Wheaton, Illinois, United States
Establishing effective and responsible sourcing strategies, mitigating supply chain risk, enhancing product quality, and improving profitability are core strengths I bring to organizations. Throughout my career, I have transformed domestic and international supply chain models to drive efficiency and margin improvement across raw materials, components, and finished goods. I have led global product development and sourcing operations firsthand, including living in Vietnam overseeing a high-end furniture development team and end-to-end global supply chain execution. My expertise spans overseas sourcing and strategic partnership development, responsible and sustainable sourcing practices, direct factory and vendor management, quality assurance, regulatory compliance, and inventory service-level performance. Through extensive international travel and on-the-ground leadership, I have built a robust global supply network that consistently delivers against cost, quality, and delivery targets while supporting long-term business objectives. I welcome connections with leaders interested in streamlining supply chain operations, strengthening sourcing strategy, or exchanging best practices across global manufacturing and supplier networks.
I held direct responsibility for the seasonal execution of sourcing and product development across the Dining Room, Outdoor, and Accent furniture categories, overseeing both domestic and overseas supplier relationships. I led the sourcing team to deliver new product developments against cost, quality, and delivery targets, with a strong focus on factory capability, supplier performance, and execution discipline. I drove supplier rationalization, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and quality improvement initiatives, including category-level supplier assessments to optimize $325M in annual spend. I restructured the quality incident reporting process to improve issue visibility and accountability, and led a manufacturing controls workstream that contributed to reduced returns and damages by 50% year over year, delivering approximately $20M in cost savings.
In this role, I led the global sourcing and product development strategy for furniture and lighting, setting category vision and executing against five annual product launch cycles. Managed a cross-functional, multi-country team of 13 spanning sourcing, quality, and product development, focused on supplier expansion, performance improvement, and risk mitigation. Expanded and optimized the furniture supplier base by 25% to support 30% year-over-year growth, accelerated entry into the lighting category by onboarding new suppliers six months ahead of plan, restructured overseas quality teams to drive a 30% improvement in product quality, and implemented standardized supplier agreements to strengthen terms, conditions, and business continuity.
In this leadership role, I set the vision and led global sourcing and product development strategy across raw materials, components, and finished goods for a nine-figure product portfolio. Established global sourcing governance to ensure product integrity, regulatory compliance, and ethical supply base standards, while overseeing annual spend and strategic supplier relationships with a focus on cost, quality, delivery, and business continuity. Transformed the supply chain to a direct sourcing model on key items, delivering 20% COGS savings; rationalized relationships across fulfillment partners, suppliers, and overseas factories to improve efficiency and scalability; launched a critical supplier audit program to validate workplace and social compliance; and founded a “Total Quality” initiative to drive specification adherence and consistent product quality across the portfolio.
As a senior leader at a high-end furniture manufacturer, I led global product development for both proprietary and private-label merchandise, overseeing the full lifecycle from concept through production readiness. I managed a geographically distributed supply chain, with development budget accountability and leadership of a large, multi-tiered organization including five direct reports, more than 100 cross-functional contributors across design, engineering, and development, with full accountability for talent development and performance reporting to support data-driven product strategy. I was accountable for modernizing product development and supply chain operations, driving efficiency, transparency, and speed to market. I implemented a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system to improve project visibility, decision-making, and overall portfolio health, and led cross-functional initiatives to accelerate product launches aligned with major trade show timelines. In close partnership with global component suppliers, I ensured timely sourcing of critical materials and strengthened supplier collaboration. These efforts resulted in improved profitability across the product development lifecycle and increased brand visibility through leadership presentations at biannual trade shows and strategic in-house showcases for global retail partners.