Gary Beckerman, Vice President

gbeckerman@sdretail.com

Background

Gary has over 27 years of experience in the retail industry and consulting/advisory sector. He brings a unique background and blend of operational support, central and store merchandising plus marketing experience. He once served as Operating Vice President reporting to the Chairman and CEO of the 4th largest discount retail chain in the U.S., with annual sales of $3.5 billion. Having functioned in both corporate and division positions, he has a varied background with keen understanding of issues related to revenue and margin, central merchandising, product design, development and sourcing, inventory management (financial & flow, including store processing) and operating income.

Gary is responsible for and involved in a wide range of consulting/advisory assignments covering strategy assessment, supply chain, store operations, organization and process redesign, marketing and home office productivity improvement.

Prior to joining Senn Delaney, Gary was employed by KPMG LLP, BearingPoint, Inc., and Andersen Business Consulting as a Director and project leader. He was also employed by large retail corporations over 22 years with the May Department Stores Inc., Caldor Corporation, in both headquarter and store positions. He holds a Bachelors degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Relevant Experience

• Managed projects involving: 1) two major U.S. department store’s Product Design & Development, Sourcing and International Buying Offices (IBO), 2) Major Category Specialty retailer and 3) largest ready-to-wear Catalog retailer in the U.S. The objective was to identify areas of opportunity to improve both organization and process efficiency, and communication within/between the U.S. headquarters and it’s international offices and manufacturing partners. In the final analysis he identified the organization and process improvement opportunities, technology recommendations, along with the associated payroll and non-payroll cost reductions.
• Participated in and managed numerous Home Office Productivity engagements in integrated planning, merchandising, sales promotion, circulation and product development/global sourcing for numerous clients, resulting in 25 to 75% improvement beyond the projects ROI objectives.
• Background includes many positions at May Department Stores, Inc. (a $15 Billion department store corporation), as Vice President Divisional Merchandise Manager in both Softlines and Hardlines, Marketing VP, Corporate Research Director and Branch Department Store Divisional Manager for its’ Washington D.C. flagship store. As a central merchant, he sourced and explored both the domestic and Far East markets to develop private label programs along with May Department Store’s product development office.
• His areas of expertise on the support side include the development and facilitation of corporate strategic planning, the creation of standard merchandising business planning processes and was directly responsible for the merchants seasonal financial plans (basis for development of the operating plan) and Open to Buy maintenance and reporting. In addition he managed the research department for Merchandising, Sales Promotion effectiveness and Stores.
• As a member of the Executive Review Committee for a year 2000 systems conversion project, he helped focus decisions on the timely execution of the new software installation and roll-out for planning seasonal assortments, ladder and allocation planning. In addition, together with the Finance division, the merchant planning process successfully became the basis for the growth and development of the company’s operating and bank plan.
• He created and developed, with MIS programming support, a company wide seasonal markdown cadence with a corresponding aged inventory on line report structure. Successfully reducing average inventory by $100 million at cost over 2 years.

The Retail industry functional areas in which Gary has significant experience include Merchandising, Product Development, Merchant Financial Planning, Research and Design, Operational Support and Marketing.

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