SET THE COURSEThe Director of Merchandising, Women's Swim, owns the end-to-end performance and strategic direction of the Swim business, with accountability for sales, margin, inventory productivity, and assortment effectiveness across channels. This role develops and drives merchandising strategies that deliver profitable growth while reinforcing the Tommy Bahama brand.
The Director leads assortment, pricing, and inventory strategies using a combination of data-driven insights and strong merchant intuition to optimize product performance at the category and SKU level. Through ownership of the product lifecycle-from concept through in-season management-this role ensures financial targets are met while delivering compelling, customer-relevant assortments.
As the business owner for Swim, this role leads cross-functional alignment across Design, Planning, Allocation, eCommerce, Marketing, and Visual, influencing decisions and ensuring seamless execution. The Director also drives innovation and category growth through testing, trend identification, and continuous optimization, while maintaining a strong connection to the customer and market.
BE THE ISLAND GUIDEFunction- Owns the end-to-end financial performance of the Swim business, driving sales, margin, and inventory productivity across channels.
- Develops and leads long- and short-term merchandising strategies that deliver profitable growth and align with brand and divisional objectives.
- Evaluates business performance holistically, making strategic trade-offs to optimize revenue, margin, and inventory return.
- Leads the development of assortments that reflect brand vision while maximizing productivity at the category and SKU level.
- Applies a combination of data-driven insights and strong merchant intuition to shape product direction, ensuring relevance, differentiation, and financial performance.
- Drives category evolution through a test-and-learn approach, identifying opportunities to expand classifications and unlock growth.
- "Student of the Market & Voice of the Guest" Brings deep knowledge and nuanced understanding of our target customer through consumer insights, end-use & market segmentation, regional & climate business needs, together with market data, including product reviews, and focus/fit group feedback, to all milestone touchpoints.
- Owns margin performance and pricing architecture for the Swim business, making deliberate trade-offs to optimize profitability and customer value.
- Utilizes margin diagnostics across category, item, and lifecycle to identify opportunities and improve financial outcomes.
- Leads inventory strategy and flow, ensuring disciplined investment, strong stock productivity, and alignment to demand.
- Drives in-season management through proactive analysis and decision-making, including reorders, exits, and risk mitigation strategies.
- Ensures assortments and strategies reflect the unique needs of eCommerce and Retail channels while supporting broader business objectives.
- Leads cross-functional alignment across Design, Planning, Allocation, eCommerce, Marketing, and Visual to ensure cohesive and effective execution.
- Translates merchandising strategy into clear direction, influencing partners to deliver against financial and brand objectives.
- Ensures successful execution of product launches, aligning strategy, financial investment, and cross-functional readiness.
- Drives adoption and effective use of tools, systems, and processes to improve decision-making, efficiency, and business performance.
- Acts as the category leader and primary point of accountability, operating with a high degree of autonomy and ownership.
- Builds strong relationships with Retail District and Regional leaders to incorporate customer and field insights into merchandising strategies.
- Provides strategic direction to Allocation and reviews execution to ensure product is placed effectively to support sales, inventory productivity, and flow objectives.
- Partners closely with Visual on space allocation, ensuring assortments are executed within defined capacity guardrails and holding the merchandising team accountable to store-level styleand SKU productivity.
ESSENTIALS FOR LIFE IN PARADISEEducation and Certifications- Bachelor's Degree in Fashion Merchandising, Business or equivalent experience.
Experience and Skills- Requires 10+ years' retail merchandising/ buying experience in a fast growth company with a geographically diverse multi-location company.
- Requires 5-7 year's apparel buying experience.
- Strong negotiation skills and the ability to manage multiple vendors.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Requires direct management experience and leadership skills with an understanding of the importance of team building/development.
- Proven organizational skills, detail oriented and ability to multi-task.
- Exceptional problem solving/ decision making skills.
- A keen eye for fashion/trend analysis.
- Requires budgeting, inventory turn, and gross margin experience.
- Experience developing systems/processes that will help TB Retail reduce cost and maximize return on investment.
- Experience in domestic and international buying/sourcing is required.
- Strong computer skills (Word, Outlook), and super user of Excel.
- Proficiency in merchandise replenishment software/systems; STS experience preferred.
Multiple factors will vary the applicable rate of pay for this role, including an individual's experience, knowledge, and skillset, as well as work location and available budget.
Rate Range: $144,600 to $200,000Mahalo (thank you) for your interest in Tommy Bahama!
