Sr. Director, Product Strategy & Merchandising

We are on a mission to transform the Product Strategy playbook in the DTC space and we're seeking a highly skilled and strategic Senior Director of Product Strategy & Merchandising to lead the charge. This critical role requires an individual who combines exceptional creative thinking with deep analytical prowess to develop and articulate long-term product, assortment, and pricing strategies that will fuel the next phase of our product growth. The ideal candidate will be deeply curious and inquisitive, constantly striving to understand our business and customers, anticipating needs before they are expressed, and utilizing those insights to drive innovative product strategies.

This role requires a leader who can effectively collaborate with and influence teams across many areas of our business. This person will work closely with creative teams such as Design and Product Development, analytical groups such as our Planning and Growth Marketing teams, and selling channels including digital, retail, and wholesale, to ensure that our products are appropriately tailored to those channels and presented to our customers as intended by our product strategies.

This role will report to the SVP of Product Strategy.

Responsibilities:

• Product Strategy & Assortment
  • Build and articulate long term product strategies that align with company's brand and creative vision and financial goals by leveraging a variety of inputs (robust consumer intelligence processes, competitive intelligence, and internal metrics)and then driving alignment with key cross-functional partners and senior leadership
  • Develop line plans and product assortments that successfully fulfill the intent of product strategies and determine where the company will participate from a product category standpoint and as importantly, where the company will not
  • Conduct comprehensive reviews of new product launches and seasons, leveraging insights to guide in-season adjustments and shape future product strategies and assortments
  • As we look to rewrite the Product Strategy playbook, this role will develop an enhanced toolkit that includes new metrics (that perhaps you invent) to measure the effectiveness of our strategy over time and quantitatively assess how our products captivate and engage customers
• Customer & Market Trends
  • Understand competitive landscape within home category
  • Monitor market trends and evaluate the size and potential of various product categories within our market and strategically identify areas where our brand is best positioned to capture and/or expand market share
  • Partner closely with Marketing, Insights, Retail and Wholesale teams to understand our current and target customers
  • Effectively source and analyze customer data to identify pain points, anticipate needs, and tailor our product offerings to meet and exceed customer expectations
• Communication & Collaboration
  • Partner closely with Design, Product Development, and Production teams to ensure that the products created and developed bring to life our product strategies while allowing the best opportunity to reach and exceed our financial objectives
  • In partnership with selling channels, create and maintain channel assortments that most optimally capitalize on different channel selling nuances while also partnering with marketing to ensure that intent of product and assortment strategies successfully cuts through to our customers in every channel
  • Partner closely with Planning team to build assortments that reflect the optimal number of choices at the right price points, while also ensuring that our seasonal and quarterly investments carry out the intent of our product strategies
• Team Leadership
  • Lead Merchandising team, including our Merchant and Associate Merchant - supporting their work and career development
  • Enhance existing workflows and develop new technology-driven processes to more efficiently systematize our assortment building and line planning

Requirements:

• Proven track record with significant experience in Product Strategy, merchandising, analytics, or a closely related field
• Strategic thinker with ability to manage from high to low levels of detail
• Demonstrated ability to think both analytically and creatively with high proficiency in analyzing and synthesizing diverse data sources to drive informed decision-making and strategies
• Strong leadership skills, with experience managing and developing high-performing team members at different job levels
• Strong curiosity and drive to understand and anticipate customer and market trends
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with a strong ability to articulate ideas and strategies in a concise, persuasive and impactful way
• Experience in DTC and eCommerce environments is preferred
• Advanced proficiency in data analytic tools and digital technologies
• Comfortable using Google Suite (email, docs, slides, sheets)
• Exceptional collaborative skills with a proven ability to partner and influence successfully across functions
• Ability to work in a dynamic, fast paced environment.
• A bachelor's degree or equivalent experience required; advanced business degree or MBA preferred

We believe our business and our culture are strongest when we work together in person. We also know that it's helpful to have flexibility to work remotely. Currently we are operating under a hybrid model whereby most teams work in an office a minimum of two days per week (Tuesdays/Thursdays) and may be provided flexibility to work from home on other days. At least one of the required in-office days must be at our Summit, NJ HQ, while the other may be in Summit or our NYC satellite office. There will also be additional days from time to time when you're asked to work in our Summit office for key team and cross-functional in-person meetings.

The annual base salary range for this role is $160-$225K. It is important to note that our salary ranges are based on paying competitively for our size, industry, and the market and are one part of the total rewards that we provide. Individual pay rate decisions are based on several factors, including qualifications for the role, experience level, skillset, scope of the role, and internal peer benchmarking.

The above is a comprehensive, but not exhaustive, description of requirements and expectations that may evolve over time based on business needs. You must be able to complete all physical requirements of the job with or without a reasonable accommodation. Such requirements include: [insert applicable requirements].

About Boll & Branch:

At Boll & Branch (https://www.bollandbranch.com/pages/about-us), we don't make bedding like everyone else. We make it better.

In 2014, our founders, Scott and Missy Tannen, challenged every conventional standard in the textile industry, creating a new supply chain that prioritized thread quality, not thread count. By investing exclusively in 100% organic raw materials from the start, we became the first bedding company ever to be Fair Trade Certified. Today, we keep five commitments at the heart of everything we do. We are:

• Cultivators of the Highest Quality Threads
• Pioneers in 100% Organic Cotton
• Free from Toxins at Every Step
• 100% Traceable from Farm to Finish
• Committed to Fair and Ethical Treatment for All

Boll & Branch has over 150 employees, and we are headquartered in Summit, NJ, with a second office in New York, NY and a dedicated Photo Studio in New Providence, NJ. In 2019, to propel our growth, we raised $100M from L Catterton, a leading consumer goods private equity fund. We are also progressively expanding our retail and wholesale footprint. While the heart of our business lies in the direct-to-consumer online model, we also have several retail stores around the country as well as partnerships with Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom.

Boll & Branch LLC is an equal opportunity employer.