Bill Crain

About Bill Crain

Strategic, cross-functional leader with a proven ability to align vision with execution to drive sales, revenue, and profitability. Skilled at building strong stakeholder relationships and fostering a collaborative, growth-focused culture. Proactively identify and remove obstacles, ensuring teams have the resources needed to excel in sales, merchandising, asset protection, and talent development. Leverage data and emerging trends to define best practices and chart forward-looking strategies. Champion change and innovation to maintain a competitive, profitable edge. Skills Strategic Planning and Tactical Execution |Multi-unit Operations Management | P&L Management & EBITDA Optimization | Change Initiatives | Operational Excellence & Service Quality | Project Management |Human Resources | Process Improvement | Vendor Partnership & Contract Negotiation | Marketing & Brand Development

Experience

1. Senior Regional Merchandise Manager- Eastern Division

   Walgreens

   Oct 2024 — Present · Atlanta, GA, US

   Develops strategy to drive regional assortment planning by understanding customer needs and current financial performance. Shares customer segment’s data, insights and opportunities to develop collaborative solutions with key stakeholder•Responsible for analyzing reports to identify regional category sales gaps and building regional plans to drive volume in these opportunistic categories. Serve as the liaison between corporate and regional operations. •Focuses significant time and effort developing programs and managing all aspects of regional vendors including negotiation of all promotions and funding. Engages with top eight national vendors on a monthly basis to drive DSD category sales to align with corporate growth plans.•Works closely with merchandising management and regional leadership in establishing goals and objectives for each region. Provides business cases, reporting and score-carding to ensure decisions are fact-based for all regional activities. •Serves as Operations/Local Merchandising’s first point of contact for assigned categories. Category responsibility may range from developing category strategy and managing category/region to executing corporately developed plans.•Score-carding regional program performance to determine viability for discontinuance or expansion for key local items. •Assists Retail Pricing Coordinator to ensure effective management of regional vendors through catalog/pricing maintenance and the capture of all regional promotions and deals.• Manages regional pricing as applicable based on corporate category parameters and guardrails.•Drives regional assortment planning/buying and regional sales. Expands programs and refines the mix to match the needs of the consumer.•Performs competitive store visits to understanding assortment, pricing, promotional and vendor opportunities.

Skills

• Customer Service