Chief Merchandising Officer

Mud Pie is a leading lifestyle brand specializing in home décor, gifts, and apparel, known for creating thoughtfully designed products that celebrate life’s everyday moments. We are a collaborative organization with a strong focus on creativity, quality, and delivering products our customers love.Mud Pie is seeking a strategic, collaborative, and business-minded Chief Merchanting Officer to join our team at our Atlanta-area corporate headquarters. This newly created leadership role will be responsible for driving a disciplined, customer-focused merchandising strategy that improves SKU productivity, inventory turns, margin performance, category growth, and cross-channel assortment alignment.Chief Merchandising Officer will work hand-in-hand with Finance, Marketing, Sales, and Product Development to help shape product strategy, optimize assortments, drive category performance, and ensure alignment between creative vision and business objectives. This leader will play a critical role in balancing innovation, customer needs, margin goals, assortment planning, buying, inventory productivity, category management, pricing strategy, visual merchandising, and seasonal execution across wholesale, ecommerce, and marketplaces.This is a highly visible opportunity for a strategic merchant who thrives in fast-paced, evolving environments and enjoys building structure, influencing across teams, and driving meaningful impact within a leading and growing wholesale and consumer brand.Merchandising Strategy & Assortment Planning:Lead enterprise merchandising strategy across wholesale, DTC, ecommerce, and marketplaces channelsDevelop seasonal assortment architecture by category, channel, customer, and price pointDrive SKU rationalization, assortment productivity, and category growth strategiesBuild and manage category line plans, breadth/depth strategies, and inventory flowPartner with Product Development leadership to align assortment strategy with seasonal product direction and business prioritiesEstablish evergreen, replenishment, and seasonal product strategies where appropriateAnalyze customer, sales, and inventory data to identify whitespace and growth opportunitiesMonitor competitive landscape, customer trends, and market opportunities to inform merchandising decisionsInventory, Pricing & Financial Management: Own merchandising KPIs including sales, gross margin, sell-through, inventory turn, weeks of supply, and SKU productivityPartner with Operations, Finance, Product Development, and Supply Chain teams to optimize inventory investments and flow timingDrive pricing, markdown, and promotional strategies that balance margin and inventory productivityLead in-season business analysis and reforecasting processesImprove merchandising reporting, forecasting, and decision-making frameworksSupport open-to-buy management and inventory lifecycle planningCross-Functional Commercialization, GTM & Visual Merchandising PartnershipPartner closely with Product, Marketing, Ecommerce, Creative, Sales, and PR teams to support successful seasonal launches and category storytellingHelp prioritize key collections, launches, and commercial opportunities across channelsTranslate product direction into compelling customer-facing merchandising strategies across wholesale, ecommerce, marketplaces, and retail environmentsPartner with Creative and Ecommerce teams to elevate visual merchandising, digital storytelling, category presentation, and onsite customer experienceHelp establish merchandising standards for product presentation, collection flow, category hierarchy, and seasonal storytelling across all customer touchpointsSupport launch planning and commercialization efforts across ecommerce, wholesale, marketplaces, and retail channelsEnsure merchandising priorities are clearly communicated across the organizationPartner with Marketing and Ecommerce teams to support campaign planning, category storytelling, and customer engagement strategiesContribute to launch recap and seasonal hindsight processes to continuously improve performanceTeam Leadership & Organizational DevelopmentLead, mentor, and develop the merchandising teamEstablish clear merchandising processes, calendars, milestones, and accountabilityBuild a collaborative, data-driven, customer-focused merchandising culturePartner cross-functionally to improve communication, alignment, and operational efficiencyHelp evolve merchandising capabilities and organizational structure as the business changesFoster a culture of collaboration, accountability, urgency, and continuous improvementQualifications10+ years of merchandising, buying, or category management experience within consumer brands, ecommerce, or wholesale organizationsStrong background in assortment planning, inventory management, merchandising analytics, and category performanceExperience managing merchandising processes across multiple channels including wholesale and ecommerceProven ability to drive sales growth, margin improvement, and inventory productivityStrong analytical, financial, and operational acumenExperience leading and developing teamsExcellent communication, collaboration, and organizational leadership skillsStrong understanding of customer behavior, seasonal merchandising, and retail storytellingAbility to operate both strategically and hands-on in a fast-moving environmentExperience in home, gift, lifestyle, apparel, or consumer products