Austen Suchan
El Sobrante,CA
Summary
Strategic and results-driven merchandise planning leader with 15+ years of experience driving sales, margin, and inventory productivity across omni-channel retail environments. Proven track record of driving sales growth through strategic demand planning and effective budgeting. Adept at leading high-performing teams, partnering cross-functionally with Merchandising, Finance, Marketing, IT, and Supply Chain, and translating complex data into actionable insights for senior leadership. Extensive experience managing $100M+ businesses, navigating supply chain disruption, and delivering measurable growth through experimentation, data analytics, operational rigor, and disciplined financial planning.
Overview
20
20
years of professional experience
Work History
Director of Inventory Planning
Title Nine
Emeryville, USA
05.2021 - 12.2025
- Oversaw complete sales and inventory operations for Title Nine, managing $100M annually and $10M average inventory with a team of 7 during VP's medical leave. Collaborated with creative and marketing teams on inventory content, in stock, and sales trends while building catalogs and digital offerings. Strategized with product development and merchandising on tariffs, associated price increases, and inventory shipping decisions, given that 55% was internationally produced, branded product.
- Responsible for the company’s markdown inventory, promotional activity, and pricing execution. Identified and priced in-season, end-of-life, and age-related markdowns for all company products and promotional events. Consistently advised executive team on adjustments to planned promotional strategy. Partnered cross-functionally with merchandising, marketing creative, brand, and digital teams on content, handling, and messaging. Conducted analyses post-promotional events on sales, margin, and sell-through at product level to evaluate success and provided recommendations for future events.
- Managed retail store merchandising, sales, inventory, and budgeting for 15 stores, or $20M annually, with a high emphasis on experimentation. Led the retail merchant and distribution analyst, partnered with the retail store and operations teams, inventory, and merchandising teams to ideate, execute, and gauge success on various product tests in our retail stores: Accessories gifting test with a 130% increase in assortment for a 175% increase in sales over last year; Bra Labs with increased try-on assortment that resulted in a 35% sales increase and positive ROI in six months.
- Led the company’s monthly OTB process in conjunction with the inventory team and the VP. Trained team members on the best ways to analyze and present their departments' OTB. Partnered with merchandising on short, mid, and long-term inventory actions, given that 45% of the business was branded, we could react to receipts in season. Partnered with the finance and executive team on long-term views for the company regarding sales, margin, receipts, inventory, and turnover.
- Partnered with the VP of Inventory, VP of IT, and various IT, consulting, and systems’ implementation partners and developers to construct and launch a new Planning and Budgeting system in conjunction with an ERP upgrade to Netsuite over 2+ years. Transitioned data, hierarchies, trained teams on new systems and processes, and helped problem solve post implementation.
- Actively engaged in multiple supply chain and operational aspects of company, cultivating deep understanding of existing processes and optimizing them for enhanced efficiency and cost savings. Collaborated with warehouse and customer service teams on inbound receipts, retail outbound receipts, store-initiated returns, quarterly sendbacks, quality control issues, backorder-related customer delays, and communication. Partnered with website and IT teams on product launches, price changes, and inventory messaging. Partnered with retail, IT, and finance on implementation of buy on line, ship from stores using new ERP functionality.
- Managed 4-5 direct reports: 2-3 omni channel inventory planners, 1 retail distribution analyst, 1 retail merchant.
Manager of Inventory Planning – Swim, Bras
Title Nine
Emeryville, USA
11.2018 - 04.2021
- Developed seasonal, bottoms up and tops down, dollar and unit sales, inventory plans for the company’s Swim and Bra business at a weekly and monthly level with focus on goals such as sales, gross margin, and ending inventory; managed an OTB of $30-35M annually. Had the best swim year for the company, $35m, all while managing through port delays, lost containers, high backorders, and a volatile macro economy thanks to Covid.
- Partnered with senior merchant to roll out new product attributions to help analyze the swim business and identify areas of white space to improve the assortment line for next season. Focused top and bottom rise and coverage, print color and type, and collection count/ pieces per collection analyses.
- Managed all of retail store sales and inventory. Tested increased levels of newness, tested an outlet store when the company stopped having warehouse sales.
- Managed 3 direct reports: for 2 years, 2 omni channel inventory planners, 1 retail distribution analyst; for 1 year, 1 omni channel inventory planner, 1 inventory specialist, 1 retail distribution analyst.
Senior Inventory Planner – Skirts, Tunics, Outerwear, Midlayer, Legwear, Shoes
Title Nine
Emeryville, USA
10.2016 - 10.2018
- Managed multi channel sales, inventory, and PO creation at the product, product/ color, and sku level for specific categories and vendors.
- In charge of retail store inventory for 22 stores. Streamlined the business to focus on alpha groupings and category stock to sales v. individual stores and skus, building and executing cost efficient bi-yearly seasonal sendbacks of store inventory to the DC; YTD sales -14% to LY as of April when I took on this role and now YTD sales -2.6% to LY.
- Directed distribution analyst, ensuring sales maximization and attainment of goal inventory levels; educated on allocation principles, planning essentials, and business analysis techniques.
- Partnered with merchants on vendor relationships: updated vendor report cards, reviewed yearly growth by category to aid in discount negotiation, provided seasonal sell through and ending inventory projections to identify RTV opportunities and areas of markdown support, as well as communicated shipping and packing logistic opportunities.
Inventory Control Buyer – Women’s Pants, Skirts, Jackets, Outerwear, and Shoes
TravelSmith
Novato, USA
09.2015 - 10.2016
- Oversaw the end to end sku process; setup items systematically, performed ad hoc sku productivity and color/ size analysis to aid in assortment and sales plan building, issued PO’s, tracked orders, re-forecast, chased into inventory or promoted as needed, and finally moved to liquidation; successfully chased into 1176 units of colored twill pants driving an additional $82k in demand.
- Played a notable role in the catalog process by proofing catalog copy and images and making recommendations on feature colors as well as products to add or drop from a spread based off inventory ownership or product selling.
- Provided receipt projections and proof of year over year growth with my largest pant vendor enabling my merchant team to secure $20k of marketing support.
Senior Planner – Home Décor, Seasonal, Items, and Accessories
Restoration Hardware
Corte Madera, USA
05.2014 - 08.2015
- Developed core and seasonal, new and carryover, bottoms up and tops down, dollar and unit sales, inventory, and markdown plans at a weekly and monthly level with focus on goals such as sales, gross margin, and ending inventory; managed an OTB of $62M annually.
- Successfully reduced Home Décor backorders by 54% from $1.6M to $718k by ensuring orders were confirmed, shipping as planned, and vendors had rolling 6 month projections in order to plan their production.
- Mentored and developed my planning coordinator, who had no retail experience, from a person who tracked PO’s to a sku planner who partnered with me to build Holiday 2015 bottoms up sales and receipt plans.
- Regularly partnered with many cross functional teams: merchants, sourcing, visual, transportation, allocation, DC, and the executives to ensure we were tracking to our seasonal timelines and financial goals.
- Negotiated minimum order quantities on new and carryover product to minimize inventory overstocks.
- In season, elevated instock issues as they arose and made recommendations on store substitutions or air freight, determined pricing actions and outlet offers to mitigate liable end of season inventory.
- Post season, deep dived financial results to better develop future season plans; discovered important channel selling differences pre and post markdown and as a result built Holiday 2015 plans differently.
Merchandise Planner – Seasonal, Items, and Entertaining
Restoration Hardware
Corte Madera, USA
01.2011 - 05.2014
- Built, tracked, and delivered strong financial results; Holiday 2013 picked up $4.9M in sales and $1.8M in gross margin to last year; Holiday 2012 picked up $5.6M in sales and $2.8M in gross margin to plan and last year.
- Balanced ever changing business needs of 3-4 departments and a quarter of the RH vendor base (154 vendors) across 1000+ skus.
Allocation Planner – Decorative Accessories, Seasonal Textiles, Window, Utility
Restoration Hardware
Corte Madera, USA
08.2009 - 01.2011
- Acted as Décor division liaison during store/gallerization process; partnered with Home Decor planner on balancing display quantity needs with backorder needs; communicated display quantity inventory flow to visual and merchandising teams; maintained appropriate minimums that detailed sku/store stocking strategy during gallerization.
- Utilized existing planning skill set by performing ad hoc analysis at sku/store level, determined seasonal retail store need for inter-DC transfers, assessed scope of store pull back for Window and Utility, and implemented sku/store strategies instead of sku/alpha strategies to capitalize on seasonal jumper stores.
Planning Manager – Misses Bottoms
Mervyn’s
Hayward, USA
10.2007 - 10.2008
- Presented monthly forecasts to director and division merchandise manager to monitor progress to financial goals; only department in division to exceed Spring plan and last year gross margin by 1.2%.
- Regularly partnered with national vendors on receipt reconciliation, markdown strategies, and financial support to align businesses with overall department strategies.
- Evaluated fixture productivity of seasonal and long bottoms in Q1 and determined longs were 100% more productive than seasonal; as a result Spring 09 had 5 additional fixtures for long bottoms.
Planner – Seasonal Tabletop
Mervyn’s
Hayward, USA
03.2007 - 10.2007
- Partnered with buyers to identify and execute in-season strategies to turn sales around; identified slow selling skus to markdown, drove sales through clearance, and freed up space for newness; actual sales relative to plan were down 35% the first month I started and were up 14% the last month.
Advanced Replenishment Analyst/Business Analyst – Young Men’s
Mervyn’s
Hayward, USA
07.2005 - 03.2007
- Discovered significant regional selling differences for seasonal product such as overshirts, fleece, and shorts; devised and implemented a strategy to set those programs at different times across different regions for Fall 2007.
- Initiated and facilitated weekly instock meetings where I alerted buyers to problematic ad feature instocks and provided possible solutions; achieved 93.4% ad feature instock v. a goal of 92.5% and a prior of 87.5%.
Education
Bachelor of Arts - Economics
University of California at Berkeley
05.2005
Skills
- Demand planning
- Sales forecasting
- Inventory strategy
- OTB management
- Budgeting and finance
- Promotional and markdown optimization
- Pricing strategy
- Retail store merchandising
- Assortment building
- Data analysis
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Team leadership
- NetSuite, NetSuite Planning & Budgeting
- Tableau
- Google Analytics
- Excel, MS Office
Timeline
Director of Inventory Planning
Title Nine
05.2021 - 12.2025
Manager of Inventory Planning – Swim, Bras
Title Nine
11.2018 - 04.2021
Senior Inventory Planner – Skirts, Tunics, Outerwear, Midlayer, Legwear, Shoes
Title Nine
10.2016 - 10.2018
Inventory Control Buyer – Women’s Pants, Skirts, Jackets, Outerwear, and Shoes
TravelSmith
09.2015 - 10.2016
Senior Planner – Home Décor, Seasonal, Items, and Accessories
Restoration Hardware
05.2014 - 08.2015
Merchandise Planner – Seasonal, Items, and Entertaining
Restoration Hardware
01.2011 - 05.2014
Allocation Planner – Decorative Accessories, Seasonal Textiles, Window, Utility
Restoration Hardware
08.2009 - 01.2011
Planning Manager – Misses Bottoms
Mervyn’s
10.2007 - 10.2008
Planner – Seasonal Tabletop
Mervyn’s
03.2007 - 10.2007
Advanced Replenishment Analyst/Business Analyst – Young Men’s
Mervyn’s
07.2005 - 03.2007
Bachelor of Arts - Economics
University of California at Berkeley