Senior Product Developer
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Senior Product Developer

Emma P. Lapegna
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PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY
Senior Product Developer /Sourcing Coordinator/ Merchandising Manager
Senior Product Developer with over 10 years of experience in the garment industry. Versatile, bilingual professional with management experience ranging from the development of private label to managing the sourcing process for factory compliance on licensed products. Progressive leader with strong team-building skills, focused on quality, productivity and results. Proficient at building and maintaining professional relationships across industry disciplines and internationally.


PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
GIII, Acount Coordinator, Miami February 2019 – Present
•Stay up-to with current marketplace trends and analyze seasonal fashion industry styles and company fashion catalogues, implementing them into the merchandise presentation and maintain an awareness of consumer preferences and needs.
•Drives sales through coordinating, scheduling, and participating in successful grass roots events, tracking results, and goal setting with their fellow colleagues.
•Educate their colleagues via seminars and use of product knowledge tools.
•Communicates specific customer needs and shopping patterns to the RMD, District Merchant, and vendor community.

Isaco Merchandiser Men’s Underwear and loungewear, Miami Lakes 2018 – February 2019
•Responsible for the overall merchandising function for multiple product lines. Stablish specific merchandising, objectives targets and goals, ensure the product lines are brought to market in a timely and profitable manner and is in accordance with the line plans and production calendars.
•Own product development process, coordinate with all functional areas and participate in design concept meetings and line reviews.

Visual Merchandiser BCBG, Rachel Roy, Boca Raton, FL 2017 – 2018
• Partner with Store Management team to drive superior execution of visual merchandising priorities that align with store. Influence store decisions that affect merchandising and event execution.
• Ensure timely set-ups of promotional presentations, merchandise placement of key items and seasonal fashion trend statements, sales and event set-ups, within company guidelines
• Enforce maintain merchandising standards, proper fixture utilization, providing an outstanding shopping experience.

Intradeco Apparel Inc, Miami, FL 2016 - 2017
Sourcing Coordinator
• Decreased, by 30%, the time taken to prepare and send price and delivery quotation request packages to overseas manufacturers or agents by improving communication with internal teams (Merchandising, Tech Design, Operations, Quality, Design, etc...)
• Improved development quality, speed by 20% and reduced cost by 10%. Designed new trims, art techniques, and new fabrications. Documented and reported on low-cost alternatives derived through collaboration with internal resources, international employees and external partners.
• Eliminated production snags by instituting measures to deliver production samples (fit, size set, Pre-Pro, and TOP) compliant with the quality assurance and timeliness standards for the various agents & factories.
• Improved on-time product deliveries to 100% by creating and maintaining a coordination process for production bill of materials (BOMs) supporting numerous designs and merchandising product aesthetics.
• Introduced a work in progress (WIP) report that streamlined testing and sampling needs by 30%, (led to a better follow up in testing and sampling needs) helping overseas manufacturers satisfy orders from customers (Amazon, Wal-Mart, etc.).

Sears Holdings Corporation, Miami, FL 2015-2016
Merchandising Manager
• Increased productivity by 20% by supporting a wide range of merchandising services. These included product sourcing, sample development, price negotiations, order follow-up with vendors, and supervising assistants to perform merchandising services to ensure the smooth operation in merchandising processes and achieve the company's quality, price, and delivery goals.
• Reduced sample development time by 30% by following up on all approvals/rejections for fit.
• Eliminated miscommunication with direct import vendors by establishing daily synchronization exchanges.
• Improved communications by providing orientation and guidance to new direct import vendors on procedures, forms, and deadlines; including reviewing web product data management (PDM's) and Buy Sheets.

Perry Ellis International, Miami, FL 2006-2014
Senior Product Developer
• Improved the rapport with the Product Development Manager by leading the development and managing the production process, working closely with the design and technical teams involved in developing seasonal collections from design concept through prototypes.
• Decreased the time of development by producing detailed PDM & product lifecycle management (PLM) tech packs and following complete development of product from initial drawings to final sample, liaising with factories and travel to offshore factories to follow progress and check production, sourcing trims and fabrics, ordering raw materials and communicating with vendors.
• Successfully added new fabric developments for athletic wear by working closely with QC and Technical departments finding specific fabric attributes needed for sportswear collection
• Achieved a great quality product through clear communication, understanding of the fashion environment design process, understanding of apparel and image aesthetics, and knowledge of material specifications and cost analysis.
• Successfully unified production objectives by managing weekly cross-functional team meetings developing and maintaining line assortments and style packages.

American Textile & Apparel, Miami, FL 2004-2006
Account Coordinator
• Top producing manager of incoming orders and deliveries for garment sewing facilities.
• Improved and coordinated activities, priorities and the flow of information for all departments (sample room, patternmaker, pieced goods, trims and shipping)
• Successfully created master production schedule (MPS) for sewing facilities keeping updated "work in progress" (WIP) reports for each customer that helped to track all vendor shipments to ensure on time delivery.
• Developed excellent rapport with vendors, merchandisers and customers to translate and deliver a consistent message to the consumer that reinforced the values of American Textile & Apparel.

JR Industries, Inc 2003-2004
Account Coordinator/ Compliance Technician
• Managed product from design and technical package preparation through sample stage and final customer approval.
• Planned introduction of new product and future projections versus manufacturing capacities for
• Responsible for all aspects of quality assurance (from initial patterns and samples to final audit) for all sleepwear produced in various facilities/ factories in Colombia and Ecuador
• Introduced and planned work flow and capacity for facilities in Colombia.
• Generated logistics information to be sent to the factory and coordinated all components needed to complete production to meet customer deadlines.


EDUCATION / TRAINING
Arturo Tejada Cano University
Bachelors in Fashion Design and Industrial Patternmaking
Factory compliance certification

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Languages: Spanish

Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Publisher), PDM, Web PDM, Factory Compliance Trained and Certified.