Lead, Assortment Planner Pacific

WHO YOU’LL WORK WITH

We are looking for a Lead Assortment Planner to be based in either our Sydney or Melbourne offices. This exciting role will be part of the Demand and Supply Management team, reporting directly to the Nike Direct Stores Planning Director. The Lead Assortment Planner will be part of a cross functional team working with stakeholders across Merchandise Financial Planning, Merchandising, Retail, Brand and Supply Chain. The successful candidate will be a critical stakeholder for our Nike Store Partners, building strong relationships to deliver mutual profitability and aligned financial goals.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We’re looking for a Lead Assortment Planner to drive consumer-based franchise/merch class plans to optimize sales, margin and profitable sustainable growth for our Nike Store Partners while ensuring consumer demand is met, and a healthy pull market is maintained. The success of our team relies on cross functional collaboration and strong stakeholder management both internally and with our partners. Our best assortment planners step up to address difficult issues, operate effectively when the way forward isn’t clear, think strategically, and develop innovative ideas to deliver success.

• 5 years+ retail planning experience, in a vertical retail or wholesale environment
• Bachelor’s degree in business, finance, sales, retail, supply chain, economics or related fields.
• Demonstrated experience in assortment planning with an understanding of financial metrics, retail KPIs, product and inventory planning.
• You are proactive and have strong written and verbal communication skills, including ability to design and deliver compelling communications grounded in data. Strong Excel skills are essential.
• Demonstrated problem solving and critical thinking skills focused on developing accurate plans that optimize trade-offs and outcomes.
• You think beyond prescribed solutions, leveraging industry & market trends to maximize business outcomes.

WHAT YOU’LL WORK ON

Assortment planning is integral to the teams’ success. Working across pre-season, in-season and post-season horizons, this role is responsible for developing seasonal plans inclusive of sales, gross margin, and inventory for critical franchises/merch classes. Using your strong planning experience, product knowledge and consumer insights, you will help to optimize and evolve the product line and implement franchise/merch class strategies.

• Lead weekly sell thru reporting and analysis to develop action plans on risk and opportunity.
• Develop robust stock & sales plans for critical franchises/merch classes to drive in-season decision-making and forecast seasonal OTB investment/bookings, including depth, flow and SKU efficiency.
• Lead post-season reviews at the franchise/merch class grain, including brand campaign performance by SKU and share insights to drive future growth opportunities.
• Lead the seasonal allocation forecast process in partnership with merchandising and our Nike partners to ensure the right breadth and depth is planned in line with strategic direction. This includes door planning for key innovation launches.
• During seasonal sell ins, you will be responsible for delivering franchise investment plans for our key strategic areas to ensure MFP top-down plans can be validated.
• Sell in responsibilities include collaborating cross functionally on seasonal readiness deliverables, presenting and influencing partners during key alignment gates, conducting in-depth order reviews and ensuring booking reconciliations are completed and internal reviews are produced.  
• Drive contract management with partners to ensure consumption is in line with targets and internal compliance is maintained. You will also identify gaps/opportunity in the orderbook based on trade analysis to drive revenue.