# Richard Wilson

> Buyer 4 at Haas Automation

Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/richardwilson

Experienced Senior Merchant with a demonstrated record of leadership, buying, assortment planning, private label product development, sourcing and developing new vendors, driving brick and mortar and E-commerce businesses and team building.
-Customer focused:  with the evolution of retail from traditional department stores into a multi-channel platform that integrates brick and mortar stores, online and technology, one commonality remains:  the primary focus is always on the customer.  
-Leverage product development skills, strategic brand vision and financial acumen to deliver trend right assortments that outperform the competition resulting in increased sales, margin and market share.
 -Partner cross functionally with Designers, Buyers, Technical Design, Graphic Artists, Sourcing, Marketing and Overseas Offices to build team consensus and ensure all buying time lines are met, pre-production and bulk approvals are reviewed expeditiously,  sample requests are made and budget requirements are met.  
-Research the market for dynamic new business opportunities, trends, brand strategies and product innovations.  
-Skilled in managing and executing the entire product life cycle from concept through delivery.

Senior Buyer/Product Development Manager/Category Manager
Email:  richard.wilsonMM@gmail.com
Mobile:  415.516.0934

## Work Experience
### Senior Buyer/Buyer 4 @ Haas Automation, Inc.
Jan 2021 – Present | Ventura County, California, United States

### Product Lifecycle Manager @ Blueprint Studios
Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 | San Francisco Bay Area
Review all rental furniture products for rental usage and recommend to Ownership additional buys, items to purge/discontinue and new items to replace outgoing products.
Website product accuracy and maintenance, plus new image uploads.
Inventory management of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas warehouses- balance inventory, manage allocations and transfers.

### Buyer @ Sears Holdings Corporation
Jan 2018 – Jan 2019 | San Francisco Bay Area
Relaunch Baby Hardlines and Nursery department by re-negotiating terms with past vendors while adding new vendors and brands.
Purchase off price product to drive immediate sales.
Develop margin rich direct import bedding.
Led a remote team of Associate and Assistant Buyers located in Hoffman Estates, IL.

### Vice President/General Merchandise Manager @ Generation Tux
Jan 2015 – Jan 2018 | Oakland, CA
Responsible for buying suits and tuxedos, accessories, neckwear, shirts and footwear for both rental and retail. Analyze rentals and sales by style/color/size to adjust current and future production. Develop color palettes that incorporate market and bridal color trends. Negotiate prices and terms with vendors. Track work in progress, production and shipping. Record daily, weekly and monthly rentals in terms of orders, average price per rental and average number of rental items per order and make projections. Present a monthly Financial Statement to Senior Management. Create items, SKU's and purchase orders

### Merchandise Manager @ Jos. A. Bank Clothiers
Jan 2012 – Jan 2015 | Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Responsible for managing the Open-To-Buy financials: inventory receipts, mark up percent, promotional and permanent markdowns and gross margin. 
Build assortment plans for all volume groups, as well as each delivery's plan-o-gram by sku.
Manage pricing cadence to ensure adherence to laws regulating sales days.
Direct the product development and color direction for all table presentations in conjunction with other sportswear product categories.
Negotiate all prices with sourcing agents and reserve production capacities.
Multi channel accountability: retail stores, online, catalog and outlet stores

### Product Development/Imports Buyer @ Richard Wilson
Jan 2010 – Jan 2012
Product development, imports/sourcing and merchandising for various wholesalers in the fashion and outdoor home goods industries.

### Product Development Manager/Imports Buyer @ Hayneedle
Jan 2010 – Jan 2010
Analyzed e-commerce assortment for outdoor furniture, lightweight industrial and holiday seasonal programs, identify direct import opportunities to increase margin and fill price point needs within each category.
Utilized apparel product development skills to create detailed product packages for costing and development.
Successfully sampled key programs, negotiated costs, made final sourcing decisions and created purchase orders based on full container loads.
Traveled to China and Vietnam for sourcing.

