Global Senior Merchandise Manager, US Sports

GTM MERCHANDISING PURPOSE & OVERALL RELEVANCE FOR THE ORGANIZATION

As the Global Senior Merchandise Manager of the US Sports BU (Football, Baseball, Softball) you will play a pivotal role growing the US Sports presence and performance in all Global Markets. Your primary objective will be to deliver strategic business imperatives, implement key brand priorities, and drive growth for adidas as a leading sports brand. In this role, you will be responsible for creating, communicating, and implementing a strategy for seasonal sell-ins. You will ensure that the product range is aligned with market needs and that it meets the financial targets set for US Sports. This individual is tasked with creating a category Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy considering market, account, and consumer insights. Execute the BU GTM strategy in markets and accounts to create demand, drive market share growth and enable achieving the financial category targets. Manage business conversations with markets and accounts. Orchestrate and manage all internal / functional milestones with a special focus on Japan, Korea, Europe and Latin America. This role requires a strong consumer focus on all sport consumers Youth to Pro, advanced marketing knowledge, and the ability to balance brand and commercial priorities effectively.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Develop category initiatives to meet key commercial goals for US Sports
• Execute short / long-term strategies for specific category areas (e.g., FTW, APP) in line with market and account opportunities
• Own go to market planning excellence in compliance with targets for forecasting, pricing, profitability, range size, range flow, range adoption, APR etc. including system, catalogue and master data maintenance
• Build category range architecture for seasonal specific category areas (e.g., FTW, APP) incl. franchise management, price architecture, flow and segmentation that aligns with the category targets
• Execution of a BU GTM strategy that creates demand and drives market share growth
• Act as the go-to Global Brands consultant and business partner to all cross functional key stakeholders, providing transparency and influencing fact-based decision making
• Conduct quantitative and qualitative data analysis, presenting results and evaluation as necessary to drive actionable recommendations
• Build a consumer and shopper-centric range segmentation methodology and framework, ensuring as a brand that we show up with the right product at the right place
• Perform category insights and analytics including market / consumer / competitor insights and sales analysis and leverage for planning
• Seasonal review and update of global price bands and price points as necessary, in collaboration with Strategic Brand Insights.
• Lead the category through key Global milestone deliverables focused on THO and GTMSO. Ensuring best-in-class sell-in tools, imagery, segmentation, sample readiness, and data integrity.
• Manage and support all business conversations for specific category areas (e.g., FTW, APP) with markets and accounts
• Manage and support the Integrated Business Planning (IBP) meetings for specific category areas (e.g., FTW, APP) from a global side, orchestrate the communication and drive follow-ups
• Manage and support market / account facing milestone meetings for specific category areas (e.g., FTW, APP)
• Manage and track the implementation of seasonal GTM plans towards markets and channels

KEY RELATIONSHIPS

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES

REQUISITE EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE / MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS