[Hiring] VP, Merchandising & Brand Management @Ashley Digital

Role Description

Ashley Digital is the direct-to-consumer arm of Ashley Furniture Industries, operating a portfolio of category-leading sleep and home brands — Nectar, DreamCloud, Awara, Siena, and Newton Baby. The VP, Merchandising & Brand Management is the single owner of:

• What we sell, how it's positioned, and how it's priced across the portfolio.
• Unifying merchandising strategy and cross-functional execution with product marketing, pricing & promotion, and new product development under one accountable function.
• This is a build role aimed at consolidating the organization into a disciplined, analytics-driven merchandising engine that can scale across a multi-brand, multi-category portfolio.

Scope of Ownership

• Merchandising (category-led)
• Mattress · Bedroom Furniture · Accessories · Kids & Baby
• Assortment architecture, SKU productivity, line planning, and lifecycle management
• Product content and catalog quality across all brand sites and marketplaces
• Pricing & Promotion
• Portfolio pricing strategy, promotional calendar, and margin governance
• Competitive price intelligence and elasticity-based decisioning
• Product Marketing
• Collaborate with Product Marketing on brand and product positioning, value proposition, and claims architecture
• Lead go-to-market planning and on-site merchandising strategy, partnering with Digital Product to improve discovery, conversion, attachment, and profitable sales mix.
• New Product Development / Pipeline
• Multi-year product roadmap by brand and category
• Partnership with internal teams on cost, sourcing, and manufacturing feasibility
• Stage-gate process from concept through launch and post-launch review
• Brand General Management
• Define Brand management ownership and cross-functional touchpoints to drive clarity in ownership and accountability throughout the organization.
• Establish governance framework for brand P&L inputs — revenue, contribution margin, assortment, and promotional plan

Key Responsibilities

• Build and lead the function
• Establish operating cadence: line reviews, pricing councils, launch readiness, quarterly assortment reviews
• Define clear decision rights across brand GMs (P&L), category merchants (assortment and merchandising execution), and Digital Product (digital experience, capabilities, and experimentation), aligning on shared commercial priorities so each team can move quickly
• Own portfolio merchandising and margin
• Set assortment and pricing strategy by brand and category against revenue and contribution-margin targets
• Rationalize the catalog: eliminate unproductive SKUs, close assortment gaps, manage good-better-best architecture across brands to minimize internal cannibalization
• Partner with Finance on transfer-cost economics with AFI and on promo ROI
• Drive the physical product pipeline
• Own the physical product roadmap for new launches, refreshes, and category extensions (e.g., bedroom furniture, accessories adjacent to the sleep core)
• Run launches end-to-end with Creative, Marketing, Technology, and Operations — from specification through site launch and sell-through
• Bring a rigorous test-and-learn discipline to product decisions: pre-launch demand signals, post-launch cohort performance
• Make merchandising data-driven
• Partner with Data to build the merchandising analytics stack: SKU-level margin, attach rates, price elasticity, content performance, return and warranty signals
• Own the quality and completeness of product content and catalog data; partner with Digital Product to improve their impact on discovery, conversion, and downstream operations
• Translate customer and competitive insight into assortment and positioning decisions
• Lead cross-functionally
• Represent merchandising and brand in planning, forecasting, and capital decisions
• Act as the primary counterpart to AFI product, sourcing, and manufacturing leadership for non-mattress categories
• Partner with Marketing (acquisition/retention), Creative Brand, CX, and Operations to ensure the product story is consistent from ad to unboxing

What Success Looks Like

• Unified merchandising, product marketing, pricing, and NPD organization in place with clear ownership and cadence
• Plan and execute a cohesive Brand GM structure for all current and contemplated future brands
• Portfolio pricing and promotion strategy that improves contribution margin without sacrificing share
• Documented multi-year physical product and assortment roadmap with validated economics; first pipeline launches shipped on plan
• Merchandising analytics in production and used in weekly decision-making
• Measurable improvement in catalog quality, on-site conversion, and SKU productivity

Qualifications

• 12+ years in ecommerce / DTC merchandising, category management, or product merchandising, with 5+ years leading multi-level teams
• Experience in home, furniture, sleep, or adjacent considered-purchase categories
• Track record building or scaling a merchandising function — process, systems, and team — not just running one
• Deep fluency in merchandising analytics: SKU economics, pricing and promo measurement, catalog and content performance
• Demonstrated P&L or margin ownership and comfort partnering with Finance
• Experience with product content / catalog operations at scale (PIM, taxonomy, attribute governance, marketplace syndication)

Preferred

• Multi-brand portfolio experience with distinct brand positioning and price tiers
• Exposure to new product development and working with manufacturing or sourcing partners
• Experience in a high-growth or transformation environment; comfortable with ambiguity and building from partial structures
• Familiarity with agentic/AI-driven commerce and structured product data as a competitive lever

Benefits

• Competitive Salary
• Health, Vision & Dental Insurance
• 401K
• Generous Paid Time Off plus company holidays
• Wellness benefits
• Generous Communications Allowance
• Awesome product discount and company swag