Joanna Black

• Responsible for a £20m budget & £5m income plan

• Supporting a team of 5 from Assistant buyers to buyers

• Driving the commercial strategy forward through coaching and category expertise

• Managing and implementing the Commercial income strategy through top-to-top supplier negotiations

• Product sourcing across a multitude of categories

• Presenting weekly trade figures to head of category and directors

• Working closely with business & store operations to ensure ranges launch on time

• Supplier relationship handling

• Finance & debt management

• Budget forecasting

• Team coaching through 1-2-1's and daily support

TOYS- (far east sourcing)

• Responsible for a £12m toy budget

• Own label product sourcing and development for toys within the Fareast and Europe (320 Sku count)

• Collaborate with designers, merchandisers and marketing to launch seasonally led products

• Attend competitive shopping/ trend inspirational trips to develop pricing strategy in line with market

• Work closely with QA to ensure product is safe & legal to trade within the UK & Overseas

• Working closely with merchandising team to create departmental strategy Dropship/Branded - & Toys

• Sales budget of £3.6m

• Sales growth +33% YOY on seasonal outdoor through supplier funded promotion

• Source and trade Seasonal dropship range Outdoor furniture, Living, Christmas & Halloween

• Onboard new suppliers through ship station platform

• Range selection of key products (600 sku count)

• Negotiate promotional activity marketing calendar with suppliers for the year ahead

• Liaise with business stakeholders for range launch and product implementation

• Manage Assistant buyer, regular DPD's and AOR development processes

Category manager for cleaning and consumables, I was responsible for a £35m spend. My role was to ensure stock

control, warehouse and other business functions surrounding supply were functioning within 78% stock availability model. I was also responsible for departmental margin and profit through cost negotiations and product resourcing with suppliers. I brought many attributes and processes to this commercial role, one of which saved the

company thousands of pounds by bringing in new practices surrounding the way we run promotions. Examples of

my day-to-day role as follows:

• Introduced and executed Supplier funded promotions with a profit saving of £60k across multiple suppliers for 3 months

• Stock control, forecasting and warehouse mediator

• Introduced Inventory stock meetings to the business, between category and forecasting to understand stock

• situations and allow for second sourcing options.

• Strategically manage the supplier database through product rationalisation and loss spend.

• Mitigate cost increases from suppliers, through strong negotiations and business relationships

• Increased category cash profit +10% YOY, through the above negotiations

• Successfully renegotiated low margin products with suppliers, with a positive outcome

Achievements

• Launched 250 new lines back in February delivering a 12% increase YOY

• Daily negotiate supplier contracts and rebate terms

• Prepare correspondence, accounting and financial documents for sales board meetings

• I have built strong relationships with the board of directors through delivery and presentation

• Daily coach and mentor junior members of the team for development

Buyer within health & beauty, 6 categories in total where I was responsible for 2. Health & dental, both categories made up around 15% of the departmental sales across, a combined £70m budget. My main responsibilities included negotiating cost prices mitigating costs, agreeing terms & conditions and joint business plans with

suppliers. Sourcing NPD, dealing with worldwide suppliers such as GSK, Proctor & Gamble and Colgate to name a few, other responsibilities as follows