Project Manager - Purchasing & Merchandising

About the Role:

As the Project Manager, Purchasing & Merchandising, you will serve as a key strategic and operational partner to the Chief Purchasing & Merchandising Officer and the broader Purchasing & Merchandising leadership team. You will help establish the operating rhythm of the department, drive coordination across key initiatives, and ensure priorities, decisions, and commitments move forward with clarity and accountability.

You will manage a portfolio of departmental initiatives, facilitate leadership and department meetings, maintain key planning calendars, and develop tools and processes that provide visibility into priorities, milestones, risks, and dependencies. You will also help ensure presentations, meeting materials, and executive communications are clear, accurate, and ready for senior leadership audiences.

You will partner closely with the Head of Enterprise Transformation to connect Purchasing & Merchandising priorities to broader cross-functional and enterprise initiatives, ensuring key dependencies, milestones, risks, and commitments are visible and appropriately tracked.

This role requires someone who can move seamlessly between strategic priorities and day-to-day execution. You will work across Purchasing, Merchandising, Operations, Finance, Marketing, Technology, and other functions to connect work streams, identify issues early, and help leaders stay focused on the highest-priority work.

Responsibilities Include:

Manage and maintain a holistic portfolio view of key Purchasing & Merchandising priorities, projects, and strategic initiatives.

Develop and maintain project plans, timelines, milestones, dependencies, risks, action items, and status reporting for key departmental initiatives.

Partner with initiative owners to establish clear objectives, deliverables, ownership, timelines, and measures of success.

Serve as a key connection point between Purchasing & Merchandising and the Enterprise Transformation function, ensuring departmental priorities and commitments are appropriately integrated into broader enterprise plans.

Coordinate complex, cross-functional initiatives involving Store Operations, Finance, Marketing, Business Technology, Supply Chain, Real Estate, and other business partners.

Create and manage the Purchasing & Merchandising operating calendar, including key business milestones, leadership meetings, department meetings, strategic planning sessions, business reviews, major initiatives, and other important deliverables.

Coordinate and facilitate Purchasing & Merchandising leadership meetings, department meetings, planning sessions, and other key forums.

Develop agendas, coordinate presenters and pre-reads, facilitate discussions as appropriate, document decisions, and ensure follow-up actions are clearly assigned and completed.

Maintain action logs, decision trackers, project dashboards, meeting summaries, risk registers, and other tools that reinforce accountability and organizational discipline.

Track decisions, owners, due dates, risks, dependencies, escalations, and follow-up actions to prevent important work from stalling between meetings.

Prepare and coordinate executive briefings, business updates, status reports, dashboards, decision documents, and other materials for the Chief Purchasing & Merchandising Officer and senior leadership.

Review presentations and other materials for clarity, accuracy, consistency, and executive readiness.

Partner with leaders to strengthen the structure, storyline, and messaging of presentations for department meetings, executive reviews, and other leadership forums.

Consolidate information from multiple leaders and work streams into clear, concise executive-level updates.

Facilitate effective decision-making by synthesizing complex information, identifying tradeoffs, clarifying decisions needed, and documenting outcomes.

Proactively identify risks, issues, competing priorities, and dependencies and work with leaders and project owners to drive timely resolution.

Translate leadership priorities into actionable plans with clear ownership, milestones, and accountability.

Support the implementation of new programs, processes, capabilities, organizational changes, and other strategic priorities across Purchasing & Merchandising.

Establish consistent project management, meeting, and communication practices that improve visibility and coordination across the department.

Anticipate upcoming needs, identify potential issues before they become problems, escalate concerns…