Caitlin Norgard
Experienced Retail Technology And Merchandising Leader With A Demonstrated History Of Working In Vertical / Omni Channel Retail Environments. Tenacious Operations Professional With A Passion For Culture And Organizational Development
Qualifications and Skills
- Product Management/Product Ownership
- Program Management Experience
- 12 Years Total Experience in Retail, Omni- Channel Merchandising and Supply Chain Domain
- 10 Years Leadership Experience
- Lean Management Expertise and Business Process Improvement
- Systems expertise in PLM, PIM, ERP, DAM and BI Analytics
- G-Suite, Atlassian (Jira, Jira Cloud, Confluence, Advanced Roadmaps), Airtable, Slack
- Agile Methodology Expertise
- Strong Microsoft Excel Skills / Microsoft 365
- Business Intelligence Tooling Training including
- Basic SQL Concepts
Professional Experience
Sr. Director Technology and Product
Fanatics Inc
February 2022 to February 2023
Launched an in-house Product Lifecycle Management and configuration application. Also oversaw product to support Go-To-Market activities and Program Management.
Oversaw program management team, responsible for the masterplan for each program and imitative. which builds the high-level programmatic plan, is responsible for the masterplan for each program and imitative.
Oversaw the management of programs that were in the multi-million-dollar range, concurrently managing upwards around 10 at a given time.
This included:
- Reporting out to the organization each initiative’s statuses, risks, and changes to plans.
- Oversaw development of milestone-based plans with tasks and deliverables that span business and technology teams.
Mentored a team of ten product managers by providing domain knowledge & solution support on their various product level roadmaps.
Achievements
Successfully provided all four 2022 Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) to the executive leadership team demonstrating the various product launches and metrics the team completed.
Completed 6 major campaigns within GTM responsibility, notably one demonstrating metrics around product performance across our 30+ in house systems, measuring usage and adoption.
Key campaigns included – vision and scope proposal for a newly developed internal enterprise platform, UX experience proposal for the platform, Service Now processes and best-practices and Program team governance.
Sr. Director, Engineering & Business Process Analytics
Fanatics Inc.
July 2019 to February 2022
Took on Engineering leadership role in addition to my business process leadership responsibilities to support a 3rd party app and the development of a new internally developed application. Promoted to Sr. Director position within 6 months of taking on technology role.
Applications
- Designed and developed an in-house Product Master, Line and Assortment Management Tool, capable of configuring products quickly based on rules engines created behind the scenes. Currently tool supports and creates products for a 1B+ vertical brands business. Current user base is 300 internal users.
- Designed a full stack architecture with teams to solve evolving needs for speed and agility by the team.
- Cloud hosted in AWS using SQS queues and other publish/subscribe services to communicate data between other systems in ecosystem.
- Supported multiple brands (i.e., Nike, Fanatics Brands, Top of the World) product creation and set up and product capability.
- Oversaw a Portfolio of other 3rd Software Products (ex. Enovia PDM, CLO 3D, Gerber Accumark)
- Key Vendor Contact for several products
- Managed and Negotiate Contracts with assistance of Legal.
- Analysis of proper Licensing needs – with cost savings YOY for reduction in licensing needs
Product Management
- Responsible for Roadmap, Epic, Stories, Sprint Planning, and other important ceremonies. Met with users to define requirements, scope, and UX design needs.
- Utilized lean product development methodologies, implementing MVP versioning and score-carding of features.
Management
- Responsible for developing and managing several global software development teams.
- Partnered with key leadership stakeholders to define scope and programmatic implementation of new features / processes
- Lead process and training implementations for technology adoption
Director, Business Process and Change Management
Fanatics Inc.
April 2018 to July 2019
Fanatics Brands manufactured apparel, jersey and headwear for the Majestic, Harley Davidson and Fanatics brand underneath the Fanatics, Inc. retail infrastructure. Within the Fanatics Branded division included Merchandising, Creative, Product Development and Sourcing. Merchandising Operations supports the operational side of manufacturing execution including obtaining and maintaining all licensing agreements needed to manufacture licensed goods.
Business Process
- Responsible for collecting and maintaining Business Requirements related to technological and business process needs required by Fanatics Brands.
- Played a key role in ensuring optimal Data Flow between processes, adopting lean methodology and focusing on the people side of change, including changes to business processes, systems, and technology. Additionally, acting as a strategic partner to executive team helping to provide resounding and evidence-based proposals on key projects and initiatives.
- Requested by Leadership to create a new department within Technology division to help drive process creation and governance throughout the organization
- Oversaw a team of Business Process Analysts that work cross-functionally with business and technology to map out current and future state processes.
- Responsible for demonstrating ROI for change implementation across the organization and gaining buy-in on new projects with executive team.
- Designed and implemented consistent documentation process to create seamless document sharing and re-visioning process
- Created consistent change communication methodology for rolling out new systems and processes
- Play a key role in the SDLC and release management for new technical features, assisting with testing and deployment rollout to affected users
- Manage Budget and meet regularly with finance and leadership to manage technology spend and prioritization of that spend.
