Director, Regional Merchandising

Walgreens; Deerfield (IL); On-site; USD 150,000 - 241,000; Full time

Job summary

Walgreens in Deerfield, IL is seeking a Director of Regional Merchandising to lead a team of Regional Merchandising Managers and Senior Regional Merchandising Managers, setting strategic direction, governance, and prioritization for the regional merchandising function. The role focuses on turning field insights into enterprise recommendations and aligning with operations and support centers.

The position requires strong leadership, executive communication, and collaboration across Merchandising,

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree with 8+ years in merchandising/ops leadership.
• At least 5 years of experience contributing to financial decisions.
• At least 5 years of direct or cross-functional leadership.
• Willing to travel up to 50%.

Responsibilities

• Set the strategic direction and operating cadence for the RMM/Senior RMM team, aligning field insight with governance needs.
• Determine and adjust captainship assignments across the team based on business need and strengths.
• Build and lead a high-performing regional merchandising team with coaching and development.
• Establish enterprise advocacy for regional merchandising within senior leadership.
• Own fiscal accountability for the team’s operating budget and drive efficiencies.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic thinking

Cross-functional collaboration

Financial decision making

Travel up to 50%

Education

Bachelor's degree

MBA preferred

Tools

Excel

PowerPoint

Word

Reporting/Scorecards

Job description

Job Summary

The Director of Regional Merchandising leads and develops the team of Regional Merchandising Managers (RMM) and Senior Regional Merchandising Managers (Senior RMM) who serve as the merchandising liaisons between Operations leadership and Support Center teams. This role sets the strategic direction, prioritization criteria, and operating cadence for the regional merchandising function, ensuring insights surfaced from the field are synthesized into consistent, executive-ready, and centrally governed recommendations. The Director determines regional and category alignment (“captainships”) across the RMM/Senior RMM team, builds operational efficiencies and identifies economies of scale across the chain, and continuously refines the team's governance frameworks and intake processes. This director role is accountable for building and leading a high-performing regional merchandising team and serves as advocate for the voice of Operations within Merchandising's centralized decision‑making model. This role is based in our Deerfield, IL office and is on‑site four days a week.

Job Responsibilities

• Sets the strategic direction, annual priorities, and operating cadence for the RMM/Senior RMM team, aligning field insight with Support Center governance and prioritization needs.
• Determines and adjusts “captainship” assignments across the RMM/Senior RMM team — aligning team members to specific SVP/regions, categories, or strategic initiatives based on business need, workload balance, and individual strengths.
• Builds and leads a high-performing regional merchandising team; coaches, mentors, and develops team members' skills in strategic framework development, executive communication, and fact-based recommendation writing.
• Sets the strategic direction, annual priorities, and operating cadence for the RMM/Senior RMM team, aligning field insight with Support Center governance and prioritization needs.
• Determines and adjusts “captainship” assignments across the RMM/Senior RMM team — aligning team members to specific SVP/regions, categories, or strategic initiatives based on business need, workload balance, and individual strengths.
• Builds and leads a high-performing regional merchandising team; coaches, mentors, and develops team members' skills in strategic framework development, executive communication, and fact-based recommendation writing.
• Establishes performance goals, conducts talent reviews, and supports career development, succession planning, and hiring for the RMM/Senior RMM team.
• Identifies and implements operational efficiencies and economies of scale across the team's regions, standardizing intake, prioritization, and reporting processes to reduce duplicative effort.
• Builds and refines repeatable strategy frameworks, intake criteria, and prioritization models used by the RMM/Senior RMM team to ensure consistent evaluation of regional opportunities.
• Consolidates and prioritizes competing regional recommendations into a single enterprise view to reduce redundant or conflicting requests reaching merchant, category, space, and finance partners.
• Monitors team workload, capacity, and regional coverage, reallocating responsibilities and captainships as regional needs and priorities shift.
• Serves as the enterprise advocate for the regional merchandising function, representing the team and the voice of Operations to SVP/RVP leadership, merchant leadership, and cross-functional partners.
• Builds senior-level partnership across Merchandising, Space Planning, Supply Chain, Finance, Segmentation, Marketing, and Store Operations leadership to ensure regional insights inform enterprise strategy and planning cycles.
• Represents the RMM function within broader operating forums (e.g., leadership escalation forums, quarterly and monthly business field reviews with DSD and local supplier partners), escalating team-level recommendations for leadership decision‑making.
• Partners with Support Center leadership to define and refine decision rights, guardrails, and escalation paths for the RMM function as the operating model matures.
• Reviews and approves executive-ready recommendations, business cases, and scorecards developed by the RMM/Senior RMM team prior to submission to central decision-makers.
• Monitors systemic trends and emerging issues across regions, translating pattern-level findings into enterprise-level recommendations and risk mitigation plans.
• Ensures the RMM/Senior RMM team operates within approved decision rights and guardrails, without independently establishing assortment, local pricing, marketing plans, or vendor budgets.
• Owns fiscal accountability for the team's operating budget and contributes to broader departmental financial planning.
• Drives change management to embed the regional merchandising operating model into merchandising, space, segmentation, finance, supply chain, and marketing processes, creating toolkits and communication plans to support field-ready execution.

About Walgreens

Founded in 1901, Walgreens (www.walgreens.com) proudly serves nearly 9 million customers and patients each day across its approximately 8,500 stores throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Walgreens has approximately 220,000 team members, including nearly 90,000 healthcare service providers, and is committed to being the first choice for pharmacy, retail and health services, building trusted relationships that create healthier futures for customers, patients, team members and communities.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree and at least 8 years of experience in merchandising, category management, operations leadership, space management, pricing, promotions, purchasing, vendor partnership, strategy development or High School/GED and at least 11 years of experience in merchandising, category management, operations leadership, space management, pricing, promotions, purchasing, vendor partnership, strategy development.
• At least 5 years of experience contributing to financial decisions in the workplace
• At least 5 years of direct leadership, indirect leadership and/or cross-functional team leadership.
• Willing to travel up to 50% of the time for business purposes (within state and out of state)

Preferred Qualifications

• MBA/Master’s degree or Management Consulting experience.
• Knowledge of retail financial acumen, including understanding of GMROI (Gross Margin Return on Investment).
• Experience leading and developing teams, including people leader roles spanning analyst through senior manager/manager levels.
• Experience developing strategic frameworks, prioritization models, and governance processes for cross-functional teams.
• Ability to influence senior cross-functional stakeholders, communicate clearly with field and Support Center leaders, and lead work within centralized governance and decision rights.
• CPG, DSD, local supplier, or category management experience.
• Experience building or scaling a field-facing merchandising, insights, or liaison function.
• Advanced Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and reporting/scorecarding skills.
• Advanced executive communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills, including experience representing a team's work to senior leadership.

We will consider employment of qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

The Salary below is being provided to promote pay transparency and equal employment opportunities at Walgreens. The actual hourly salary within this range that you will be offered will depend on a variety of factors including geography, skills and abilities, education, experience and other relevant factors. This role will remain open until filled.

Salary Range

$150000 - $240625 / Salaried