Mario Gonzalez

Owned product strategy and 5-year innovation roadmap for the North American region’s top mount, bottom mount, built-in, and under counter refrigeration products, a $1 billion business. Drove executive leadership approval on eight new innovation & infrastructure projects totaling over $90 million in capital, through effective storytelling, investment analysis, and impact to long-term innovation strategy. Led qualitative research, conjoint analysis, competitive benchmarking, and attribute leadership strategy to secure $2 million in engineering resources for built-in refrigeration advanced development project.

Created and executed go-to-market strategies, promotional calendar communications, and owned demand forecasting process for the $700m independent retail channel’s kitchen business. Implemented plan-to-sell for kitchen categories with step strategies designed to fit within our promotional plans, drive mix improvements, and deliver margin growth. This led to YoY average sales value and margin per unit increases of $43 and $17 respectively. Led the design, development, and implementation of pricing and planning tool that reduced the time that category managers spent promo planning by 90%, a massive productivity increase

Managed a $35 million portfolio, serving 20+ independent retailers and builders in the South Florida market. Owned the relationships, sell-in strategies, and marketing for major appliance brands Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid and Amana across all categories. Developed Ft. Lauderdale/Broward builder sales go to market strategy, focusing on building relationships across builder channel, outbound prospecting, and delivering compelling sales presentations. This resulted in gross sales growth of 39% vs 2016 in the contract sales segment. Created Lead Management Tool with pivot table analytics for contract distributors, allowing us to drive more accountability across showrooms & with account managers. Segment delivered 22% gross sales growth and the Lead Management Tool became a national Field Sales best practice.

Manage all aspects of the customer experience within Pacific Sales through all touchpoints with Best Buy inside and outside of the store. Delivered $5.2 million in sales and 70% category growth in 2015 by deploying business group sales strategies, hiring and training over 20 team members into a proficient staff, and managing all aspects of the customer experience at Best Buy. In taking ownership of merchandising, inventory, services, and other aspects of operations, I developed an inventory management rhythm around assortment, cycle counts, and product transfers in order to ensure world class merchandising and accurate back-end management. Physical Inventory resulted in -0.05% shrink of sales, well under -0.38% ceiling.

Run Front End and Back of House Operations. Provided guidance and direction to store team in the areas of guest satisfaction, associate development (scored 95% in Employee Engagement Survey, Top 5 in company), inventory control, human resources, safety, loss prevention and expense control. Managed the execution of sales action plans and performed actionable analysis of business results in a $25 million box, resulting in 8 straight months of Comparable Sales Growth over previous periods. Also managed the Spring Clearance Event special project, with a team of 15 employees, that generated $110,000 incremental sales and a 24% reduction in discontinued inventory.

Launched retail start-up in Miami as part of a 8 month consulting engagement. Built and implemented operating model, including store design, assortment, visual standards, POS system, and also pitched the retail concept to shopping malls in South Florida, successfully winning a lease contract valued at $78,000 with Miami International Mall. Sourced, hired, and developed sales training program for a 15 employee sales force. Increased hardware margins from 18% to 33% within the first three months of store operations by negotiating with seven hardware and accessory distributors. Finally, sales for first six months of operations totaled $556,000 at 20% profit margins.