Lead - Merchandising Planning, EMEA

In short

As the Merchandising Planning Lead, you will play a pivotal role in shaping and executing our merchandising planning strategy for Footwear, our largest category. This role combines deep merchandise planning expertise with business strategy and process optimization, ensuring that our planning function drives strategic and commercial success.

You will help drive the merchandising product LRP process and ensure it aligns with our strategic vision. You will also lead the forecasting process, assess performance KPIs, and drive business reviews, ensuring our strategic vision is reflected in the numbers.As a key partner to the Senior Merchandising Lead, you will bring our product strategy to life through data-driven decision-making and a best-in-class planning framework. Additionally, you will collaborate closely with the Senior GTM Lead, integrating planning insights into the broader Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy.

Your Mission

Merchandise Planning & Forecasting:

• Help drive the merchandising product LRP process and ensure it aligns with our strategic visions, working closely with your merchandising partners as well as with Controlling to ensure alignment on LRP targets and a clear view of the franchise and collection breakdown that supports the numbers.
• Drive seasonal product forecasts with regional sales leads to maximize opportunities and minimize product liability, validating projections through sales history, market intelligence, customer input, and brand ambitions.
• Collaborate with DTC merchandise planners to align seasonal plans across channels, ensuring segmentation strategies translate into targeted consumer assortment plans.
• Partner with VM and Sales Planning teams to support account managers in translating sales budgets into seasonal assortment plans, optimizing product allocation across B2B top accounts and distributor markets.
• Own the annual and seasonal merchandise forecasting process, leveraging top-down/bottom-up planning to drive sales, inventory (phase-in/phase-out), style productivity, and margin targets.
• Develop and refine pre-season, in-season, and post-season planning frameworks to optimize commercial performance.
• Partner with Regional Merchandisers to create and execute business tactics, advising on open-to-buy strategy, purchasing efficiency, and market-driven decisions.
• Routinely present recommendations and performance insights to senior leadership and executive management, influencing franchise performance, pricing strategy, product mix, silhouettes, and trend adoption.
• Manage, maintain, and communicate seasonal forecasting tools across Footwear, Apparel, and Accessories, working closely with Controlling, Supply & Demand Planning teams to ensure alignment.
• Lead monthly merchandising budget tracking with Sales Planning, ensuring re-distribution, re-forecast sales, stock, markdowns, and open-to-buy (OTB) tracking are optimized.

Strategic Business Process & Performance Optimization:

• In collaboration with cross-functional partners across strategy and controlling, help support our business review framework, ensure we are tracking to clear KPIs, assess and respond to business performance, measure the effectiveness of our product strategy and forecasting processes, ensuring actionable insights drive decision-making.
• Drive process optimization and best practices, ensuring forecasting insights translate into commercial strategy execution.
• Working closely with cross-functional partners, establishing planning tools, reports, and analytical models that enhance decision-making.
• Partner with the Senior GTM Lead to ensure that business performance and forecasting insights shape commercial milestone meetings (e.g., commercial briefing, pre-line, sell-in).
• Lead initiatives to evolve planning frameworks and reporting structures, driving cross-functional visibility and data-driven decision-making.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Stakeholder Engagement:

• Ensure alignment with Global Merchandising teams, working closely with both regional and global teams to integrate planning insights and drive consistency in execution.
• Act as a thought leader and trusted partner to Merchandising, Sales, Marketing, and Finance teams, ensuring alignment between strategy and execution.
• Influence and drive strategic decision-making through clear, data-driven recommendations.
• Foster strong collaboration between Merchandising, Sales, Digital, Retail, and GTM functions to ensure a unified approach to planning and business execution.