Director, Strategic Growth - Key Accounts

Director, Strategic Growth - Key Accounts

Garan, Inc. Children's Apparel
About the Opportunity

This is a growth leadership role within the children's apparel industry, not a traditional account-management position. Supported by an established account-management and execution team, the Director, Strategic Growth - Key Accounts will be responsible for identifying and creating new business opportunities across children's and baby apparel.

The role will focus on identifying whitespace in customer assortments, anticipating consumer and fashion trends, developing differentiated product and merchandising concepts, strengthening senior-level merchant relationships, and converting insights into meaningful business wins.

The successful candidate will combine a strong apparel merchant mindset with exceptional selling skills, product curiosity, competitive intelligence, and the ability to move quickly from insight to commercial opportunity.
What You'll Do

• Develop and execute a strategic growth plan for a leading national mass-market retailer and other key customer relationships.
• Identify whitespace opportunities across children's and baby apparel, including categories, products, fabrics, silhouettes, graphics, licensed products, price points, packaging, and merchandising.
• Regularly assess competitive children's apparel assortments to identify unmet consumer needs, emerging trends, competitive vulnerabilities, and opportunities to gain market share.
• Proactively develop new product, category, and merchandising concepts-bringing customers compelling ideas before they formally request them.
• Translate consumer, fashion, fabric, pricing, and retail trends into commercially viable apparel programs.
• Build trusted, productive relationships with buyers, merchants, directors, and senior customer leadership.
• Strengthen Garan's presence, relevance, and influence with key retail customers.
• Lead, coach, and develop the account-management team, creating a culture of proactive business development and accountability.
• Partner closely with design, merchandising, product development, sourcing, planning, marketing, and operations to turn opportunities into executable apparel programs.
• Lead persuasive customer presentations, line reviews, innovation meetings, and executive business reviews.
• Establish and manage a disciplined pipeline of new ideas and growth opportunities, from initial product concept through commercial adoption.
• Drive incremental programs, assortment expansion, shelf-space gains, and market-share growth.

What We're Looking For

We are looking for a commercially driven apparel executive who understands how major retailers build assortments and who has a demonstrated ability to turn product and consumer insights into new business.

The strongest candidates will bring:

• Approximately 10-15 years of experience in apparel, with children's, baby, family, or related categories strongly preferred.
• Significant experience working for an apparel manufacturer, supplier, brand, or other consumer products company selling to major national retailers.
• Significant experience working directly with leading national mass-market retailers.
• Established relationships and credibility within major retail merchant organizations.
• A demonstrated track record of originating and winning new apparel programs, expanding assortments, and growing strategic retail accounts.
• Evidence of identifying competitive opportunities and successfully gaining market share or shelf space.
• Strong knowledge of children's and/or baby apparel, including basics, fabrics, graphics, licensing, pricing, product development, merchandising, and consumer trends.
• A merchant mindset combined with strong business-development and selling capabilities.
• The ability to evaluate an apparel assortment and identify what is missing, what could perform better, and where a supplier can create differentiated value.
• Proven ability to uncover opportunities through competitive shopping, store visits, consumer insights, data, and trend intelligence.
• Strong executive presence, communication skills, and the ability to develop persuasive product and business presentations.
• Experience leading, coaching, or developing account-management teams.
• Ability and willingness to spend meaningful time engaging with customers in person.

How You'll Approach the Role

You are a merchant and business builder at heart. You are naturally curious about children's apparel, consumers, products, fabrics, graphics, trends, pricing, retail assortments, and competitors-and you turn that curiosity into commercial action.

You don't wait for a buyer to issue a request before developing an idea. You continuously study the marketplace, shop stores and competitive assortments, identify opportunities, and work with internal design and merchandising teams to develop compelling solutions.

You are comfortable challenging conventional thinking, presenting customers with ideas they haven't asked for yet, and mobilizing cross-functional teams around opportunities with meaningful growth potential.

You are competitive, commercially creative, persistent, and accountable for results. Most importantly, you have the drive to identify opportunities others miss and the persistence to turn those opportunities into winning apparel programs.
What Success Looks Like

During your first year, you will be expected to:

• Deepen relationships with merchants and senior leaders at key retail customers.
• Accelerate growth with a leading national mass-market retailer.
• Build a qualified pipeline of new children's apparel products, programs, categories, and assortment opportunities.
• Establish a consistent flow of commercially viable product and merchandising ideas.
• Win incremental programs and assortment expansion.
• Grow Garan's shelf presence and market share.
• Increase the quality and frequency of strategic customer engagement.
• Build greater proactivity and accountability across the account-management team.
• Establish regular executive-level business reviews.
• Build a repeatable approach to competitive shopping, trend identification, assortment analysis, and whitespace development.

Compensation

For candidates based in the New York City market, the anticipated base salary range is approximately $175,000-$200,000, depending on experience and qualifications.