Merchandise Planner (and Doer!) at Sseko Designs in Portland, OR

Company Description

Sseko Designs uses fashion (and now coffee!) to create opportunity, sustainability, and community for women across the world and right here at home. From luxury leather travel bags to customizable footwear, Sseko creates stunning goods with an innovative business model that enables women in the countries where we make products to attend university and pursue their dreams. We are also committed to circularity, keeping all our products in circulation and out of landfills. We want the places where our community of women live and work to not just be more prosperous, but also more healthy and green. Our products are sold by Sseko Fellows, a bright and bold community of dreamers and doers, who are using their passion and smarts to support female scholars across the globe, save the planet, and earn an income to pursue their own dreams.

Job Description

The Merchandise Planner plays a critical role in serving Sseko Designs’ mission to use business to create opportunity and sustainability for women across the globe. This role will be the analytical merchandising bedrock of Sseko’s world class product team. You will be responsible for supporting all demand forecasting, supply planning, buying, and inventory management processes with thoughtfully presented merchandise models and analyses that drive Sseko’s revenue and profit growth while increasing Sseko’s positive impact around the world.

This role requires an action-oriented, creative, product-loving, numbers-driven, articulate professional who thrives on bringing order to the natural chaos of fast-moving lean businesses, is ambitious and gains energy from a busy schedule, and is driven by our mission. The Merchandise Planner will be market- and numbers-obsessed and be able to immerse quickly and effectively in a business model powered by direct selling. Reporting to our Product Line Manager, you’ll be at the heart of our product team and our profitable business growth.

Key Responsibilities:

• Consumer, trend and market research to validate pricing, products and programs
• Product performance analysis, forecasting, demand planning & inventory projections
• Product concepting, sample review, costing, assortment building and line list maintenance
• Co-design of “incentive” product assortments and promotions that support Fellows’ business or reward for performance
• Set up of product attributes and pricing in internal ERP systems
• Drive cross-functional line presentation and support seasonal catalog and web proofing
• Provide product support for internal and external presentations
• Maintains and distributes in-season sales and inventory reports
• Point person for in-season sales tactics and promotions
• Drive hindsight gap analysis on in-season sales. Use to inform forecasts and plans
• Other duties as required
• Minimal travel may eventually be required

In the first 12 months at Sseko you will have achieved:

• Streamlined reporting processes and historical records of weekly, monthly, STD and YTD KPIs.
• Analyzed and contextualized product performance in order to optimize in-season inventory tactics and inform future demand planning
• Reimagined demand-planning tools and processes
• Demonstrated an analytical capability to increase sales and to identify strategic growth opportunities
• Become an expert in our business model and our customer, with a proven track record to think like a customer

Qualifications

• 3+ years analytical forecasting, planning, and modeling experience, preferably at a seasonal apparel and softgoods fashion brand.
• Hands on experience with product concepting and definition, from ideation through formal presentation of a product line
• Formal training in analysis and modeling; rock star at excel and google sheets modeling, and creation of simple, elegant bar and line graphs & charts using google tools.
• Strong written communication skills; clear, concise, punchy emails and messaging.
• Proficiency in presentation. Take the complex and make it simple for non-technical sales and brand stakeholders.
• Strong team player and collaborator. Partner closely with PLM (your manager) + upstream and downstream stakeholders: brand, marketing, sales, supply chain, and customer service to bring assortments and plans to life.
• Confident but humble! You take joy in achieving personal excellence, but also in making others around you successful. “We” vs. “I” mentality.
• Excellent juggler and time manager. Thrives in dynamic changing environment. Demonstrated ability to set priorities and realign those priorities with your peers and your managers.
• Preferably familiar with advanced planning techniques such as statistical forecasting, attribute-based planning, and product portfolio analysis. You don’t need to build these models but you need to be able to understand them.
• Experience in direct selling is strongly preferred.
• Knowledge of other Google applications, Slack collaboration, Zoom, Canva, social media (Facebook and Facebook live). Passionate about learning new more efficient ways of doing things. Always inventing and improving with the use of cool new tools.

Additional Information

We are looking for that someone special!

You will be a part of an innovative team that is pioneering the path that merges traditional for-profit business models with positive social change for women around the globe and right here at home. You will have the opportunity to grow a company and develop a new model for doing business. The ideal, and rare, candidate will be an incredibly dynamic communicator as well as a true corporate professional. The candidate will be an innovator – excited to communicate a powerfully modern approach to social selling. The candidate must have a passion for our mission, love of people and demonstrate extraordinary professional maturity and leadership skills. If you are an optimist by nature, driven and ready to take charge in building an impact driven brand, this could be the role for you.

Time / Opportunity

• Start Date: ASAP
• Location: Headquarters in Portland, OR - Strong preference for local; open to fully remote.
• Compensation: Depending on Experience, Health Insurance, 401k, PTO

Equal Employment Opportunity:

Sseko is on a mission to use business to create educational and economic opportunities for women across the globe. This is an ambitious goal that will only be accomplished with an inclusive culture that creates space for the most creative and courageous minds to have a seat at the table. We believe that in addition to being in alignment with our value for justice and equality, building a diverse and inclusive team is required in order for us to achieve our audacious dream of creating a brighter and more just future for women everywhere. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical​​​ condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or ​expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law.