business Office will have a critical leadership role on the team and act as a Business Generalist with key stakeholders in Buying, Operations, Finance, Marketing, Fashion Office and Digital. The Associate, Merch Business Office must be able to develop and execute a strategic vision, with a progressive, customer centric-approach all while delivering on sales objectives. The Associate, Merch Business Office will be known as a trusted, collaborative and results-oriented leader, business partner and change agent who can lead through influence and who possesses professional maturity and industry credibility. The ideal candidate needs to be comfortable and effective leading through significant complexity. Candidates must be comfortable with quickly evaluating and sun-setting legacy approaches that no longer align to the strategy. The ideal candidate will be known for both vision and an equally strong orientation for speed and should have proficiency in Adobe Suite and Canva to design and create visually compelling presentations, ensuring alignment with brand guidelines and market trends.

The Successful Candidate Will:

• Make "company first" decisions.
• Serve as the face of Macy's to the vendor community, clearly articulating the company strategy and negotiating optimal assortment and pricing for our customer.
• Reduce complexity, act decisively, and model agility in leadership style.
• Have the temperament to lead and motivate the teams.
• Have solid understanding and focus on the digital experience and technology business drivers.
• Enthusiasm, passion, and desire to gain product expertise.
• Communicate with candor and value open debate to ensure the best ideas come to life.

Essential Functions:

• Be the expert in understanding how to access, interpret and apply new reporting optimization tools to increase sales and margin and apply best practices that are scalable across the PDIV.
• Collaborate with Senior Director, Merchandise Strategy to ensure strategies are aligned across Stores and Digital
• Provide input to Integrated Merchants on sales and marketing opportunities and potential offsets to in season and future liabilities.
• Collaborate with team and help manage division wide financial reports
• Provide analytical recaps/recommendations for seasonal plans and strategy sessions
• Run and compile weekly management summaries and share findings with the team.
• Be able to take on special projects / committees that will increase sales, margin or improve process results
• Manage the division calendar and make sure the team is aware of key deadlines
• Manage and execute corporate reporting for merchandising leaders. Send weekly business recaps and best sellers to the GBM and the team
• Responsible for completing visual forms and the DBM presentation templates

Qualifications and Competencies:

• Ideally, 3-plus years of experience in a merchandising, design, or retail-related role.
• Bachelor's degree in Fashion Merchandising, Design, Marketing, or a related field.
• Experience in managing the development of assortment, including assortment selection and assortment strategies, which support the high level assortment vision and maximize sales, margin, and turnover.
• Use data-driven and forecasting insights to predict upcoming design trends, color palettes, materials, and customer preferences, influencing both short-term collections and long-term strategic goals.
• Proficient in trend forecasting tools, design software, and Microsoft Office Suite.
• Strong knowledge of current market trends, consumer behavior, and design principles.
• Strong Leadership skills and a demonstrated track record of collaboration
• Ability to influence up, down and across the organization to create effective partnerships in order to drive business forward.
• Highly collaborative style; partners effectively with others. A relationship builder with the flexibility and finesse to manage by influence
• Practices open and continuous communication, values keeping others informed, effectively presenting information in a clear, concise manner.
• Excellent leadership, facilitation, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work across functional lines and at many levels
• Ability to think creatively, strategically and technically
• Ability to work a flexible schedule based on department and Company needs.
• Knowledge of MS Office computer programs and Excel are required