Director - Merchandising​/Commercial Finance

JOB SUMMARY

Hybrid in Houston, TX

The Director will build and lead a high-performing analytics and finance team, translating complex data into actionable insights, financial forecasts, and strategic recommendations. This role plays a critical part in shaping merchandising strategy, improving profitability, and ensuring financial discipline across the product portfolio

• Serve as the primary finance partner to Merchandising leadership, influencing strategy through financial insights and scenario analysis.
• Provide financial leadership on assortment strategy, supplier negotiations, pricing initiatives, promotions, and category performance.
• Evaluate trade-offs between sales growth, margin, inventory, and working capital to support enterprise objectives.

• Lead budgeting, forecasting, and long-range planning for merchandising, including revenue, gross margin, supplier funding, and inventory.
• Develop financial models to assess new programs, supplier agreements, SYY brand initiatives, and merchandising investments.
• Track performance vs. plan and clearly articulate risks, opportunities, and corrective actions.

• Oversee development of dashboards, KPIs, and analytics to monitor category, supplier, and SKU-level performance.
• Drive deeper insights into price elasticity, mix, margin leakage, inventory turns, and promotional effectiveness.
• Simplify complex analyses into clear, executive-level storytelling and recommendations.

• Partner with pricing and merchandising teams to improve gross margin, reduce margin leakage, and enhance pricing discipline.
• Analyze cost drivers including vendor cost changes, freight, shrink, and inventory revaluation impacts.
• Support fact-based negotiations with suppliers using financial and analytical insights.

• Partner with Supply Chain and Merchandising to optimize inventory levels, turns, and obsolescence risk.
• Monitor inventory revaluation, reserves, and exposure, and proactively identify mitigation actions.

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of finance and analytics professionals.
• Establish best practices in financial modeling, analytics, and business partnering.
• Foster a culture of curiosity, accountability, and continuous improvement.

• Work closely with Accounting, Supply Chain, Pricing, Sales, and IT/Data teams to ensure alignment and data integrity.
• Support executive leadership with ad hoc analysis, board-level materials, and strategic initiatives.

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a related field.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in finance, FP&A, or analytics, with significant exposure to merchandising, pricing, or product/category management.
• Strong leadership experience managing and developing teams.
• Advanced financial modeling, forecasting, and analytical skills.
• Ability to translate complex data into clear insights for senior executives.

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a related field.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in finance, FP&A, or analytics, with significant exposure to merchandising, pricing, or product/category management.
• Strong leadership experience managing and developing teams.
• Advanced financial modeling, forecasting, and analytical skills.
• Ability to translate complex data into clear insights for senior executives.

• MBA or CPA/CFA.
• Experience in food distribution, retail, CPG, or multi-SKU environments.
• Experience working with large datasets, BI tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau), and ERP systems.

• Strategic thinking and commercial acumen
• Executive communication and influence
• Strong business partnering mindset
• Data-driven decision-making
• People leadership and talent development

• The physical, mental, and environmental conditions in which the work is performed. The demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable…