Jorge Rivera

BRAND STATEMENT

I am an experienced, relentless, and successful business lead. Growing your business in a sustainable way for the long term is my objective and I would like to help you outperform through my self-motivation, dedication, and laser focus on details.

COMMENT ON THE STREET (TESTIMONIAL)
“Highly engaged, proactive and team player. Once on a Sunday during a business trip after 7 days of back-to-back meetings at the HQ I called Jorge and asked if he wanted to go on a market visit and he said: off course let’s work while the competition is sleeping.”
– Daniel Schmid (GM Under Armour- Merchandising/Product - Marketing - Planning Executive)

Kohler
Channel Marketing Sr Analyst
Panama, May of 2021 – Present
Responsible for the showroom door expansion in LATAM. Ensuring all steps were accomplished through the process, from the development of the store planograms until the opening of the showroom, collaborating with the different cross functional teams. By doing so I was able to support the brand to achieve aggressive market penetration in the region, taking market share from competition and creating brand awareness.
Successfully created, coordinated, and executed the showroom update program. The main goal of the program was to have all LATAM showrooms with the latest Marketing graphics set, key products launch, all showroom following brand guideline, etc. With the implementation of this program, I was able to help each store to growth their sell out performance by almost a +35% more compared to LY performances.

OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Created a report to analyze the sell through of distributor POS performance. Having laser focus on product performance, top sellers, slow movers, etc. With this report I were able to measure how successful were our marketing campaigns, how much impact the POS had with new product launch, understand opportunities in product portfolio.
• Did market research deep dive for several LATAM countries focusing on pricing, product opportunities, competition portfolio. Providing reports and drawing conclusions that captured a clear picture of the competitive environment and market share.
• Created, coordinated, and executed a regional training program for the whole sale staff on POS, Marketing teams, Commercial Teams, etc. With this regional training I was able to elevate sales by +15%, helped the teams to reinforce their product knowledge and delivered key insights on how to approach the customer.
• Regular market visits to check status of POS, focusing on latest

Under Armour
Merchandising and VM Space Planner Senior Professional
Panama, January of 2020 – May of 2021 (1 Year 4 Months)
Created, implemented, and maintained Visual Merchandising process standards in the region for the strategic wholesale accounts. With the implementation of this process, I was able to help the brand maintain the same look and feel across the different markets in LATAM. This process was key in the Sell In process, especially for commercial teams as we help them to sell the different categories collections by bringing excitement and a clear image of how the POS will look like.
OTHER VM RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Developed plan-o-grams, mannequins hero looks, and visual merchandising plans for the strategic accounts during the Go To Market process to showcase best in class collection executions. With the creation of this process, I was able to support the commercial teams in achieving their target growth in sales in for the season.
• Provided regular updates of current visual presentation and feedback on what was successful and identified areas for improvement. By doing so I was able to react appropriately to market conditions and maintain sales, redirect, or revise POS performance.
• Partnered closely with the Marketing and Shop teams to create strategies and budgets for fixture and prop needs, to support global launches and big stories.
• Lead all category discussions for the region with Global Visual Merchandising throughout the GTM process to ensure successful alignment and implementation of key strategies. Drove the visual point of view for the region regarding market opportunities, consumer insights and product assortments. Ensuring that the Sell In process between the distributors and the commercial teams had a smooth execution.
• Regularly visited and understood local markets to develop expertise in consumer purchase behavior, competition latest launch and innovations, best practices, etc. By doing I was able to react faster to market conditions, understand new consumer trends, opportunities and weaknesses.

Merchandising & Planner Senior Professional CACC
Colombia, December of 2018 – January of 2020 (1 Year 2 Months)
Responsible for developing & leading the entire Merchandising GTM for Under Armour Colombia. I did the product selection combined with an extensive part of merchandising planning analysis and pricing where I was able to achieve an 85% forecast accuracy, get richer margins % for the brand, and reduced the C-Tail of the assortment meaning a higher concentration of productive SKU.
In addition, I created specific assortments for the Colombia accounts and teamed up with cross-functional teams like, Marketing and Sales to interact directly with our customers during GTM sell in and other milestones. By creating these individual assortments, I supported the commercial team in the creation of differentiation between accounts helping them exceed their sell in targets for the seasons.
During that time, I accomplished to exceed the growth expected on the following categories/divisions.
- 30%+ Growth YoY on Men's/Women's Train Category.
- 44% Growth YoY on Run Category.
- 30% Growth YoY on overall Accessories/Apparel Division.
- 51% Growth YoY on overall Footwear Division - highly driven by Run Category.

OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Build and lead the product presentations to customers to secure feedback, collaborate and adjust the range as necessary, and ultimately achieve orders in line with the OTB plan.
• Created report to set and monitor seasonal margin and sell-through targets. With this report we were able to monitor marketing seasonal key stories’ performance to react appropriately.
• Kept a sustainable mindset to shape and maintain the 3–5-year growth strategy to achieve aggressive growth targets.

Professional Merchandiser Teamsports
Panama, April of 2017 – December of 2018 (1 Year 9 Months)
Led several categories like Golf, Global Football, Basketball and Supported Run Category. During this time, I developed and executed Category strategies to maximize short and medium-term objectives.
Provided market input and local consumer insights to Global merchandising team to develop global product offerings which will reflect LATAM consumer needs and customer distribution channels. By doing so I was able to create new opportunities for the LATAM accounts and maximize revenue.
OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Owner of the Category to drive the seasonal game plan and dictate the Tempo within the Marketing organization.
• Implemented the global range components as required while at the same time tropicalizing the LATAM range assortment to ensure final assortment was state of the art for accounts.
• Responsible to drive the segmentation strategy across category/channel.
• Drove price strategy for the category and working

Merchandising Coordinator
Panama, January of 2016 – April of 2017 (1 Year 4 Months)
Accountant Associate
Panama, July of 2014 – January of 2016 (1 Year 7 Months)
 

Copa Airlines
Analista Contable Estaciones
Panama, May of 2013 - July de 2014 (1 Year 3 Months)
 

Mendoza & Asociados
Asistente de Contabilidad
Panama, April of 2012 – April of 2013 (1 Year 1 Month)

Universidad Tecnológica de Panama
Master’s degree in business management with an emphasis in Marketing · (2019 – 2023)
 

Universidad Latina de Panama
Bachelor’s degree in accounting and Auditing · (2011 - 2014)
 

Colegio de Contadores Públicos Autorizados
Diploma in Finances · (2014 - 2014)
Instituto Panamericano IPA
 

High School, bachelor’s in accounting · (1999 - 2010)