Kelly Woods
Summary
Experienced leader in retail analytics and business intelligence, driving strategic insights, performance analytics, and data-driven decision making across multiple business functions. Over 15 years of progressive leadership at Dollar General Corp, with expertise in merchandising, market planning, retail strategy, and promotion optimization. Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams and collaborate with executive leadership to align data strategies with business objectives, resulting in increased sales, margin growth, and operational efficiency. Skilled in developing and optimizing reporting tools, dashboards, and performance frameworks to inform key merchandising decisions across assortment, pricing, promotion, and market share. Extensive experience in utilizing 1st party data and advanced analytics to support new product initiatives, forecasting, and profitability analysis. A strategic thinker with a deep understanding of competitive intelligence, real estate strategy, and forecasting that supports long-term growth and development.
Overview
15
15
years of professional experience
Work History
Sr. Director, Merchandising Analytics & Business Intelligence
Dollar General Corp
01.2023 - Current
- Leads team of Senior Managers, Manager, and Analysts responsible for analytics relating to merchandising strategy across5 key pillars of merchandising: Assortment, Pricing, Promotion, Market Share, and Customer
- Partners with executives and senior leaders of merchandising, finance, and marketing organization and other departments to create data analytics and insights to monitor performance against sales, margin, markdown, rebates, etc. targets and plans
- Responsible for building and optimizing merchandising reporting to gauge performance of key merchandising decisions, including but not limited to pricing, promotion, assortment
- Developed engagement plan and implementation strategy for rollout of1st Party Data Analytics and Insights for entire organization
- Designed multiple dashboards to enhance reporting capabilities that enable stakeholders to view performance of storewide/chainwide initiatives and strategies including but not limited to Promotion Insights, New Item Performance, Planogram Reset Performance, Market Share Insights, Pricing Insights, and Customer Insights
- Develops strong relationships with key industry partners, fostering collaboration and mutual growth opportunities to implement new programs and reporting and manage change that support highest level of data integrity
Director, Merchandising Analytics & Business Intelligence
Dollar General Corp
01.2021 - 01.2023
- Manages team of 7 to support the merchandising organization through analytics to help merchants deliver on their sales and margin goals for the company
- Established 5-tier framework of merchandising analytics and delivery of insights for Market Share, Pricing, Promotion, Sales/Space Productivity, and Assortment
- Responsible for weekly presentation to CMO of the forecasted profitability of upcoming ad circulars and promotional events and responsible for post-event analytics
- Supports merchants through the ad planning cycle to identify opportunities to drive sales and unit incrementality for promotions
Senior Manager, Promotional Planning & Analytics
Dollar General Corp
01.2018 - 01.2021
- Partnered with key players in merchandising organization to roll-out suite of promotion optimization and analytics tools to measure historical performance, provide promotional marketplace intelligence, and support identification of what, when, and how to promote certain items
- Established Promotional Planning & Analytics Power BI platform for merchandising organization to measure effectiveness of promotional activity and review historical performance including a new measurement of cannibalization within categories
- Implemented new promotion simulation tool (Revenue Management & Optimization) to forecast promotions and new offer types
- Supported forecasting and reporting for ad planning and measuring profitability of circular ads
- Updated and revamped financial calculations for measuring gross margin impact of items promoted in ad
Senior Manager, Market Planning & Retail Strategy
Dollar General Corp
01.2013 - 01.2018
- Key contributor in supporting strategic initiatives through thought leadership, forecasting, and reporting/presenting results
- Managed/owned competitive intelligence resources and impact studies including tracking/reporting impact from new and existing competitors
- Collaborated with cross functional partners to communicate competitive intelligence and action strategies
- Managed lifecycle asset strategy for portfolio of over13,000 stores including remodel and relocation strategy for5 year plan
- Developed strategy and forecast for remodel and relocation sales and returns
- Created presentations for executive and senior leadership
- Analyzed and created real estate strategies for potential acquisitions
Senior Analyst, Market Planning & Retail Strategy
Dollar General Corp
01.2013 - 01.2013
- Similar responsibilities as Analyst with the additional responsibility of contributing to executive & senior management presentations
Analyst, Market Planning
Dollar General Corp
01.2010 - 01.2013
- Managed4 state regional territory to identify optimized locations for new stores and relocations
- Responsible for developing real estate growth strategy & maintaining an optimized list of all opportunities for the5-year plan within territory
- Forecasted1st year sales and15-year return of potential new stores & relocation opportunities by analyzing trade area demographics, psychographics, and physical site criteria & benchmarking against existing stores
- Presented sites to senior management in bi-weekly Real Estate Committee meetings
- Star Analyst Award recipient for highest sales forecasting accuracy
- Researched competitive incursion studies, cannibalization studies, & other competitive threats to sales to measure key performance drivers within territory
- Participated in real estate site visits to new markets with executives & senior management
Education
Master of Business Administration -
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, AL05.2009
Bachelor of Science - Business Administration
Samford University
Birmingham, AL08.2006
Skills
- Collaborative leadership
- Culture transformation
- Team management
- Key performance indicators
- Data analytics
- Strategic planning
- Project management
- Analytical thinking
- Market analysis
- Financial analysis
- Cross-functional team leadership
OTHER EXPERIENCE
- Small Business Consultant, kdw consultants,2009-2010
- Retail Management Intern, Belk,2009
- Personal Financial Planning Client Services, Lincoln Financial,2007-2009
Timeline
Sr. Director, Merchandising Analytics & Business Intelligence
Dollar General Corp
01.2023 - Current
Director, Merchandising Analytics & Business Intelligence
Dollar General Corp
01.2021 - 01.2023
Senior Manager, Promotional Planning & Analytics
Dollar General Corp
01.2018 - 01.2021
Senior Manager, Market Planning & Retail Strategy
Dollar General Corp
01.2013 - 01.2018
Senior Analyst, Market Planning & Retail Strategy
Dollar General Corp
01.2013 - 01.2013
Analyst, Market Planning
Dollar General Corp
01.2010 - 01.2013
Bachelor of Science - Business Administration
Samford University
Master of Business Administration -
University of Alabama at Birmingham
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