Director, Merchandising Optimization and Execution

At RONA, our employees let their passion blossom every day. Our teams are driven by the desire to help people bring their projects to life and are committed to making a difference in the communities we serve.

We operate or service corporate and affiliated dealer stores. With a distinctive product and service offering and complementary store formats ranging from neighbourhood hardware stores to big box stores, our RONA+, RONA and Dick's Lumber banners are well equipped to help meet the needs of all DIYers and contractors.

You've got the talent? We've got the tools! Here, your work and ideas will contribute to building a flourishing organization. Your voice will always be heard and valued. You'll find career opportunities that live up to your ambitions and be able to further develop your unique set of skills.

So, if you're looking to do what you love, we could be a perfect match.

Position Overview: Director, Merchandising Enablement and Execution

RONA is seeking a Director, Merchandising Enablement and Execution, who will lead the governance, performance, continuous improvement, and evolution of key merchandising planning and execution processes and capabilities.

This role is responsible for strengthening the Merchandising operating model and enabling merchandising decisions and initiatives to move efficiently from strategy and planning through cross-functional readiness and successful store execution. Product Line Review (PLR) is a critical enterprise retail process involving significant commercial investments and merchandising changes that affect the entire store network and thousands of employees. Effective planning and execution are essential to supporting sales and margin performance, inventory productivity, customer experience, and effective store operations.

The incumbent will work closely with senior leadership and teams across Merchandising, Corporate and Dealer Store Operations, Replenishment, Supply Chain, Finance, Marketing, IT, Master Data, and the Project Management Office (PMO) to improve processes, clarify accountabilities, reduce execution friction, and strengthen organizational effectiveness

The Director will lead a multidisciplinary team responsible for Product Line Review (PLR) project delivery, store bookings, merchandising readiness, process optimization, and selected Merchandising-led projects. The role will strengthen merchandising planning and execution, project management, process excellence, change management, and cross-functional coordination.

The Director, Merchandising Enablement and Execution will report to the Vice President, Merchandising Enablement.

Key Responsibilities :

Merchandising Enablement Strategy and Operating Model

• Define and lead the strategy and multi-year roadmap for Merchandising Enablement and Execution, establishing priorities and ensuring alignment with enterprise priorities, Merchandising objectives, and evolving business needs.
• Design and continuously improve the operating model for key merchandising planning and execution processes, including governance, RACIs, standards, controls, decision rights, and escalation mechanisms.
• Oversee the development and maintenance of a rolling 24-month Product Line Review (PLR) calendar integrating Merchandising strategy priorities, supplier negotiation opportunities, Private Brand objectives, category performance diagnostics, organizational capacity, and other key business inputs.
• Govern the Assortment Update process and establish performance measures, reporting, and management routines that provide leadership with timely visibility into execution, emerging issues, and improvement opportunities.
• Set priorities for the simplification, standardization, automation, and improvement of merchandising processes and capabilities to increase speed to market and organizational effectiveness.
• Advise senior leadership on priorities, capability gaps, cross-functional dependencies, and investment requirements while promoting decisions that balance commercial objectives, customer experience, operational feasibility, financial impact, and store execution.

Product Line Review (PLR), Bookings and Merchandising Readiness

• Own the governance, performance, and continuous evolution of the Product Line Review (PLR) and Assortment Update processes, reflecting their significant commercial, cross-functional, and store-network impact, and ensuring clear objectives, scope, milestones, decision gates, accountabilities, deliverables, and cross-functional readiness.
• Ensure the Product Line Review (PLR) process translates approved category strategies and business objectives into coordinated cross-functional execution plans across Merchandising, Store Operations, Replenishment, Supply Chain, Master Data, Pricing, Marketing, Planograms, and other relevant functions.
• Oversee the governance, calendar, and continued development of store booking programs to provide earlier demand visibility to Replenishment and Supply Chain, particularly for seasonal, demand-sensitive, long-lead-time, and Private Brand merchandise.
• Lead the merchandising readiness capability, setting standards, controls, and validation criteria covering product activation, Replenishment and Supply Chain readiness, inventory availability, orderability, pricing, planogram requirements, shelf-label dependencies, and required master data.
• Ensure appropriate readiness checks, decision gates, exception management, and escalation mechanisms are embedded upstream to resolve issues before store execution and reduce delays, rework, exceptions, and implementation failures.
• Ensure stores receive clear, timely, and actionable merchandising instructions that communicate execution requirements and the underlying category strategy and rationale while considering timing, inventory availability, system constraints, workload, store capacity, and other operational realities.
• Oversee the identification and resolution of recurring readiness and execution issues, ensuring systemic corrective actions are developed with Category Management, Master Data, Replenishment, Supply Chain, Pricing, Planograms, Store Operations, and other relevant functions.
• Sponsor post-implementation reviews for significant Product Line Review (PLR) initiatives and other merchandising changes to assess execution and business performance, capture stakeholder feedback, identify root causes of underperformance, and ensure appropriate corrective actions are initiated.

Process Optimization and Transformation

• Lead the Process Optimization and Transformation capability, establishing priorities, standards, methodologies, and a structured roadmap for improving end-to-end Merchandising processes.
• Oversee the assessment and redesign of critical Merchandising processes, ensuring teams identify root causes, bottlenecks, unnecessary complexity, manual work, ineffective controls, and opportunities to improve speed, effectiveness, scalability, and execution quality.
• Set expectations for current-, interim-, and future-state process design, including clear process ownership, RACIs, decision rights, governance, controls, performance measures, and documentation standards.
• Prioritize improvement and transformation initiatives based on business value, complexity, organizational capacity, execution risk, investment requirements, and alignment with Merchandising and enterprise priorities.
• Sponsor cross-functional process improvements and partner with relevant functions to enable simplification, automation, digitization, and scalable solutions.
• Provide leadership oversight, remove barriers, and ensure transformation initiatives have appropriate resources, decisions, change management, and cross-functional alignment to support successful implementation.
• Monitor adoption, performance, and benefits realization to ensure improvements are sustained and deliver measurable gains in productivity, speed to market, execution quality, and business performance.

Merchandising Project Management

• Lead the embedded Merchandising project management capability, primarily supporting Product Line Review (PLR) and selected Merchandising-led initiatives requiring structured project management.
• Ensure Product Line Review (PLR) project managers establish and manage integrated workplans, milestones, dependencies, critical paths, readiness gates, key decisions, risks, and escalations across participating functions.
• Oversee selected Merchandising-led projects, ensuring appropriate scope, objectives, governance, resources, milestones, accountabilities, and success measures based on project complexity and business impact.
• Ensure Merchandising project managers remain closely connected to Merchandising priorities and store execution realities, developing business expertise and enabling effective cross-functional coordination and execution.
• Establish fit-for-purpose project management practices that provide appropriate rigor without unnecessary complexity, while remaining aligned with relevant enterprise project management standards, tools, documentation, and best practices.
• Engage the enterprise PMO when initiatives form part of broader enterprise programs or require enterprise-level governance.
• Provide senior leadership with concise and actionable visibility into key Merchandising projects, including progress, dependencies, capacity constraints, decisions required, and material issues requiring escalation.

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