Chief Merchandising & Category Strategy Officer

Continental; Sterling Heights (MI); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Coverage – Medical, Dental and 

Vision

401(k) with company match

Paid Time Off

Wellness Programs

Referral bonus

Additional Perks

Job summary

Continental seeks a visionary Vice President of Merchandising and Category Management to lead enterprise strategies across vending, markets, office coffee, and related channels from our Sterling Heights, MI location. You will translate market and item-level insights into decisions that improve revenue, margin, and profitability across the guest experience.

This role requires a commercially minded leader who can drive category governance, pricing, assortment, and promotional programs, while

Qualifications

• Progressive executive leadership experience in merchandising, category management, pricing, retail, foodservice, or a related multi-site operating environment.
• Demonstrated success building category strategies and converting them into measurable sales, margin, mix, and customer outcomes.
• Deep understanding of pricing architecture, category economics, cost and margin drivers, assortment optimization, vendor programs, and promotional effectiveness.
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives across Operations, Finance, Procurement, Sales, Marketing, and technology or analytics teams.
• Ability to lead a distributed team and influence field execution across multiple regions, business units, or channels.
• Strong financial and analytical acumen, including the ability to interpret item, category, regional, and enterprise performance and make sound commercial decisions.
• Experience establishing governance, operating rhythms, scorecards, and accountability for complex enterprise initiatives.
• Bachelor’s degree in business, merchandising, marketing, finance, supply chain, analytics, or a related discipline; advanced degree is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Develop enterprise merchandising strategy across vending, markets, office coffee, and adjacent RSG channels.
• Create a consistent approach to assortment, menu architecture, product placement, planograms, resets, seasonal programs, and local market relevance.
• Balance consumer demand, client needs, operational practicality, vendor programs, and financial performance when setting the product strategy.
• Build an annual merchandising and promotional calendar that supports traffic, basket growth, product discovery, loyalty engagement, and same store sales.
• Develop and evaluate promotion and loyalty strategies that drive repeat engagement, customer retention, larger basket size, and profitable same store sales growth.
• Ensure merchandising standards are translated into clear field processes, tools, training, and measures of compliance.
• Category Management & Assortment Ownership: Own category strategy, architecture, and performance standards, including category roles, product mix, SKU productivity, space allocation, and lifecycle decisions.
• Lead category managers in developing item-level and category-level plans based on sales velocity, margin, cost trends, waste, stockouts, customer preferences, and market dynamics.
• Establish disciplined processes for new item introduction, product rationalization, substitutions, discontinuations, and regional exceptions.
• Expand formal category management practices beyond core categories and ensure category-specific targets are maintained across the full assortment.
• Partner with Procurement to align vendor selection, costs, terms, rebates, growth programs, and innovation with category and guest strategies.
• Pricing & Gross Margin Protection: Own the enterprise pricing strategy and governance model, category price architecture, price tiers, market basket alignment, and promotional pricing.
• Establish category-specific front-end gross margin targets and ensure pricing, assortment, mix, and cost actions are sufficient to deliver divisional financial commitments.
• Move the organization from reactive, supplier-cost-driven price changes to a proactive, recurring pricing and margin review process.
• Lead timely decisions on price gaps, margin erosion, mix shifts, cost changes, and regional or line-of-business exceptions.
• Partner with Finance and Procurement to evaluate vendor cost changes, rebates, accruals, and purchasing programs so category economics are transparent and margin leakage is not concealed.
• Influence waste and spoilage performance through assortment, shelf-life strategy, forecast and replenishment settings, order guides, and product lifecycle decisions.
• Provide pricing and category input into acquisition diligence, integration planning, and future-state pricing alignment.
• Performance Management & Business Rhythm: Establish weekly, period, and quarterly category and gross margin performance rhythms with clear inputs, decisions, owners, and follow-through.
• Define and monitor a practical scorecard spanning sales, same store sales, front-end gross margin, price and cost movement, mix, item productivity, waste, shrink visibility, rebates, stockouts, fill rate, and merchandising compliance.
• Use performance insights to identify root causes, prioritize corrective actions, and hold the organization accountable for execution.
• Create executive-ready reporting that clearly communicates performance, risks, opportunities, expected financial impact, and decisions required.
• Champion data quality, common definitions, and consistent reporting so leaders can trust category and margin information.
• Cross-Functional Leadership & Execution: Lead a closely integrated operating model across Merchandising, Category Management, Procurement, Finance, Operations, Sales, Marketing, and technology partners.
• Clarify enterprise, regional, and field decision rights while enabling appropriate local flexibility based on customer and market needs.
• Partner with Operations to ensure pricing, resets, planograms, ordering parameters, and assortment changes are implemented accurately and sustained.
• Represent merchandising, category, pricing, and margin strategy in executive forums, annual planning, budgeting, and strategic initiatives.
• Lead change management for new standards, systems, reporting, and ways of working, with a strong focus on adoption and measurable business outcomes.
• Team Leadership & Capability Building: Build, lead, and develop a high-performing merchandising and category management organization with clear roles, goals, decision rights, and accountability.
• Set expectations for commercial judgment, analytical rigor, field partnership, speed of decision-making, and execution discipline.
• Develop succession plans and scalable capabilities in category strategy, pricing, assortment planning, merchandising execution, and performance management.
• Create a culture that is guest-focused, financially accountable, collaborative, curious, and committed to continuous improvement.

Skills

Merchandising

Category management

Pricing strategy

Forecasting

Cross-functional leadership

Analytics

Education

Bachelor’s degree in business/merchandising/finance

Job description

Continental seeks a visionary Vice President of Merchandising and Category Management to lead enterprise strategies across vending, markets, office coffee, and related channels from our Sterling Heights, MI location. You will translate market and item-level insights into decisions that improve revenue, margin, and profitability across the guest experience.

This role requires a commercially minded leader who can drive category governance, pricing, assortment, and promotional programs, while