Manager Merchandising Planning

Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization:

The Merchandising Head Office drives holistic merchandising priorities, managing deliverables across categories and function to create synergy through the entire NAM Merchandising organization. The Project Manager is responsible for supporting the Director of Merchandising Head Office to build, drive, and implement processes, milestones, and projects to support and enable the merchandising brand strategy. 

Key Responsibilities

• Manage projects for merchandising organization by performing research, following up with involved parties, and identifying the appropriate course of action, referral, or response. Utilize planning and project management processes to ensure timely and high-quality execution.
• Closely track project life cycle and organize regular updates with management on initiatives.
• Perform business and operational analyses to support senior management in fact-based decision making.
• Support senior leadership meetings with duties including advance agenda preparation, collecting, and organizing relevant information from necessary parties, preparation of needed documents, communication of meeting expectations of all involved parties, and creating/following up on action items and agreements.
• Manage creation and development of presentation proposals for Merchandising Leadership team in close collaboration with head office leaders and cross functional stakeholders including the story line, slideshow preparation, speaking notes, and research as required.
• Develop an understanding of strategic business plans and operating model to clearly articulate complex content to diverse stakeholders, and to be persuasive in communicating the organization’s messages in a variety of settings.  This person should be confident in communicating in one-on-ones, team settings, and with large audiences.
• Coordinate and manage initiative development, planning and prioritization across functions while executing a systematic approach to support senior leadership in identifying the right strategic priorities to focus on
• Support merchandising leadership with go to market deliverables, presentations, and following up on action items.
• Serve as experts of Project Management standards and capabilities and identify and leverage opportunities to upskill the wider organization. 

Key Relationships

• Director, Merchandising Head Office
• VP of Performance and Operations
• VP of Lifestyle
• Product Merchandising Leadership Team
• Business Development and Marketplace Strategy
• Global Business Units
• Brand Marketing and Commercial
• North America Product Merchandising 

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Strong team player with proven ability to work cross functionally to achieve goals and objectives
• Strong critical thinking and logical mind set for solving complex problems
• Strong entrepreneurial and innovation capabilities
• Strong project management skills, with the ability to manage internal and external project teams.
• Strong organizational skills and excellent time management skills.
• Ability to handle ambiguity and work independently and be a solution-based thinker.
• Strong interpersonal skills, with ability to build successful working relationships within a team and cross-functionally. 
• Ability to communicate effectively with all levels of the organization.
• Ability to multi-task within a fast paced, changing environment, and the ability to work well under pressure and with tight deadlines.

Minimum Qualifications

• Four-year degree or equivalent experience
• Minimum of 4 years of progressive work experience 
• Previous experience around innovation and/or transformational topics
• Experience in project management required
• Equivalent combination of education and/or experience may be substituted for degree

• adidas celebrates diversity, supports inclusiveness and encourages individual expression in our workplace. We actively encourage individuals with disabilities to apply and will provide reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process. We do not tolerate the harassment or discrimination toward any of our applicants or employees. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer.
• adidas offers robust and progressive medical, including HSA (Health Savings Account) with employer funding or FSA (Flexible Spending Account) options, dental, vision, prescription drug coverage, adoption, with surrogate and fertility support, short and long-term disability, and basic life and AD&D insurance, which can be supplemented with employee-paid coverage. Employees are able to enroll in adidas’ 401k plan and Stock Purchase Plan with employer match. Full-time employees are eligible for education assistance and generous Leave policies including 12 weeks of paid parental leave.
• Employees are eligible to earn an annual bonus based on both company and personal performance. Employees accrue prorated flexible time off in the amount .4388 hours per day that increases with years of service, twelve paid holidays throughout the calendar year and Service Time Off during milestone years.
• At adidas we offer a Hybrid work policy which requires attendance in the office Monday through Thursday, with the flexibility to work remotely on Friday each week. For work requiring a high degree of collaboration or an in-person presentation, in-office attendance is required even on Friday. The working location of this position is Portland OR.
• Though our teammates hail from all corners of the world, our working language is English.