KATE WALLACE

Divisional Merchandise Manager for the Women’s’ Buying teams overseeing Apparel, Accessories, Sleepwear, Swimwear and Lingerie.

Key responsibilities
• Responsible for leading and inspiring the team to deliver on-trend, quality commercial product ranges that exceed customer expectations and have a unique value proposition in the New Zealand market.
• To deliver sustainable, profitable growth through a clear, strong buying strategy that supports the broad merchandise strategy and companies key KPI’s.
• Managing the promotional calendar for strong weekly appeal and balanced category and brand representation, with compelling Marketing campaigns to back this.
• Analysis of the team’s product assortments, commercial planning, pricing, and promotions to improve sales performance, identify growth opportunities, and maximise margin within my departments.
• Produce sales reports for weekly HOD meetings and monthly Departmental Board reports for executive teams.

Achievements
• Collectively contributing approximately 24% to Net Sales across the various categories with 28% contribution to Net Margin for the business FY 2023 results.
• Refined the commercial process between Marketing and Buying to streamline operations, emphasise key metrics and increase Customer engagement.
• Spearheaded and curated many key initiatives such as Now Trending Hotspots along with an omnichannel approach to gain further credibility in the mid-market fashion space and an enhanced in store Customer experience.
• Developed concepts and brands to further expand our footprint in the New Zealand market and gain market share.

Team Lead for Global Inline Originals Apparel Development team, effectively managing a diverse team of 7 with the aim of ensuring high performance and world class quality apparel.

Key responsibilities
•Build and maintain strong relationships with cross functional partners in Design and Marketing to ensure clear alignment and collaboration.
•Proactively monitor and report back to Senior Leadership on various KPI's to ensure we are in line with seasonal Brand targets set.
•Facilitate the briefing and negotiation with Suppliers ensuring accurate costings and quality standards are met.

Achievements
•Drive results in order to achieve or exceed seasonal margin targets of +69% and Buy Ready performance of 97% for the past 4 years.
•Achieving Targets of 90% Sustainability for FY 2022.
•Women’s Achieved Net Sales of €741mio for FY 2022, 7% increase YoY.

Defined, implemented and oversaw a Local Sourcing, Pricing and Category strategy across all BU's and Genders for Apparel, Footwear and Accessories for Adidas South Africa.


Key responsibilities
•Leading a team of 4 who are responsible for the Local Range Building and Presentation to the relevant Business Units, Directors and Sales team.
•Briefing and Negotiation with Suppliers as well as looking for new opportunities in sources of Supply.
•Management of the Vendors to ensure correct quality standards were met, on time in full, while overseeing the process from sample development to bulk production.
Achievements
•Collectively contributing approximately 15% to Net Sales and 20% to Net Quantity across the various categories with an overall weighted margin on average 5pp above Global results.
•Over a 5-year period with declining currency, I had managed to negotiate our Cotton prices down year on year to ensure we had strong margin across the categories.
•As a member of the Senior Management team, I was placed on the HPT (High Performing Team) programme which allowed me to attend numerous Training courses which were highly valuable in developing my leadership and coaching skills.

Responsible for Sourcing and onboarding Ladies Fashion Apparel Brands across all Categories for the e-commerce site Zando.

Key responsibilities
•Range Building and Presentation ensuring a balanced range of wardrobe staples and high fashion pieces while maximizing sales through strategic price tiering.
•The role was all encompassing, from end to end including Range selection, Price Negotiation, Order placement and tracking of Shipments.
Achievements
•I secured and negotiated contracts with over 20 Brands both Locally and Globally.
•As part of the Senior Buying team, I was selected to attend the trade show Bread and Butter in Germany to secure further Apparel Brands for the Company.

Range Building and Presentation as well Briefing and Negotiation with Suppliers on my Ladies wear Apparel range.

Key responsibilities
•Customer and trend analysis, fitting and sealing garments, Competitive Shopping as well as monitoring of Sales and Stock.
•Quarterly Post seasonal analysis and presentation of future strategies including planning Seasonal Colour Palettes
•A versatile Buyer with sound technical knowledge of fabrics and fits across numerous Categories with a strong Trader mentality, maximizing best- selling silhouettes as well as testing more Fashion Forward product.

Achievements
• As a senior member of the mainstream Truworths business I was selected to be on various committees who were responsible for making key strategic decisions for other areas of the business in forums such as Colour Committee and Print Committee.
• I was selected to be a Trainer on the Trainee Buyer programme and successfully trained a total of 8 trainee Buyers along my career.