Director, Assortment Planning - Champs Sports
Foot Locker, Inc., St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, 33739
Overview
This hybrid position will be located at our Champs Sports Office in St. Petersburg, FL. Expectations for the hybrid in-office schedule is three days a week, typically Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Foot Locker, Inc. is hiring a Director, Assortment Planning to join our Champs Sports Division! The Director leads the team responsible for the development, delivery and ongoing management of a profitable and productive clustered assortment that is aligned to our consumer preferences. By assorting with intent, the Director will ensure the customer has a balance of brands, franchises, and mix of basics & fashion choices.
In close partnership with buying, allocation, and financial planning, the assortment planning team is responsible for:
Development of store assortments informed by business strategy and customer preference to determine the optimal assortment in each store location.
Providing customer choice count targets by brand/franchise using productivity metrics aligned to in-store merchandising guidelines.
Ensuring depth by style-color needed to achieve sales utilizing Rate of Sale plan, door tiering, and clustering.
Adjusting assortment strategy in-season based on changes in business performance or inventory productivity, fashion trends, and store assortment capacity.
Driving customer experience in store and increasing NPS, while maximizing sales, margin, and sell-through rates.
As the leader of a team of Assortment Planners, the Director is responsible for developing a highly capable team that is able to meaningfully drive business results and for driving alignment across the end-to-end assortment planning process. The Assortment Planning team serves as a critical business partner across Allocation, Buying, Space Planning, Visual Merchandising, CX, and vendor teams. This role requires strong commercial acumen, analytical ability, and communication skills, along with the capacity to identify business needs, propose innovative solutions, and foster effective cross‑functional collaboration.
Candidate Abilities
Change Agent: enthusiastic about improving processes and ways of working and can champion change within the organization; effective at building teams and developing decision‑making playbooks to drive consistency among the team.
Strategic Thinker: connect the dots between functions, think beyond “the way it’s always been done”, understand upstream and downstream implications of decisions; maintain and enhance best business practices across the merchandising group by partnering closely with the NA Assortment Planning team and seeking input from respective subject matter experts; intellectually curious.
Collaborative and Connected: know how to navigate the organization and can quickly follow up or elevate decisions to the right people and drive alignment.
Trusted: others respect their decision‑making and will trust that they have made the right decisions in guiding assortments.
Detail‑Oriented: have no problem rolling up their sleeves and digging into the details of how things work or how decisions should be made.
Data Savvy: solid understanding of historical performance data as well as the pitfalls of relying too much on data alone.
Responsibilities Build Optimized Assortments
Drive the end‑to‑end assortment planning process from initial brand/franchise forecasting to go‑to‑market.
Ensure the development of a pre‑season assortment plan to support the merchandise strategy.
Apply assortment analytics, including rate‑of‑sale and door tiering, to the planning process.
Conduct analysis to support the creation of SKU targets by tier.
Define item life‑cycle management attribution.
Maximize margin through assortment productivity.
Cross‑Functional Collaboration and Alignment
Connect financials and space through brand investment bottom‑up planning.
Partner with allocation, buying and GTM/VM to ensure alignment on door and distribution.
Build future assortment and space plans together with the buying team by visiting brand partners and traveling the market.
Collaborate with space planning team to refine proposed space updates.
Align store assortment plans with store financial plans.
Ensure the monthly SKU count flow fits within space capacity.
Vendor Collaboration
Foster a strong partnership with the brands on assortment build and GTM processes.
Attend brand pre‑season meetings, line reviews, and market travel as needed.
Team Development and Culture
Deliver service excellence while maintaining a high level of engagement and ensuring a live well‑work‑well environment.
Train, motivate and develop your team to enable effective performance and growth through consistent on‑the‑job training and feedback.
Develop the team to foster strong collaboration with all key stakeholders.
Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in business administration, finance, or merchandising required.
Minimum 10 years of relevant retail experience in a trend‑driven, high‑volume company.
Advanced Excel skills are required.
Experience using Power BI is a plus.
Experience working in assortment planning solutions is preferable.
Retail math proficiency required.
Ability to establish relationships and work effectively with all internal and external constituencies.
Ability to think creatively, be highly driven and self‑motivated.
Ability to multi‑task in a fast‑paced environment with a sense of urgency while remaining organized.
Ability to problem‑solve, meet deadlines, and complete in‑depth analysis to support decision making.
Experience managing and developing individuals.
At Foot Locker, we value innovation, authenticity, and integrity in all that we do. To uphold the security and fairness of our hiring process, we ask that candidates refrain from using AI tools, including ChatGPT, during interviews and assessments. To ensure a smooth and secure experience, please review the following guidelines:
Cameras must be on for all virtual interviews.
AI tools are strictly prohibited during interviews or assessments.
We appreciate your understanding and cooperation as we work together to create a transparent and equitable hiring experience.
Benefits The annual base salary range is $100,000 - $130,000/year. This range represents the anticipated low and high ends of the salary for this position. This role is also eligible to receive short‑term incentives that align with individual and company performance. Salary will be determined by the education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities of the applicant, internal equity, and alignment with market data. Salary is one component of the Foot Locker, Inc. total compensation package, which includes the following:
Employee Discount
Paid Time Off
Medical | Dental | Vision Coverage
401(k) | Roth 401(k)
Life Insurance
Flexible Spending Account
Opportunities for Advancement
Education Reimbursement for Qualified Courses
Strong Company Culture
Employee Resource Groups
#J-18808-Ljbffr
Foot Locker, Inc. is hiring a Director, Assortment Planning to join our Champs Sports Division! The Director leads the team responsible for the development, delivery and ongoing management of a profitable and productive clustered assortment that is aligned to our consumer preferences. By assorting with intent, the Director will ensure the customer has a balance of brands, franchises, and mix of basics & fashion choices.
In close partnership with buying, allocation, and financial planning, the assortment planning team is responsible for:
Development of store assortments informed by business strategy and customer preference to determine the optimal assortment in each store location.
Providing customer choice count targets by brand/franchise using productivity metrics aligned to in-store merchandising guidelines.
Ensuring depth by style-color needed to achieve sales utilizing Rate of Sale plan, door tiering, and clustering.
Adjusting assortment strategy in-season based on changes in business performance or inventory productivity, fashion trends, and store assortment capacity.
Driving customer experience in store and increasing NPS, while maximizing sales, margin, and sell-through rates.
As the leader of a team of Assortment Planners, the Director is responsible for developing a highly capable team that is able to meaningfully drive business results and for driving alignment across the end-to-end assortment planning process. The Assortment Planning team serves as a critical business partner across Allocation, Buying, Space Planning, Visual Merchandising, CX, and vendor teams. This role requires strong commercial acumen, analytical ability, and communication skills, along with the capacity to identify business needs, propose innovative solutions, and foster effective cross‑functional collaboration.
Candidate Abilities
Change Agent: enthusiastic about improving processes and ways of working and can champion change within the organization; effective at building teams and developing decision‑making playbooks to drive consistency among the team.
Strategic Thinker: connect the dots between functions, think beyond “the way it’s always been done”, understand upstream and downstream implications of decisions; maintain and enhance best business practices across the merchandising group by partnering closely with the NA Assortment Planning team and seeking input from respective subject matter experts; intellectually curious.
Collaborative and Connected: know how to navigate the organization and can quickly follow up or elevate decisions to the right people and drive alignment.
Trusted: others respect their decision‑making and will trust that they have made the right decisions in guiding assortments.
Detail‑Oriented: have no problem rolling up their sleeves and digging into the details of how things work or how decisions should be made.
Data Savvy: solid understanding of historical performance data as well as the pitfalls of relying too much on data alone.
Responsibilities Build Optimized Assortments
Drive the end‑to‑end assortment planning process from initial brand/franchise forecasting to go‑to‑market.
Ensure the development of a pre‑season assortment plan to support the merchandise strategy.
Apply assortment analytics, including rate‑of‑sale and door tiering, to the planning process.
Conduct analysis to support the creation of SKU targets by tier.
Define item life‑cycle management attribution.
Maximize margin through assortment productivity.
Cross‑Functional Collaboration and Alignment
Connect financials and space through brand investment bottom‑up planning.
Partner with allocation, buying and GTM/VM to ensure alignment on door and distribution.
Build future assortment and space plans together with the buying team by visiting brand partners and traveling the market.
Collaborate with space planning team to refine proposed space updates.
Align store assortment plans with store financial plans.
Ensure the monthly SKU count flow fits within space capacity.
Vendor Collaboration
Foster a strong partnership with the brands on assortment build and GTM processes.
Attend brand pre‑season meetings, line reviews, and market travel as needed.
Team Development and Culture
Deliver service excellence while maintaining a high level of engagement and ensuring a live well‑work‑well environment.
Train, motivate and develop your team to enable effective performance and growth through consistent on‑the‑job training and feedback.
Develop the team to foster strong collaboration with all key stakeholders.
Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in business administration, finance, or merchandising required.
Minimum 10 years of relevant retail experience in a trend‑driven, high‑volume company.
Advanced Excel skills are required.
Experience using Power BI is a plus.
Experience working in assortment planning solutions is preferable.
Retail math proficiency required.
Ability to establish relationships and work effectively with all internal and external constituencies.
Ability to think creatively, be highly driven and self‑motivated.
Ability to multi‑task in a fast‑paced environment with a sense of urgency while remaining organized.
Ability to problem‑solve, meet deadlines, and complete in‑depth analysis to support decision making.
Experience managing and developing individuals.
At Foot Locker, we value innovation, authenticity, and integrity in all that we do. To uphold the security and fairness of our hiring process, we ask that candidates refrain from using AI tools, including ChatGPT, during interviews and assessments. To ensure a smooth and secure experience, please review the following guidelines:
Cameras must be on for all virtual interviews.
AI tools are strictly prohibited during interviews or assessments.
We appreciate your understanding and cooperation as we work together to create a transparent and equitable hiring experience.
Benefits The annual base salary range is $100,000 - $130,000/year. This range represents the anticipated low and high ends of the salary for this position. This role is also eligible to receive short‑term incentives that align with individual and company performance. Salary will be determined by the education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities of the applicant, internal equity, and alignment with market data. Salary is one component of the Foot Locker, Inc. total compensation package, which includes the following:
Employee Discount
Paid Time Off
Medical | Dental | Vision Coverage
401(k) | Roth 401(k)
Life Insurance
Flexible Spending Account
Opportunities for Advancement
Education Reimbursement for Qualified Courses
Strong Company Culture
Employee Resource Groups
#J-18808-Ljbffr