Brooks Cornell MBA

Category Manager in the Merchandise Marketing department with a focus on Infection Prevention. Develop annual calendar of focus products aligning advertising, sales incentives, and customer promotional activities to drive sales and gross margin growth goals in Infection Prevention category. Monitor dental industry trends in sales, innovation, and regulatory environment to produce an effective category strategy and product mix. Support sales force with excellent communication and vendor/category/product focuses designed to maximize customer satisfaction while optimizing sales rep and company profitability. Negotiate and contract with vendors to secure marketing funds, growth rebates, and exclusive offers. Conduct sourcing activities to maintain competitive costs in private label portfolio and add products that can competitively meet pricing and margin goals.

Category Manager in the Dental Sourcing department with a focus on improving bottom-line, buy-side profitability. Conducted Requests for Proposal (RFP) in private label portfolio leading to roughly $6 million in annual savings. Engaged with vendors to source, develop, and launch new private label products. Developed and strengthened internal implementation processes required to transition products in and out of the private label portfolio from an RFP by engaging in over 20 stakeholders and leading the contributing teams to completion over a 15-month time span. Negotiated with vendors to develop a preferred vendor program designed to increase contributions in marketing, rebates, data sharing, and supply chain allowances while allowing for more focus and partnership with the vendor to drive sales growth.

Category Manager in the Sourcing and Supply Chain department with a focus on improving bottom line, buy-side profitability in both Animal Health and Dental divisions. Developed buy-side savings goals with focus on reducing vendors costs and strengthening rebate opportunities. Conducted sourcing activities for private label new product additions and SKU rationalization in assigned categories to drive profitability goals. Negotiated exclusive partnerships in key growth categories and enabled sales force with comprehensive customer conversion plans.

Managed a team to develop procurement, planning, customer service, warehouse, and shipping/receiving operations, along with R&D purchasing to ensure successful flow of existing products and new product introductions. Project Manager of a cross-functional and multi-disciplinary team responsible for launching new products and business segments. Routine Responsibilities: • Coordinate all purchasing, importing, and exporting activities as leader of US/China supply chain team. • Create milestones for product launches and supply chain projects to ensure all goals are achieved on time and purchasing and importing activities as leader of US/China supply chain team. within strict budgetary framework. • Mitigate all problem areas and identify any barriers that prevent supply chain efficiency. • Collaborate with controller and sales team for short-term inventory demand planning and aggregate inventory forecasts. • Manage bill of materials and ingredient planning for dog treats manufacturing. • Routinely renegotiate vendor pricing based on fluctuations in exchange rates, labor rates, and raw material prices. Key Accomplishments: • Developed a strong knowledge of USDA/FDA/US Customs import/export procedures and compliance guidelines. • Reduced freight costs and permanent warehouse space by utilizing 3rd party warehousing and order fulfillment. • Skillfully coordinated extended payment terms with international vendors leading to increased cash flow. • Implemented Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system enabling more accurate inventory tracking and materials management efficiency for pet treat manufacturing. • Fostered long-lasting relationships with key customer groups and suppliers.

Managed the final build-out stage, production testing stage, and initial product launch as a special assignment for new dog treat manufacturing facility. • Established customized production processes and efficiency standards based on lean strategy principles for pet treat manufacturing. • Sourced labor and negotiated wages for full-time machine operators and temporary assembly workers. • Analyzed machine output rates, capacity constraints, and workflow to develop a master production schedule. • Continually solved problems and identified areas for growth; gathered ideas from team members and developed them into measurable action plans.

Supervised a team of two for warehouse shipping/receiving, assembly projects • Redesigned assembly processes to reduce labor costs for routine projects. • Reduced domestic freight costs by identifying optimal carriers and negotiating new pricing contracts. • Managed up to 40 temporary workers for packaging and assembly processes. • Assessed the cost structures of new product opportunities for in-house assembly. • Constantly guaranteed all warehouse practices followed compliance guidelines and aligned with business priorities.