Planner

The Planner owns the financial sales, margin, and inventory plan for an assigned category across pre-season and in-season, translating merchandising strategy into an actionable, profitable plan. This role partners closely with Buying, Merchandising, and Allocation, and is a key contributor to building the agile, curious planning team behind Claire's next chapter of growth.

Key Responsibilities

• Forecasting & Planning: Develop and maintain sales, margin, inventory, receipt, and OTB plans for assigned categories, ensuring alignment with financial targets and merchandising strategy

• OTB Management: Own the weekly Open to Buy for assigned categories; allocate across new and repeat product to maximize sales and margin while protecting receipt flow

• Inventory Management: Manage inventory levels and productivity to maintain appropriate in-stock levels while minimizing surplus, aged inventory, and markdown risk.

• Data Analysis: Apply data analysis tools to evaluate sell-through, turn, and purchasing patterns; translate findings into product selection, pricing, and reorder recommendations

• Reporting: Own the Weekly Business Review narrative for assigned categories, including insights, risks, and recommended actions, and deliver recurring performance reporting to leadership

• Lifecycle Management: Partner with Buying and Merchandising on preseason promotional and markdown strategy; prepare and action markdown proposals within budget and margin parameters

• Cross-Functional Partnership: Represent Planning in weekly trading and merchandising meetings; partner with Allocation to keep store-level execution aligned to plan

• Continuous Improvement: Question legacy process, flag constraints to forecast accuracy and inventory productivity, and help build better, more agile ways to buy, flow, and allocate

• Adhere to all company policies, procedures, and planning calendar deadlines

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in business, finance, marketing, retail management, or a related field, or equivalent experience

• 2–4 years of experience in planning, buying, merchandising, or a related analytical role

• Strong knowledge of retail math and metrics relevant to financial planning (OTB, turn, sell-through, markup/markdown)

• Analytical skills to interpret quantitative and qualitative data objectively and translate it into a recommendation

• Proficient presentation skills suited to varied audiences, including peers and executive leadership

• Process management skills, including the ability to organize and allocate resources to complete tasks efficiently

• Ability to collaborate effectively across departments and adapt to a fast-paced, evolving environment

• Advanced Excel skills; planning systems experience (Oracle a plus)