Director, Merchandise Development - National Retail Partners

Build Your Career with Ashley Furniture- Where Innovation Meets Comfort

Who We Are:

At Ashley, inspiring the love of home is at the heart of everything we do. As the world's largest manufacturer of home furnishings, we're more than a business - we're a family driven by innovation, competitiveness, and an unwavering commitment to excellence. We persevere through challenges, push beyond the status quo, and constantly seek better ways to deliver an exceptional customer experience. Our solutions-first mindset and dedication to growth are why Ashley remains #1 in our industry.

If you're ready to grow, you've come to the right place. With a true "Growth Mindset," Ashley Furniture invests in developing future leaders and helps every team member learn from the best in the business.

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Director, Merchandise Development

Position Summary

The Director of Merchandise Development leads the end-to-end development of furniture assortments and product programs for assigned National Retail Partners. This role serves as the primary bridge between retailer strategies, consumer insights, and Ashleys product-development capabilities, creating commercially successful products that deliver against customer expectations for design, quality, value, profitability, and speed to market.

Working closely with retailer merchants, account leaders, and cross-functional partners, the Director identifies assortment opportunities, translates market and consumer needs into product concepts, and leads execution from ideation through commercialization and post-launch performance evaluation.

Key Responsibilities

Product Strategy & Development

• Lead the complete product development lifecycle for assigned retail partner programs, from opportunity identification and concept creation through commercialization and post-launch assessment.
• Partner directly with retailer merchants, product teams, and account leaders to understand customer strategies, shopper behaviors, assortment gaps, competitive dynamics, and growth opportunities.
• Translate consumer insights and customer objectives into comprehensive product briefs that define target customer, use case, design direction, features, materials, quality standards, pricing objectives, margins, packaging requirements, and launch timing.
• Develop and guide product concepts across upholstery and case goods, including styling, product architecture, materials, finishes, color direction, features, and functionality.
• Establish product roadmaps that align innovation priorities, customer reviews, development milestones, testing requirements, production readiness, and launch objectives.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Collaborate with Design, Engineering, Manufacturing, Sourcing, Quality, Supply Chain, Finance, Operations, and Sales teams to develop scalable, manufacturable, and commercially compelling products.
• Lead design reviews, prototype evaluations, sample approvals, and stage-gate decisions while maintaining accountability for product direction, timelines, and business outcomes.
• Ensure alignment between product vision, customer requirements, manufacturing capabilities, and operational readiness.
• Drive timely resolution of project risks, trade-offs, dependencies, and execution challenges.

Commercial & Financial Management

• Partner with commercial and finance leaders to establish target cost structures, margin objectives, and pricing strategies.
• Identify value-engineering opportunities that improve profitability while maintaining customer expectations for quality and design.
• Support retailer line reviews, customer presentations, assortment recommendations, competitive analyses, and product storytelling initiatives.
• Evaluate category performance, market trends, and competitive offerings to inform future development priorities.

Launch Readiness & Performance Optimization

• Partner with Customer Supply Chain and Operations teams to validate production capacity, lead times, inventory strategies, packaging requirements, logistics readiness, and delivery expectations.
• Maintain accurate product specifications, bills of material, testing requirements, approvals, and development records throughout the product lifecycle.
• Monitor project status, development metrics, and launch readiness through dashboards, reviews, and cross-functional operating rhythms.
• Analyze post-launch performance, including sales productivity, customer feedback, quality trends, returns, ratings, costs, and margins to drive continuous improvement.

Process & Capability Development

• Develop and enhance merchandising and product-development processes, tools, governance models, and stage-gate disciplines to improve speed, quality, consistency, and scalability.
• Build organizational capabilities that strengthen product-development effectiveness across retail partner programs.
• Mentor and develop team members while fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Ensure compliance with product safety, testing, regulatory, confidentiality, intellectual property, and customer exclusivity requirements.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelors degree in Industrial Design, Furniture Design, Product Design, Engineering, Business, Merchandising, or a related discipline, or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
• Advanced degree preferred.

