Mars

Director of Analytic & AI Capabilities

Head of Data Science - North America

The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.

Select highlights include: 
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION: Amplified customer spending 3-5x via hyper-personalized digital experiences and an 80M-record consumer data platform.
EMBEDDED CUSTOMER CENTRICITY: Devised KPI dashboard for 30+ brands, aligning consumer experience metrics with strategic growth goals.
BUILDING A DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING CULTURE: Conducted data analytics and marketing strategy training for 2,000 marketing leaders.

Executive Director, Global CRM Engagement, Activation & Analytics

The Vitamin Shoppe

Select highlights include:
DATA-DRIVEN INNOVATION: Launched a $100M annual subscription business using customer data analysis and segmentation.
STRATEGIC NEGOTIATION: Fostered strategic partnerships, securing $30M in bottom-line improvements through data-driven negotiations.
DRIVING CUSTOMER RETENTION: Revamped loyalty program, enhancing customer retention and boosting top-line growth.

Senior Director Analytics & Insights

Director, Business Analytics & Insight

The Children's Place

Select highlights include:
CHANGE AGENT: Generated $25M net profit by innovating store fleet optimization tool.
CUSTOMER CENTRIC PERSONALIZATION: Increased sales by $4M and saved $1M through personalized email communication strategies.
LEVERAGING CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT: Utilized branded research panel to leverage customer engagement, increasing top-selling product turnover by 23%.

Director - Omni Channel Analytics & Insights

Party City

Manager - Marketing Analytics & Consumer Insight

Marketing Analyst

Montclair State University, School of Business, Dean's Office

School of Business Administrative Affairs/Programs Coordinator & Dean's Office Graduate  Assistant

At Mars Petcare, I lead Analytics & AI Capabilities and serve as interim head of our Global Analytics Services team, guiding a global team to deliver scalable solutions that simplify complexity, accelerate decisions, and drive measurable business impact.

Over the past five years, we’ve evolved from a specialized function into a trusted cross-divisional partner — building reusable frameworks, strengthening core analytics capabilities, and enabling faster, more consistent decision-making across our business.

I’m especially proud of our team: value-focused, pragmatic, curious, and deeply committed to our shared purpose: A better world for pets. We stay close to key business challenges and own the outcomes we deliver.

Before Mars, I led analytics transformations at Estée Lauder and The Vitamin Shoppe. Early in my career, I learned that great analytics isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about asking the right questions and knowing when to challenge them. That principle continues to guide how I show up: with clarity, integrity, and purpose.

Always happy to connect — whether about analytics, leadership, or exchanging ideas.

Martin Leitner

AFH Industries 

Consulted and managed accounts for various retailer sectors including grocery, mass, specialty, discount and convenience spaces for impulse consumer electronics and home security for $20M in annual business.
•	Crafted dynamic company biography; tailored to elevate and enrich the narrative of the company and showcase their product assortment.
•	Developed comprehensive customer profiles and conducted competitive shopping analyses; strategically integrating product findings into product pitches to retailers.   
•	Implemented a customer centric strategy to curate product assortments; identifying untapped white space opportunities. Grew TJ Maxx Winners/Canada from inception to $1M annually; achieved $300k in sales in the first 2 months w/40% margins which were 5% higher than initial margin goal of 35%.  Success was driven by understanding the buyers needs to have product with French translation included and led to the development of 5 new impulse price point head and earbud program that arrived in stores April 2024.

VP of Sales

Bed Bath & Beyond

Category leader responsible for managing and driving $180M+ in sales across Furniture, Rugs, Lighting, Mattresses, Pet and Travel categories for 760 stores and online with a team of assistant and associate buyers.
•	Formulated long-range business plans and translated them to bi-annual financial plans that were tracked and measured for profitability.
•	Mentored and coached team; establishing clear category roles, developing expertise in business reporting creation and analysis, exhibited effective communication, taught how to build and grow strategic vendor partnerships
•	Created synergistic vendor partnerships aligned with meeting quality, price and design needs; this included utilizing their category expertise and macro insights along with internal sales data to drive decisions.  I leveraged category experts that built Targets BTC program and was able to create a neutral focused program for BTC 2023 that leaned into mix and match items to enhance and decorate your dorm room for first apt at value pricing.
•	Accountable for providing comprehensive weekly and monthly business analyses to Senior Leadership; encompassing sales performance, reviewing OKR’s and KPI’s/GM/Inventory/Turn/Sell Through/Traffic/Conversion /Promos/Marketing to align on the health and profitability of the business and pivot when necessary.   
•	Responsible for Open to Buy; adjusting receipt and product flow with product development and 3rd party vendors depending on sales trajectory.   Effectively moved $10M in orders from Jan to BOM March with 3 key partners after holiday sales came in lower than anticipated.

