Director of Category Management & Supply Chain

Job Description

Job Description

Description:

Location: Meriden, CT (corporate) — regular travel to branches, distribution centers and vendor sites 

Reports To: President, Plimpton & Hills 

Direct Reports: Buyers / Replenishment Analysts; Inventory & Demand Planning

Scope: All product categories for Plimpton & Hills, with cross-company influence across the Hills Distribution platform 

FLSA Status: Exempt

Travel: Approximately 25–30% (within Region)

Position Summary

Plimpton & Hills has served plumbing and HVAC contractors across Connecticut, Western Massachusetts and New York since 1902. As part of the Hills Distribution platform, we are investing in the commercial and supply chain capabilities that will support the next phase of our growth.

Reporting directly to the President, the Director of Category Management & Supply Chain owns the end-to-end economics of the entire product portfolio — what we sell, who we buy it from, what we pay, how much we carry, and how it gets to the branch. This is a general-management role, not a transactional purchasing role. The Director is accountable for gross margin dollars, vendor program income, inventory productivity and product availability across all categories, and serves as the company's primary commercial interface with our manufacturer partners.

Because Plimpton & Hills sits within the Hills Distribution platform alongside Bender Plumbing Supply, Coastal Supply Group and RJ Murray, this role also carries influence beyond our own four walls. The Director is expected to identify and pursue cross-company leverage on shared vendors, contribute to platform-level category thinking, and help set the standard for how category management is practiced across the group — earned through credibility and results rather than through reporting lines.

The successful candidate will combine hard-nosed negotiation ability with genuine planning discipline, and will be equally comfortable in a vendor business review, in a branch aisle with a counter manager, and in a monthly planning review with the executive team.

Scope of Responsibility

1. Category & Vendor Strategy

• Manage and deploy the category strategy across the full product portfolio — HVAC equipment and ductless/VRF, heating and hydronics, water heaters, PVF, valves, plumbing specialties, fixtures and showroom (including Waterware and Kohler Signature Store assortments), water treatment, and tools/MRO.

• Prioritize deliberately. With full-portfolio ownership, this role must segment categories by strategic importance and margin contribution, invest personal time accordingly, and delegate the balance to the buying team with clear guardrails.

• Build and maintain the category line architecture: good/better/best positioning, brand mix, and the balance between premium OEM lines and value, second-tier or exclusive-brand alternatives.

• Make disciplined decisions on line additions, consolidations and exits based category strategy, vendor strategy, gross margin dollars, program income, turns, market share and contractor loyalty.

• Track and act on category-relevant market dynamics: refrigerant transition and regulatory change, energy codes and utility rebate programs, heat pump and electrification incentives, tariff exposure, and commodity movement in copper, steel and resin.

• Partner with Sales and Marketing on category promotions, contractor loyalty programs, co-op advertising, counter days and showroom merchandising.

2. Procurement & Replenishment

• Own the replenishment function and the buying team. Set and govern the parameters that drive automated replenishment — min/max, safety stock, order cycles, review cycles, lead times and service level targets — by SKU, by branch and by season.

• Ensure product availability at our Branches and at our Distribution Center.

• Manage seasonal buy-in and pre-season stocking strategy for heating and cooling seasons, balancing program economics against carrying cost and cash.

• Own vendor lead time and on-time-in-full performance management, including escalation paths and contingency sourcing.

• Govern purchasing controls: PO approval thresholds, price file integrity, cost discrepancy and invoice variance resolution, and receiving accuracy in partnership with Operations and Finance.

3. SIOP / Integrated Business Planning

Note that this is a build, not an inherited process. The Director is expected to stand up the planning discipline and then run it.

• Roll up sleeves and solve problems directly. This role is hands-on. Building the demand models, cleaning the item and vendor data, chasing root cause on a recurring stockout, sitting with a branch manager to understand why the forecast missed, and working an escalation through to resolution are all part of the job — not tasks to be assigned and monitored from a distance.

• Own the cross-functional meeting cadence from the ground up. Define the calendar, participants, agendas, required inputs, decision rights and escalation paths for demand review, supply review, reconciliation and executive review.

• Bring Sales, Operations, Finance, Marketing and Field Leadership into a single planning conversation, and drive the process toward genuine decisions rather than status updates.

• Build the statistical and consensus demand plan, incorporating sales input, project and bid pipeline, construction and permit indicators, weather, and promotional activity.

• Own forecast accuracy and bias measurement and drive continuous improvement in both.

• Translate the demand plan into an inventory investment plan by category and branch, aligned to working capital targets set with the President and CFO.

• Own inventory health: turns, GMROI, excess and obsolete exposure, dead stock disposition, stock rotation and return-to-vendor recovery, and slow-mover redeployment across the branch network.

Requirements:

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Business, Engineering or a related field, or equivalent demonstrated experience.

• 8+ years in purchasing, category management, merchandising or supply chain, with at least 3 years leading a team.

• Wholesale distribution experience is essential — a candidate who understands that our inventory is our product, that turn-and-earn is the business model, and that a stockout costs a customer relationship, not just a sale.

• Demonstrated ownership of vendor negotiations and rebate program structures, with quantified results.

• Working command of demand planning and replenishment methodology in a multi-branch, multi-SKU environment.

• Strong analytical capability — able to build and defend a category P&L, a GMROI model, a rebate attainment forecast and a total-landed-cost analysis.

• Distribution ERP proficiency (e.g., Epicor Eclipse or Prophet 21, DDI, Infor, Trend/Mincron) and advanced Excel; comfort with BI and reporting tools.

• Willingness to spend real time in branches and with customers.

Preferred

• Direct plumbing/PHCP or HVAC distribution experience and familiarity with the manufacturer and rep-agency landscape in the Northeast.

• Working knowledge of the trade: hydronic and forced-air systems, ductless and heat pump technology, refrigerant regulation, water heating, PVF and fixture categories.

• APICS/ASCM CPIM or CSCP, or equivalent certification.

• Experience building a sales and operations planning process from the ground up, rather than administering an established one.

• Experience with buying group programs and with post-acquisition integration of vendor files, item masters and cost structures.

• Experience in a private equity–backed environment with defined value creation objectives.

• Experience operating across multiple operating companies or banners within a holding structure, where results depend on persuasion rather than direct authority.

Competencies 

• Commercial judgment — knows which battles to fight with a vendor and which relationships to protect.

• Analytical rigor — forms conclusions from data, then pressure-tests them against what the branches actually see.

• Influence without authority — earns the confidence of Sales, Operations and Finance, of long-tenured branch managers, and of peer leaders at sister companies who do not report into this role.

• Operating discipline — designs a cadence and holds it.

• Hands-on problem solving — goes to where the problem is and works it, rather than managing it from a dashboard.

• Prioritization at scale — owns everything, but does not treat everything as equally important.

• Bias to the field — credible with contractors and counter staff, not office-bound.