Experience

• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in furniture product development, merchandising, design, engineering, manufacturing, or related fields.
• Proven experience leading products from concept through commercialization and market launch.
• Experience working directly with retail customers and developing products to defined price, margin, quality, and timing objectives.
• Demonstrated expertise in upholstery, case goods, or both, with the ability to lead broad product-development initiatives across categories.
• Experience leading cross-functional teams and managing multiple complex product-development programs simultaneously.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Deep knowledge of furniture construction, materials, finishes, mechanisms, manufacturing processes, quality systems, testing standards, packaging, and logistics.
• Strong ability to translate consumer and customer insights into commercially successful product solutions.
• Excellent strategic thinking, project management, communication, presentation, facilitation, negotiation, and decision-making skills.
• Strong financial acumen with the ability to evaluate product economics, margins, pricing, and business cases.
• Ability to influence and collaborate effectively across organizational functions and leadership levels.
• Proficiency with Microsoft 365 and product-development, specification, visualization, project-management, and product lifecycle management tools.
• Demonstrated integrity, accountability, curiosity, urgency, and resilience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree in a related field.
• Professional certifications in project management, Lean Six Sigma, product safety, engineering, or design disciplines.

Location & Travel

This position may be based in Bentonville, Arkansas, or at another Ashley location within the United States. The role supports National Retail Partners and requires direct engagement with customers, product teams, manufacturing facilities, suppliers, and cross-functional stakeholders.

Domestic and international travel up to 35% is required to support customer meetings, furniture markets, product reviews, supplier visits, factory evaluations, launch activities, and other strategic business initiatives.

Work Environment

This role operates across a variety of environments, including professional office settings, customer locations, showrooms, furniture markets, manufacturing facilities, warehouses, and supplier sites.

Responsibilities include reviewing designs, materials, prototypes, samples, specifications, manufacturing processes, and product presentations. The position may occasionally require lifting, moving, or positioning materials and samples weighing up to 30 pounds, with assistance available for heavier items.

Occasional exposure to operational environments, including variable temperatures, noise levels, dust, and manufacturing conditions, may occur during facility visits and product evaluations.

Benefits We Offer:

• Health, Dental, Vision, Employee Assistance Program
• Paid Time Off; increases with years of service
• Generous Employee Discount on home furnishings
• Professional Development Opportunities
• Tuition Assistance
• Ashley Wellness Centers (location specific)
• 401(k) and Profit Sharing
• Life Insurance

Our Core Values:

• Honesty & Integrity: Acts with transparency, discretion, and ethical judgment. Trusted to handle sensitive information and provide accurate, unbiased insights.
• (Dirty Fingernail: Takes full accountability for outcomes, not just tasks. Inspects details, ensures data accuracy, and follows through to completion.
• Continuous Improvement: Actively seeks better ways to improve templates, tools, and processes. Learns from prior initiatives and embeds lessons into standard work.
• Growth & Results Focus: Understands how transformation initiatives drive growth, cost reduction, and profitability. Keeps work aligned to enterprise priorities.
• Culture of Leadership: Leads through influence, reliability, and example. Builds trust across functions and supports leaders at every level.
• Customer-Centric & Boundaryless: Works across silos for the greater good of the organization. Ensures outputs meet the needs of executives, initiative owners, and teams.
• Operational Excellence: Demonstrates strong organizational discipline, attention to detail, and the ability to translate ambiguity into clear, executable tools.

Interested in learning more about Ashley Furniture's Community Engagement programs, Environmental Stewardship, or our Core Values, click the links below:

Corporate Social Responsibility

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We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and provide a drug-free working environment. While Ashley appreciates the interest of all candidates only those meeting specific position requirements may be contacted. This job description does not constitute a written or implied contract of employment. The company reserves the right to revise or change job duties and responsibilities as the need arises.

Notice to Search Firms: We are not seeking assistance or accepting unsolicited resumes from search firms. We will not pay any placement, referral or other fees to any search firms unless we have agreed otherwise in a valid, written agreement for the specific position posted and signed by an authorized representative of Ashley Furniture Industries.

• Please note this position is not eligible for current or future employment sponsorship. Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for visa sponsorship now or at any time in the future.