Purpose of the role:

Drive Planning and Buying process for Franchise. Lead and orchestrate OTB planning, defining optimal volumes to provided channel ranges. Input on pre-season planning and steer in-season trading decisions to meet store stock requirements. Work closely with cross-functional teams including marketing, visual merchandising, allocation, planning, and store operations to ensure a cohesive and profitable merchandising approach. Ensure the achievement of market KPIs and market guidelines/ strategy.

What you'll do: 

Pre-Season Planning & Strategy

• Implement pre-season strategy for OTB Planning & Management in line with market financial targets.
• Manage the merchandising process for Franchise, ensuring the right volumes are bought in line with market OTB plans and Channel Ranges provided by the Retail Merchandising team.
• Manage market-specific store segmentation processes.
• Drive space planning updates to ensure accurate financial and product planning.
• Partner with the Merchandising Retail team to define and continuously refine a localized and differentiated market range, providing strategic input to ensure relevance across seasonality, consumer demand, and account-specific requirements.
• Support the sell-in process by translating the Go-To-Market strategy into clear, partner-ready narratives and tools, ensuring Franchise Partners are aligned and equipped to execute against the planned buys.

In-Season Trading & Execution

• Lead market in-season trading, ensuring timely sales forecasting by product, stock intakes, and in-season markdowns for Franchise.
• Drive effective product flow to ensure store relevance, adequate stock clearance, and margin optimization.
• Manage market seasonal stock position, ensuring the right volumes are available in stores and distribution centers.
• Zone Orderbook Management.

Performance, Analytics & Demand Management

• Analyze sales data to identify opportunities for increasing sales and use insights to forecast demand accurately.
• Ensure data-driven decision making across trading, flow, and replenishment topics.

Commercial & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Drive the sell-in process in close collaboration with the Partner Manager.
• Build and leverage strong relationships with cross-functional teams to obtain the information required to achieve business objectives.
• Closely collaborate with Senior District Managers Retail & Franchise to drive best-in-class consumer experience and brand standards in stores.

Leadership, People & Performance Management

• Set clear expectations and manage performance through regular analysis and timely, constructive feedback, including the active management of underperformance.
• Lead and develop local Franchise team members by effectively leveraging individual strengths, skills, and expertise to drive collective team performance.
• Foster a performance-oriented working environment by motivating team members and enabling continuous capability development.
• Act as a role model by consistently demonstrating high standards, accountability, and expected leadership behaviors.

Skills you'll need:

• Progressive experience in Retail and / or Franchise (sporting goods industry preferred)
• Leading and managing diverse team
• Proven experience in Project Management
• Advanced MS Office knowledge
• Experience in (superordinate) market organization preferred
• Consumer and Customer orientation; Brand ambassador and implementation oriented; understands all retail disciplines and knows how to manage them across different countries, franchise partners and store formats

Main Requirements:

• University degree in business, ideally with marketing and sales focus or equivalent professional experience
• Minimum 8 years of experience in retail and/ or Franchise
• Minimum 4 years of experience in leadership
• Strong interpersonal skills: Very good communications and negotiating abilities as well as high presentation, relationship management and facilitation skills
• Analytical skills for business planning
• High degree of commercial and business acumen
• Strong determination and high initiative and pragmatism to the business
• Fluent in English
• Fluent in local language