Change Management
- Responsible for communicating to larger organization technical and business process changes (1000+ employees)
- Communicated change of massive legacy system migration as part of a transition service agreement from acquisition. Over 65 applications involved with the transition
- Created communication campaign that included email, printed and social engagements with graphical and optimistic POV• Increased adoption and reduced service tickets post Go-Live with consistent and cohesive communication methodology
Key Technical Implementations:
- EDW/Datawarehouse Migration Change Communication
- Legacy ERP/Warehouse and Distribution Software Migration Change Communication
- PLM Upgrade Notifications
- 3D Technology Integrations
Director, Merchandising Operations
Fanatics Brands, Fanatics Inc.
July 2015 to April 2018
April 2017 To April 2018
Promoted to be responsible for in Wholesale Operations, Acquisition of Majestic from VF Inc. and data migration of hundreds of thousands of SKUs into Majestic Wholesale Systems
July 2015 To April 2017
Operations
Oversaw the merchandising operations team responsible for purchase order processing, order tracking and invoicing for a multi-million-dollar domestic apparel manufacturing business
- Drove process improvements for Outsource Apparel manufacturing network to get purchase order details to outsource manufacturers more efficiently
- Implemented Corporate Purchase Order management process from Purchase Order Issuance to Receipt for three way match processes.
- Worked cross functionally with Accounting and Finance on various routine business needs for end-of-month close.
- Responsible for analysis, documentation, detailed process flow design and rollout of new & modified process or software feature functionality changes. Assist in evaluation of new software and play a critical role in implementation
- Key technical liaison and subject matter expert for business requirements for the Fanatics Branded division
- Routinely facilitate communication of new functionality to the broader business groups including Customer Service, Finance, Fanatics Branded, and Operations ensuring all business units are prepared for the changes.
Key Projects: Enterprise Royalty Management System, Wholesale Order Management System, ERP Integrations, Outsource Network Integrations
Licensing
Oversaw licensing division that are responsible for licensing artwork approvals, contract management and renewals, royalty pre-processing and audit compliance
- Assisted finance in calculation of approximately $10 million dollars of royalties per year for all partners
- Primary contact for ‘escalated’ licensing submissions with all of Fanatics’ professional league partners.
Business Analyst II
Acosta Sales and Marketing
February 2015 to July 2015
Designated Product Owner for retail execution mobile application that services 10,000+ users. Managed relationship with third party software team; prioritizing project work, scheduling deployment and hosting UAT sessions for end users.
Project work completed on a new proprietary Retail Marketing system from contract execution to manufacturing and retail execution. Process documentation and data mapping and flow through various Acosta systems.
Designed UI mock-ups for system re-design for decade old proprietary retail execution software including dashboards, KPI analysis and business process-driven tooling.
Retail Business Analyst, Field Application Engineer
Tagsys RFID
May 2014 to February 2015
- Conducted project analysis and solution design for clients, including Statements of Work, requirements gathering and process design.
- Experience with RFID technology testing and qualification for clients including technical drawing and design work.
- Performed pre-sales meeting with clients, RFPs, and project proposal presentations.
- Designed processes for industrial operations in apparel manufacturing and laundries for precise item-level tracking.
- Designed application and processes for luxury retail integrated item level tracking from distribution through to shop floor.
- Designed a “Car Wash Style” Faraday Cage Solution for a customer looking to track tuxedo rentals coming back to the facility to be laundered.
Clients:
- Nordstrom Rack- RFID “pair” encoded RFID tagging for shoes that are an associated pair
- Brooks Brothers- Materials and Manufacturing tracking using RFID enabled components
- Prototyping RFID technology with Christian Louboutin using components of the shoe as the antenna.
Business Analyst
Fanatics Apparel Division, Fanatics, Inc.
April 2013 to May 2014
- Strategic liaison between the business and IT for the Fanatics Apparel Division, Subject Matter Expert (SME)
- Responsibilities included requirements gathering, analysis, detailed process flow design, user acceptance testing and deployment of new and modified features deployed on Fanatics proprietary custom apparel manufacturing applications.
- Heavy gap analysis was completed for several large projects including data migration, system upgrades and feeds between merchandising, manufacturing, financial and storefront systems.
- Worked with Fanatics Apparel stakeholders to define project prioritization for development, of which was broken into smaller epics and slated from Scrum work.
- Delivered business requirements assigned to epics to development team; interacted with IT Development team by managing the Scrum process to clarify and resolve any issues.
Manager, Licensing and Compliance
Fanatics, Inc. DBA Box Seat Clothing Co.
August 2011 to April 2013
- Oversaw 800+ collegiate, professional and entertainment licensing relationships, full contract management
- Complex Royalty Management, including the identification of a $2 million dollar discrepancy with royalty payments
- Managed a team of Licensing Associates; duties include artwork approval, product sampling and royalties
- Developed and maintain Corporate Social Responsibility program; planned monitoring and continually performed due diligence in contracted garment factories in Fanatics global sourcing supply chain
Product Administration
Fanatics, Inc. (formerly Football Fanatics)
August 2010 to August 2011
Monitored multiple databases to ensure image quality across Fanatics consortium of e-commerce sites.
Product Image replacement and access to key internal operating systems with overriding capabilities.