Chief Merchandising – Product Development Officer

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in California.

📋 Description

• Define and spearhead the comprehensive merchandising strategy for all categories across various business channels, including home staging, direct-to-consumer retail, and hospitality/contract.

• Build and manage a Buying team with category-specific Buyers tasked with product development and off-the-shelf growth channels for their respective categories.

• Balance long-term proprietary product development initiatives with the necessity of establishing and scaling near-term, just-in-time vendor partnerships.

• Create a cohesive long-term product roadmap that aligns with brand vision, customer demand, financial goals, and operational scalability.

• Develop category strategies that harmonize core replenishment programs with new product innovation and proprietary design initiatives.

• Establish a disciplined architecture for assortments, pricing strategies, and lifecycle planning across all home categories.

• Direct global sourcing and manufacturing to cultivate strategic vendor partnerships and scalable production capabilities.

• Propel the evolution of Vesta’s product assortment into a distinctive proprietary collection that enhances brand recognition and market positioning.

• Collaborate closely with founders to shape the long-term creative and commercial vision of the brand through product leadership.

• Act as a key steward of the Vesta aesthetic, ensuring consistency and elevation across all product categories, collections, and customer interactions.

• Lead the creation of product narratives and collection strategies that reinforce the brand’s positioning within the premium staging and home furnishings sectors.

• Work cross-functionally with sales, operations, and marketing teams to ensure alignment between product vision, visual presentation, customer experience, and commercial objectives.

• Identify emerging market trends, whitespace opportunities, and evolving customer preferences to guide future product direction and category expansion.

• Advocate for a product perspective that balances timeless design, market relevance, operational practicality, and long-term asset performance.

• Foster a culture of product excellence rooted in craftsmanship, refinement, and disciplined execution.

• Establish the long-term product development and design roadmap, ensuring coherence between design innovation, merchandising strategy, sourcing capabilities, operational feasibility, and financial goals.

• Provide executive leadership and strategic oversight for all product development efforts, ensuring successful product execution, quality assurance, optimal vendor management, targeted financial objectives, and long-term business scalability.

• Lead and cultivate the VP of Product Development and associated teams, building the necessary organizational capabilities, talent, and processes to support the company's growth objectives.

• Supervise internal and contract-based design teams to ensure that design is central to Vesta’s offerings and that products reflect Vesta’s aesthetic vision, quality standards, craftsmanship expectations, and client experience objectives.

• Build and scale high-performing teams across the Merchandising, Product Development, and Product Design functions.

• Recruit, mentor, and develop organizational talent capable of supporting aggressive business growth and increasing operational complexity.

• Collaborate closely with founders and cross-functional leaders in inventory, logistics, and sales to establish scalable processes, operational discipline, and organizational infrastructure across the business.

• Work collaboratively with inventory planning, logistics, and operations teams to enhance forecasting, inventory productivity, replenishment systems, and supply chain performance.

• Partner closely with Creative Directors to understand market-specific client needs and identify product solutions that support successful project outcomes.

• Foster a culture that embraces creativity, accountability, agility, collaboration, and measurable business impact.

• Develop strategies that maximize product utilization, inventory productivity, customer conversion, and long-term asset performance.

• Enhance financial performance through improved gross margins, strategic assortment planning, inventory efficiency, and proprietary product growth.

• Collaborate with sales leadership to boost furniture attachment rates and product conversion from staged homes to end consumers.

• Oversee a product strategy that recognizes inventory as not only merchandise but as a revenue-generating asset deployed across multiple business channels.

• Implement frameworks that assess lifecycle profitability, per-piece ROI, utilization rates, repair costs, downtime, and long-term asset productivity.

• Utilize and help define data inputs, analytics, and customer insights to guide merchandising decisions and pinpoint growth opportunities across channels.

⛳️ Requirements

• 15+ years of progressive leadership experience within premium or luxury home furnishings, interiors, retail, hospitality, or vertically integrated consumer brands.

• Significant executive-level experience overseeing merchandising, product development, sourcing, and category management functions.

• Strong expertise in global manufacturing and sourcing.

• Proven track record of developing and scaling proprietary product programs in high-growth environments.

• Strong understanding of product lifecycle management, inventory strategy, margin optimization, and operational infrastructure.

• Demonstrated ability to build high-performing teams and scalable organizational processes.

• Exceptional leadership, communication, negotiation, and cross-functional collaboration skills.

• Highly refined aesthetic sensibility combined with strong commercial and operational acumen.

• Entrepreneurial mindset with the capacity to operate strategically while remaining deeply execution-oriented.

🏝️ Benefits

• Paid Time Off (PTO)

• 401k

• Medical Insurance

• Dental Insurance

• Vision Insurance

• Employer-covered Life Insurance and Long-Term Disability (LTD) plans (with Medical Insurance election)