Vice President, Merchandising

Job description

CSC Generation is the AI-native holding company re-engineering omnichannel retail. We acquire iconic brands and transform them with Genesis, our operating platform combining a Data Fabric, Automation Engine, proprietary tools, and shared services to modernize operations, elevate customer experience, and expand margins. With $1B+ in revenue across 13 brands, our portfolio includes Sur La Table, Backcountry, One Kings Lane, and others that serve as real-world innovation labs. **Reports to:** CEO **Location:** Remote (US or Canada); Salt Lake City (Hybrid - 3x/week in-office); Austin (Hybrid); Toronto (Hybrid) ### About the Role This role exists to own the full merchandising function for one of our portfolio brands — assortment strategy, vendor partnerships, catalog quality, pricing, margin, and the promotional calendar that ties it all together. As **Vice President, Merchandising**, you will set the merchandising point of view for the brand so the assortment reads as curated, not aggregated, and you will own the revenue and gross margin levers that deliver the plan. In your first six to twelve months, success means a rationalized catalog with clear SKU productivity standards, renegotiated vendor terms that reflect true cost-to-serve, a functioning vendor scorecard program, and AI-enabled workflows embedded across the team's recurring analysis. This is a lean team. You will own a lot, move fast, and make decisions with full end-to-end responsibility. ### What You'll Do #### **Assortment & Category Strategy** - Set assortment strategy by category and price point — what you carry, what you cut, where the gaps are, and which adjacencies are worth entering next. - Run continuous assortment gap analysis against customer demand signals, search and browse behavior, unmet demand, and the competitive set, and turn it into a prioritized vendor target list. - Own SKU productivity. Grow the catalog where it converts and rationalize where it does not. - Define the merchandising point of view for the brand so the assortment reads as curated, not aggregated. #### **Vendor Partnerships & Terms** - Source, pitch, and sign new drop-ship vendors. Own the pipeline from target list through to first live SKU. - Negotiate and renegotiate commercial agreements: cost, margin, freight and delivery terms, return allowances, damage and defect responsibility, marketing and co-op funding, rebates, and exclusivity where it is worth having. - Evaluate the true operational cost of each vendor — not just cost of goods, but ship time, cancel rate, defect and damage rate, return rate, chargebacks, and support load — and reset terms or exit the relationship on performance. - Hold vendors to service-level commitments with a scorecard the vendor actually sees. Run quarterly business reviews with the partners who matter. - Build and manage the exclusive and co-developed product program where it strengthens brand differentiation and margin. - Represent the brand at market and trade shows and maintain a live point of view on where the category is going. #### **Product Data & Catalog Operations** - Own catalog quality: item setup, taxonomy, attribution, imagery, copy, dimensions, and lead-time accuracy. - Compress the time from signed vendor to live, sellable, well-attributed catalog. Treat onboarding velocity as a merchandising metric. - Normalize inconsistent vendor feeds into a clean, searchable, filterable assortment, and partner with technology on the systems that do it at scale. - Partner with Site Merchandising and Marketing so the assortment is found: category architecture, search relevance, collections, and the gifting and seasonal moments that drive the calendar. #### **Pricing, Margin & Promotion** - Own gross margin. Set pricing strategy by category against competitive and marketplace intelligence, and manage MAP and MSRP discipline across the vendor base. - Build the promotional calendar with the vendor funding to pay for it. Vendor-funded promotion is a negotiated outcome, not a request. - Partner with Finance and the CEO on the revenue and margin plan, and own the merchandising levers that deliver it. - Report the business honestly: what worked, what did not, and what changes next month. #### **AI-Enabled Ways of Working** - Leverage AI tools to automate recurring analysis and reporting, and drive the identification and rollout of new AI-enabled merchandising workflows — assortment gap analysis, vendor scorecarding, competitive pricing intelligence, catalog enrichment, and hindsight reviews. - Model AI adoption for your team and help them find real ways to use it to sharpen and speed up their work. - Build AI-assisted capabilities that let non-technical merchants make faster, better decisions without waiting on an analyst. - Hold the quality bar: validate AI output against source data and commercial logic before it becomes a decision. #### **Team & Leadership** - Build, mentor, and develop the merchandising team as the business scales. - Operate as a peer to the leaders of Marketing, Site, Operations, and Finance, and as a direct partner to the CEO. - Bring the merchandising point of view into company strategy rather than waiting to be handed a target. ### Required Qualification - 10+ years in merchandising, buying, or category management in retail or e-commerce, including direct people leadership. - Demonstrated ownership of a revenue and gross margin number, not just an assortment. - Real vendor negotiation experience — you have set and reset commercial terms, walked away from a bad deal, and repaired a relationship that mattered. - Fluency with product data and catalog management — PIM or equivalent, taxonomy and attribution, item setup at scale. - AI fluency — you have used AI to materially speed up your team's output, not only your own. Hands-on experience with AI-assisted tools (Claude, Copilot, BI-native AI features, or similar) to automate analysis and reduce manual effort, and comfort connecting those tools to live data sources such as a data warehouse or ERP. - Strong analytical and financial instincts. Fluent in Excel and comfortable in SQL or a BI tool, and able to translate data into a decision you will defend. - Comfort operating without scaffolding — this is a lean team reporting to a CEO, and the work is unglamorous as often as it is strategic. ### Preferred Qualifications - Drop-ship or marketplace merchandising experience. - Home, furniture, or home decor category experience. ### Why Join The people who do best here are builders. They take ownership, move fast, and want to see the direct impact of their work. - **Executive Access:** Work directly with the CEO and sit as a peer alongside the leaders of Marketing, Site, Operations, and Finance — your merchandising point of view shapes company strategy. - **Portfolio-Scale Impact:** Lead a function that touches every part of the P&L, with AI tools and a modern operating platform that let you move faster than traditional retail allows. - **Strategic Ownership:** Own the full merchandising function end-to-end — assortment, vendor economics, pricing, margin, and promotional strategy — with the authority to make decisions and the accountability to deliver results. - **Competitive Benefits (US):** Paid time off policies, 401(k) match, medical/dental/vision and a variety of supplemental policies, and employee discounts across our portfolio of brands. - **Competitive Benefits (Canada):** Paid time off policies, RRSP match, medical, dental, and vision coverage, a variety of supplemental benefit options, and employee discounts across our portfolio of brands. ### Interview Process 1. **Recruiter Screen** - A 30-minute conversation with our recruiting team to align on the role, your background, and what you are looking for. 2. **Hiring Manager Interview** - Conversation with the CEO focused on merchandising philosophy, vendor management approach, and how you think about building a category strategy and margin plan. 3. **Executive Interview** - A deeper conversation with senior leadership on strategic fit, leadership style, and cross-functional partnership. 4. **In-Person Interview** - We'd like to meet you at one of our hub offices (Salt Lake City, Austin, or Toronto). Details and logistics will be arranged with your recruiter. 5. **Reference Checks** - Conducted in parallel with the final stages where possible. 6. **Offer** - We move quickly for the right candidate. *Interview process is subject to change. Any updates will be communicated promptly and clearly.* ### Please Note - Part of our interview process is a **mandatory in-person interview** with someone on our team prior to an offer. Candidates that are unwilling or unable to meet for an in-person interview will be removed from consideration immediately.