VP, Front Room Merchandising

The Vice President,   Front Room Merchandising   provides enterprise leadership for category strategy, portfolio performance, and merchandising execution across assigned businesses. This leader translates the company strategy into an integrated category agenda that strengthens customer relevance, supplier value, and profitable growth across DIY, Professional, and eCommerce channels. The role owns the performance of a broad category portfolio and   establishes   the operating mechanisms, talent, and cross-functional alignment   required   to deliver sales, gross margin, inventory productivity, working capital, cash flow, and return on invested capital   objectives .   As a senior merchandising executive, the Vice President leads a team of category leaders, serves as a key advisor to executive leadership, and builds strategic partnerships across Merchandising, Supply Chain, Finance, Marketing, Inventory, Store Operations, eCommerce, and the supplier community. The role sets clear priorities, makes enterprise tradeoffs, and ensures category plans translate into consistent execution and measurable business outcomes.

Enterprise Category Strategy and Portfolio Leadership   Establishes the vision, strategic direction, and multi-year roadmap for a broad portfolio of categories, aligned with the company strategy and customer value proposition.   Identifies   emerging categories, portfolio opportunities, and category role shifts based on industry, competitor, customer, and consumer trends.   Integrates category strategies across assortment, branding, innovation, pricing, promotion, space, marketing, digital, and supply chain to maximize enterprise value.   Allocates resources and investment across categories based on strategic importance, growth potential, customer needs, and financial return.   Creates operating rhythms that improve category planning, decision quality, accountability, and execution across the organization and supplier community.   Financial and Commercial Leadership   Owns portfolio-level business performance, including sales, gross margin, gross margin rate, inventory productivity, working capital, cash flow, and return on invested capital.   Provides executive leadership in the development of strategic financial plans, annual operating plans, budgets, forecasts, and performance commitments.   Establishes portfolio-level financial guardrails, risk tolerance, and investment criteria for pricing, promotion, assortment, inventory, and vendor programs.   Uses   customer, market, competitive, and financial insights to   identify   performance gaps, prioritize value-creation opportunities, and accelerate corrective action.   Leads complex business decisions and enterprise tradeoffs that balance near-term performance with sustainable long-term growth.   Supplier Strategy and Negotiation   Defines supplier strategy across the portfolio, including segmentation, joint business planning, innovation, sourcing, performance expectations, and risk management.   Serves as executive sponsor for strategic supplier relationships and creates partnerships that improve customer value, differentiation, profitability, and supply continuity.   Establishes negotiation strategies and enterprise positions for high-value, complex, or top-tier supplier negotiations.   Aligns sourcing   objectives   and supplier investments to category strategy, company priorities, and available resources.   Monitors macroeconomic conditions, cost drivers, regulatory changes, and supply- base   dynamics to   anticipate   risk and protect business performance.   Enterprise Leadership and Execution   Translates corporate vision into clear merchandising and category priorities, operating plans, and measurable outcomes.   Leads enterprise-wide initiatives requiring alignment across Merchandising, Supply Chain, Finance, Marketing, Inventory, Store Operations, and eCommerce.   Influences