Senior Buyer

Director responsible for $150M+ in apparel (RTW), licensed costumes, accessory and decor sales across 700+ stores and online with a team of assistant buyers, associate buyers, category managers and site managers.  
•	Operated in a vertically integrated business model; direct responsibility for the development of the assortment and product lifecycle from concept to EOL; approx. 5k skus and 20 vendor partners.   
•	Built licensed assortments to reinforce top/on trend properties under the Direct to Retail licensed manufacturing contracts with Netflix, Disney, Nickelodeon, Warner, Universal and Ubisoft.  Created close partnerships with licensors to strategically manufacture and create product offerings around their most anticipated content to meet customer demand.   Approx. 80% (4k skus) of the assortment sales were driven from DTR sales.
•	Developed comprehensive long-range plans for both seasonal and everyday businesses; delivering strategic action plans to Senior Leadership.   Provided regular updates, reviewing OKR’s and KPI’s metrics and providing pivots when desired results are not achieved.   
•	Led weekly meetings addressing overall business performance; KPI’s, sales projections, newness, promo sales, inventory flow, and OTB/receipt budgets.  This fostered collaborative relationships with senior leadership as they aligned with the direction; opening up opportunities to try new sales driving initiatives; including a price reduction initiative on the top 20% of skus which resulted in overall unit increase by 30% that offset the financials associated with the reduction. 
•	Achieved 25% YOY sales growth in Halloween marketing campaign in 2020 by featuring a curated assortment of key items, trend/newness, KVI’s vs breath/range of assortment.  Establishing a destination for Halloween must haves; bringing in additional inventory to support the product initiatives.

Director of Merchandising

Category leader responsible for managing and driving $100M in sales across infant, kids and adult costumes with a team of assistant and associate buyers.
•	Developed costume merchandise product assortment and strategy, collaborated with accessories buyer on correlating assortment offering so customers can create unique “costuming” looks for 900 stores + 250 temp pop-up stores + online.
•	Established the company as a leading omni channel business by leveraging ecommerce to offer the customer an “endless aisle” experience with additional product range and depth to support their needs outside of the core assortment.   Instore customer marketing materials along with employee training enabled effective messaging to the customers and increased in-store sales that were fulfilled through ecommerce distribution. 
•	Created peer mentoring and coaching opportunities by successfully implementing category experts on the team that were relied on to support new merchants to onboard successfully.   Supports included business reporting, style out process and documents, and competitive analysis reporting.
•	Established a thorough QA review process for costumes in collaboration with product development; surpassing quality improvement objectives by 20%.   Evaluated 500 costumes specs (fit, finish, embellishments) and actioned 110 specs; this initiative led to improved product quality reviews and boosted CSAT score from 70% to 75%. 	
•	Captainship for a team that launched Party City product on Amazon (shipping FBA/FBM) prior to Halloween 2019; this started as a defensive tactic to combat market share being lost to Amazon and it quickly grew to be a key business driver.   In 2020 Amazon drove $3M annually on Amazon, which was +200% from $1M in 2019.

Buyer

Direct buying responsibility for both in season and year-round costume planning. Aligned with marketing team on product offerings and department goals to plan and launch the annual Halloween commercial. Conducted competitor research and presented findings to senior leadership. 
•	Built buy plans leveraged across 250+ temporary Halloween locations and 700+ permanent stores. 
•	Cultivated a costume assortment balancing generic and licensed product in partnership with internal product development and 3rd party vendors. 
•	Managed budgets of up to $80M and collaborated with a cross-functional team to achieve department goals.

Associate Buyer

Created SKU plans to meet sales targets, including units, revenue, COGS, gross margin, and sell through. Developed and distributed weekly sales reports.
•	Leveraged sales plan to allocate inventory, including running daily allocations for peak season. 
•	Collaborated directly with senior buyer to build buy sheets in alignment with corporate goals.
•	Meticulously maintained accurate available-to-sell inventory utilized by the franchise group.

Seasonal Planner/Allocator

Oversaw item set up, changes, and pricing. Managed vendor samples for mock room and photoshoots.
•	Supported $50M in seasonal business, liaising with internal product development and 3rd party vendors to develop seasonal lines based on buyer strategy and department goals. 
•	Negotiated with vendors to secure the best possible price and reduce vendor minimums as needed.

Assistant Buyer

Linens N Things

Window Hardware- March 2007-May 2008
Toss Pillow, Throws and Slip Covers-June 2006-March 2007

Assistant  Buyer

Accomplished retail professional with 15+ yrs. experience developing and executing merchandise programs to drive category growth & revenue in omni-channel ecosystems in home, party, apparel & seasonal categories. Leader of people for 12 yrs.; creating effective merchant/planning teams with expertise in assortment development, financial planning & OTB, merchandising, pricing/promo models, data analysis, product lifecycle management, vendor partnerships and team development.  Passionate about customer obsession and driving brand & product awareness through carefully crafted stories that align with the customers wants & needs.

taplio

The Battle

Martin Leitner

Cherise Shannon

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?