Vice President of Merchandising and Category Management

Department: Analytic Support 105604

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Sterling Heights

Reporting To: Brian Anderson

Description

The Experience You’ll Create:

• Develop and lead the enterprise merchandising strategy across vending, markets, office coffee, and adjacent RSG channels
• Create a consistent approach to assortment, menu architecture, product placement, planograms, resets, seasonal programs, and local market relevance.
• Balance consumer demand, client needs, operational practicality, vendor programs, and financial performance when setting the product strategy.
• Build an annual merchandising and promotional calendar that supports traffic, basket growth, product discovery, loyalty engagement, and same store sales.
• Develop and evaluate promotion and loyalty strategies that drive repeat engagement, customer retention, larger basket size, and profitable same store sales growth.
• Ensure merchandising standards are translated into clear field processes, tools, training, and measures of compliance.

• Own category strategy, architecture, and performance standards, including category roles, product mix, SKU productivity, space allocation, and lifecycle decisions.
• Lead category managers in developing item-level and category-level plans based on sales velocity, margin, cost trends, waste, stockouts, customer preferences, and market dynamics.
• Establish disciplined processes for new item introduction, product rationalization, substitutions, discontinuations, and regional exceptions.
• Expand formal category management practices beyond core categories and ensure category-specific targets are maintained across the full assortment.
• Partner with Procurement to align vendor selection, costs, terms, rebates, growth programs, and innovation with category and guest strategies.

• Own the enterprise pricing strategy and governance model, category price architecture, price tiers, market basket alignment, and promotional pricing.
• Establish category-specific front-end gross margin targets and ensure pricing, assortment, mix, and cost actions are sufficient to deliver divisional financial commitments.
• Move the organization from reactive, supplier-cost-driven price changes to a proactive, recurring pricing and margin review process.
• Lead timely decisions on price gaps, margin erosion, mix shifts, cost changes, and regional or line-of-business exceptions.
• Partner with Finance and Procurement to evaluate vendor cost changes, rebates, accruals, and purchasing programs so category economics are transparent and margin leakage is not concealed.
• Influence waste and spoilage performance through assortment, shelf-life strategy, forecast and replenishment settings, order guides, and product lifecycle decisions.
• Provide pricing and category input into acquisition diligence, integration planning, and future-state pricing alignment.

• Establish weekly, period, and quarterly category and gross margin performance rhythms with clear inputs, decisions, owners, and follow-through.
• Define and monitor a practical scorecard spanning sales, same store sales, front-end gross margin, price and cost movement, mix, item productivity, waste, shrink visibility, rebates, stockouts, fill rate, and merchandising compliance.
• Use performance insights to identify root causes, prioritize corrective actions, and hold the organization accountable for execution.
• Create executive-ready reporting that clearly communicates performance, risks, opportunities, expected financial impact, and decisions required.
• Champion data quality, common definitions, and consistent reporting so leaders can trust category and margin information.

• Lead a closely integrated operating model across Merchandising, Category Management, Procurement, Finance, Operations, Sales, Marketing, and technology partners.
• Clarify enterprise, regional, and field decision rights while enabling appropriate local flexibility based on customer and market needs.
• Partner with Operations to ensure pricing, resets, planograms, ordering parameters, and assortment changes are implemented accurately and sustained.
• Represent merchandising, category, pricing, and margin strategy in executive forums, annual planning, budgeting, and strategic initiatives.
• Lead change management for new standards, systems, reporting, and ways of working, with a strong focus on adoption and measurable business outcomes.

• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing merchandising and category management organization with clear roles, goals, decision rights, and accountability.
• Set expectations for commercial judgment, analytical rigor, field partnership, speed of decision-making, and execution discipline.
• Develop succession plans and scalable capabilities in category strategy, pricing, assortment planning, merchandising execution, and performance management.
• Create a culture that is guest-focused, financially accountable, collaborative, curious, and committed to continuous improvement.

Ingredients for Thriving:

• Progressive executive leadership experience in merchandising, category management, pricing, retail, foodservice, convenience, consumer products, or a related multi-site operating environment.
• Demonstrated success building category strategies and converting them into measurable sales, margin, mix, and customer outcomes.
• Deep understanding of pricing architecture, category economics, cost and margin drivers, assortment optimization, vendor programs, and promotional effectiveness.
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives across Operations, Finance, Procurement, Sales, Marketing, and technology or analytics teams.
• Ability to lead a distributed team and influence field execution across multiple regions, business units, or channels.
• Strong financial and analytical acumen, including the ability to interpret item, category, regional, and enterprise performance and make sound commercial decisions.
• Experience establishing governance, operating rhythms, scorecards, and accountability for complex enterprise initiatives.
• Bachelor’s degree in business, merchandising, marketing, finance, supply chain, analytics, or a related discipline; advanced degree is a plus.

• Commercially strategic and operationally practical; connects enterprise strategy to field execution.
• Decisive and accountable; moves quickly when performance indicates a need for action.
• Guest- and client-centered while maintaining disciplined stewardship of margin and profitability.
• Highly collaborative, with the credibility to align executives, functional leaders, regional operators, and field teams.
• Data-informed, not data-dependent; combines analytics, market insight, and sound judgment.
• Clear communicator who can simplify complex issues, articulate tradeoffs, and secure decisions.
• Builder of talent, process, and organizational capability in a changing environment.

Savor the Benefits:

• Health Coverage – Medical, Dental and Vision
• Voluntary Life/AD&D, Short-Term and Long-Term Disability, Critical Illness, Parental Leave
• 401(k) with company match
• Paid Time Off
• Wellness Programs
• Referral bonus
• Additional Perks