Senior Manager Planning and Trading - Football

Sits within the EU eCommerce Product Merchandising team, within the EU eCom Planning & Trading team, which owns the planning processes and commercial decisions that shape the seasonal range, ensuring the right product is bought in the right quantities at the right time to meet consumer needs. It translates financial forecasts into seasonal open-to-buy plans for the respective categories, identifying and proactively managing business opportunities and risks. The role drives cross-functional alignment with key stakeholders to ensure monthly, quarterly and seasonal financial targets are achieved, bringing the European eCommerce category strategy to life through a best-in-class merchandise financial plan, an optimal pre-season assortment framework and agile in-season trading.

• Define and continuously optimise the pre-season strategy and Open-to-Buy plan for the respective categories, ensuring investment decisions are aligned with market financial targets and commercial ambitions.
• Contribute to key seasonal and go-to-market milestones, translating Brand and BU strategies and initiatives into relevant Planning & Trading priorities.
• Develop robust business cases for future opportunities, assessing short-, medium- and long-term potential and impact.
• Own the monthly financial planning process for the respective assortment areas, providing clear insights, recommendations and guidance to key stakeholders to support informed commercial decision-making.
• Drive in-season trading of the range, using sales, stock, traffic, conversion, sell-through and profitability insights to identify risks and opportunities and define clear commercial actions to maximise net sales and margin, including identifying key trends, opportunities and risks across own eCom
• Partner Program and other Marketing Outlets.
• Lead regular trading reviews, translating performance into actionable recommendations across product visibility, availability, pricing and promotional activity, partnering with Buying and wider eCommerce teams to optimise range performance, and provide clear visibility of MTD
• QTD and YTD assortment performance against the seasonal plan.
• Partner with Global Sales Planning & Analytics to evolve reporting capabilities and develop innovative tools that deliver actionable insights and enable data-driven business decisions.
• Partner with the Planning & Trading Director to drive key transformational initiatives and lead the continuous evolution of Planning & Trading ways of working, optimising key milestones, processes and business routines through internal and external expertise and best-practice sharing.
• Lead key cross-functional Planning & Trading milestones, including the monthly financial planning process, weekly and monthly trading, and seasonal merchandise planning and buy sign-off.
• Lead and develop the team, setting clear priorities, effectively managing workload and performance, and supporting individual and team development.

• BA / BS in Business, Marketing, Finance, Economics, or a related field.
• 5+ years of overall work experience.
• Fashion / Sporting Goods industry experience.
• Proven ability to successfully work in a highly cross-functional matrixed environment.
• Relevant people management experience.
• Strong knowledge of and passion for sport, with a particular interest in football.
• Enthusiastic about product, with deep expertise in merchandising and retail and a strong understanding of the end-to-end product lifecycle, including buying, planning and trading.
• Strong understanding of key assortment and digital KPIs (e.g. Traffic, AOV, PDP Views, CVR, ROS, Mark Down and Sell-Through), how they interconnect, and the commercial levers to drive improved performance.
• Self-motivated and passionate about deriving business insight from data, improving business processes and solving problems.
• Experience in leading and developing teams, ensuring organisational efficiency through effective motivation, training and development, and building diverse, inclusive high-performing teams and talent.
• Advanced Excel skills and proficiency in spreadsheet analysis.
• Strong organisational and planning skills to handle multiple tasks and business partners.
• Solution-oriented with a focus on achieving results, and quick to learn new systems and tools.
• Highly motivated and flexible, with the ability to work in a deadline-driven environment.
• Excellent PowerPoint, communication and presentation skills, with the ability to translate complex insights into clear, compelling stories for a range of stakeholders.

• Power BI data visualisation tool is a plus.
• Previous relevant experience within an ecommerce environment: at least 3+ years trading planning, merchandising demand forecasting, or equivalent experience is a plus.

The company strongly believes that embedding diversity, equity and inclusion into its culture and talent processes gives its employees a sense of belonging and its brand a real competitive advantage.