Senior Merchandise and Space Planner

Senior Merchandise and Space Planner – Academy Sports + Outdoors

Location: Houston, TX —
Salary: $63,440.00 – $74,880.00

• Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative discipline:
  Economics, IT, Supply Chain, Finance, Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, Computer Science or equivalent years of related work experience.

• 4+ years of retail buying, retail operations or relevant work experience.
• 1+ year of supervisory or management experience preferred.

• Drive and influences change via behavior and enthusiasm; lead process implementations and drive mindset changes to improve productivity and/or profitability.
• Advanced Excel skills in Microsoft Office.
• Exceptional analytical skills & financial literacy.
• Strong presentation skills—communicates complex information simply and actionable.
• Strong interpersonal, written, verbal communication; interfaces effectively with individuals at various levels.
• Attention to detail and sound problem‑solving skills for technical and business issues.
• Project management—establish key milestones, follow up with stakeholders and deliver on time/on budget.
• Expert knowledge of JDA Category Management Suite.
• Ability to prioritize and manage a large volume of work across multiple projects in a fast‑paced, frequently changing environment.
• Produces high quality, detailed, accurate work on schedule.
• Creative thinker; resolves challenges with innovative ideas.
• Positive response to change; embraces new direction and process changes.

• Lead a subset of the team’s efforts in partnership with merchandise planning and visual merchandising to achieve sales and profit objectives through accurate space analysis, efficient macro and micro space planning, and consumer‑centric planogram creation.
• Build and maintain collaborative partnerships with Merchant, Visual Merchandise Presentation Creative, Inventory, and Store Operations teams to align on planograms and merchandise plans.
• Execute quality‑control measures for planograms and merchandise plans, ensuring accuracy of store assignments, compliance with strategic vision, corporate standards, and attention to detail.
• Lead continual process improvement efforts, evaluate planogram effectiveness, and recommend workflow efficiencies.
• Provide store support regarding planograms and merchandising plans, anticipating customer needs and resolving problems efficiently.
• Manage JDA Intactix floor‑planning for all stores within assigned regions; maintain current and future views of all stores.
• Communicate merchandising and planning strategies to cross‑functional partners, applying general direction to individual stores.
• Direct all aspects of visual merchandising: planogram creation, fixture‑graphic fulfillment, and reset coordination.
• Serve as an integral part of the Category Merchandising Team, driving sales, gross margin, and turnover.
• Provide data and analytics to influence decisions in merchandise buys, assortment tiers, marketing, creative, and product allocations.
• Own special projects and initiatives, report back to team on new developments, strategies, and roll‑out plans.
• Oversee analytics and assortment optimization to increase retailer category sales; perform strategic category analysis and insight discovery.
• Lead development and implementation of new innovative fixture initiatives; serve as visual merchandising strategy expert.
• Coordinate onboarding and training of new existing Category Space Planners.
• Other duties as assigned.

• Acceptable level of hearing and vision to perform job duties.
• Adhere to company work hours, policies, procedures and rules governing professional staff behavior.
• Regular attendance required.
• Ability to work flexible hours (evening, weekends, holidays) as necessary.
• Up to 20% travel, overnight stays as required.

Academy is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate with regard to employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other category protected by law.