Summary
Responsible for achieving financial and strategic goals of the category - sales, gross margin, weeks of supply and stock turnover. Responsible of developing and implementing department objectives, brand strategies, client needs and visual presentation within the category. Elaborates and executes merchant and brands strategy, establishes and maintains excellent relationship with vendors, negotiates and manages assortments and seasonal products, manages compliance with the government standards, maintains a consistency with the US strategy.
A creative thinker who is willing to take calculated risks with an ability to source and foster new opportunities to grow the business

Responsibilities include:

• Develop and execute overall strategy for growth and pricing with new product introductions and strategic expansion of current brands
• Develop and manage brand relationships, terms negotiations, including margin, testers/damages, training support, co-op, RTVs, samples
• Develop and manage assortment and plan promotions, launches, animations for brands within category strategy
• Analyze and manage all elements of a category to identify areas of opportunity
• Source and develop new brands that fill an important need gap within the category
• Interpret and communicate management direction to team members within business unit to ensure that each initiative is developed within the desired timeline
• Communicate brand and business opportunities to stores
• Manage fixture/plannogram planning and implementation with internal partners
• Plan promotions, launches, animations and marketing activities with internal partners
• Communicate brand training needs to brands and education team
• Manage brand fill rate and P.O. fulfillment with inventory management team
• Develop and train team
• Foster a work environment that embodies the Sephora values
• Ensure accurate assortments are posted on Stores Intranet, and communicates with the stores when needed to fully support them
• Follow-up of Health Canada regulations and product registration process to aid in the management of new product registration in order to determine compliance

Requirements:

• College degree required, MBA a plus, minimum 3+ years retail buying office merchandising and/or planning experience, Experience in beauty industry or keen passion for cosmetics a plus
• Knowledge of Canadian marketplace and corresponding vendor organization
• Knowledge of Canadian cosmetic industry and corresponding Health Canada regulations and requirements for product compliancy in Canada
• Proven ability to develop category/brand strategies
• Experience supervising and developing direct reports
• Problem solving and analytical skills
• Organizational and time management skills
• Verbal and written communication, presentation and negotiation skills
• Adaptable, team player and able to lead others
• Good judgment and analytical ability
• Instinct, vision, and quick quality decision making process
• Technical skills – MS Office; merchant systems
• Ability to travel
• Fluently bilingual in both French and English (written and spoken)