Chief Merchandising and Marketing Officer

Houchens Food Group; Bowling Green (KY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 290,000; Full time

Job summary

Houchens Food Group in Bowling Green, KY seeks a Chief Merchandising and Marketing Officer to define and execute the customer-facing growth strategy across merchandising, product assortment, pricing, promotions, brand, marketing, and customer engagement.

As a member of the executive leadership team, the CMO blends customer insight with data-driven decision-making to deliver compelling assortments and profitable sales growth.

Responsibilities

• Develop and lead the enterprise merchandising strategy aligned with brand positioning and financial objectives.
• Own assortment architecture, pricing, promotions, and lifecycle management.
• Establish a disciplined merchandise planning process balancing sales growth and margin.
• Identify trends and translate them into commercial opportunities.
• Collaborate with sourcing, supply chain, planning, and finance to optimize inventory.
• Build differentiated assortments across national brands and private label.
• Define the brand strategy, positioning, and customer promise.
• Lead integrated marketing across brand, digital, CRM, and local marketing.

Job description

Chief Merchandising and Marketing Officer (CMO)

Reports to: Chief Operations Officer

Function: Executive Leadership

Industry: Retail

Location: Bowling Green, KY

Employment Type: Full-Time

Position Summary

The Chief Merchandising and Marketing Officer (CMO) is responsible for defining and executing the company’s customer-facing growth strategy across merchandising, product assortment, pricing, promotions, brand, marketing, and customer engagement. As a key member of the executive leadership team, the CMO brings together the art and science of retail—combining customer insight, merchant intuition, brand storytelling, and data-driven decision-making to deliver compelling assortments, differentiated customer experiences, profitable sales growth, and increased market share. The CMO owns the connection between what we sell, how we position it, and how we bring customers to the brand, ensuring merchandising and marketing operate from one integrated customer and commercial strategy.

Key Responsibilities

Merchandising & Commercial Strategy

• Develop and lead the enterprise merchandising strategy aligned with the company's brand positioning, customer promise, and financial objectives.
• Own assortment architecture, category strategy, product selection, pricing, promotional strategy, and merchandise lifecycle management.
• Establish a disciplined merchandise planning process that balances sales growth, margin, inventory productivity, and customer demand.
• Identify emerging customer, product, category, and competitive trends and translate them into commercial opportunities.
• Partner with sourcing, supply chain, planning, operations, and finance to optimize inventory investment, availability, turns, markdowns, and gross margin.
• Build differentiated assortments across national brands, owned brands/private label, exclusive products, and other strategic product opportunities as applicable.
• Establish clear category roles, good-better-best architecture, price points, and value propositions.
• Develop vendor and strategic brand partnerships that improve assortment differentiation, economics, innovation, and customer relevance.

Marketing & Brand Leadership

• Define and steward the company's brand strategy, positioning, value proposition, and customer promise.
• Lead integrated marketing across brand, digital, social, content, CRM/loyalty, email, paid media, local/store marketing, partnerships, and traditional channels as appropriate.
• Develop an annual marketing and promotional calendar integrated with merchandising priorities and financial plans.