### Director, Product Management @ Sears Holdings Corporation
Jan 2007 – Jan 2009 | Hoffman Estates, IL
Hired as Product Manager for menswear, promoted to Director of Product Management in June 2007, while maintaining product responsibility for menswear.
Reported directly to the Executive Vice President of Design in New York while stationed in the Hoffman Estates corporate headquarters to act as the business and strategy partners of the design team and the liaison between the designers, merchants, sourcing, technical design and marketing.
Presented comprehensive Power Point slideshows and reports seasonally by category that detailed competitive assortments and key item programs, brand strategies, regular and sale pricing information, in store presentation visuals, marketing strategies and e-commerce innovations with supplemental directional trend information derived from higher end competitive shopping, subscription trend services (Donegar, WGSN) and business publications (WWD, business websites).
Summarized all findings and identified new business opportunities for the designers and merchants, as well as trends that worked across all divisions and could be marketed in store as well as media.
Gathered market intelligence to detail new brand launches, innovative store concepts and an analysis of comparable same store sales each month and quarter.
Partnered cross functionally with Marketing to develop brand profiles with targeted customer demographics and lifestyle images that were used to convey the respective brand messages in all media formats.

### Product Manager, Men's and Children's @ Value City Department Stores
Jan 2005 – Jan 2006 | Greater New York City Area
Launched men's and children's private label programs that contributed to margin growth and acceleration of inventory turnover, and improved in stock percentages on seasonal must haves.
Created company's first template for costing, development and soliciting cost quotes.
Presented company's first seasonal trends and concepts, color palettes, key items, new fabrications and print/pattern/graphic direction for men's and children's.
Completed purchase orders and distributed quantities by store groups.
Generated $15 million in first cost purchases in 2006.
Traveled to Asia for sourcing.

### Senior Designer, Young Men's/Boy's-Mervyn's Division @ Target
Jan 2001 – Jan 2005 | San Francisco Bay Area
Hired as Trend Merchandiser for young men's, promoted June 2002 to Senior Designer for young men's, active, swimwear, loungewear, traditional menswear (2002-2004) and boy's 4-20 (2004-2005).
Converted almost half of young men's and all of loungewear from domestic market purchases to internally developed, designed and sourced programs at higher margins, with substantially better quality and presented as a cohesive brand statement with a consistent trend theme and color palette.
Partnered with licensor for the Sideout brand, The Cherokee Group, for all product and graphic approvals.
Teamed with boys' buyers to analyze and re-tool the entire assortment based on market and directional trends, customer feedback and sales analysis to reverse a negative sales trend in 2005 to a comparable store sales increase for 2006.
Traveled to Asia, Europe and Central America for design inspiration and sourcing.

### Product Development Manager @ Sears
Jan 1996 – Jan 2001 | Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States
Product Development & Design for Boys (1996-1999) private labels, exceeding sales plan, margin and turnover goals each year.
Promoted to Men’s Casual Brands (2000-2001) to be the business partner for the newly hired design team.
Partnered with Designers to ensure Product Development timelines were met with all stakeholders:  Buyers, Designers, CAD Designers, Technical Designers and Sourcing Managers.

### Buyer-Planner/Product Development Manager @ Montgomery Ward
Jan 1987 – Jan 1996 | Chicago, Illinois, United States
Planning and Allocation Analyst for all menswear categories, driving turnover increases with development of global forecasts that also increased in stock percent to 90%.
Promoted to Buyer in 1989 for:  denim and workwear (1989-1990), branded knits and sweaters (1990-1993) and active/swimwear (1993-1994) where a new proprietary brand was being launched with the incoming Product Development team.  
Promoted to Product Development Manager (1995) for active/swimwear, then assumed responsibility for all men’s Product Development (1995-1996), with a focus on knit tops, sweaters, woven tops, bottoms, outerwear, active and swimwear.  
Assumed responsibility for Sourcing and Production as well as all Technical Design fit approvals.


## Education
### BA in Economics/Sociology
University at Albany


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/richardwilliamwilson

---
Source: https://flows.cv/richardwilson
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/richardwilson/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-04-13