Cora Wong
Hong Kong
Summary
With over 20 years of retail buying and merchandising experience in womenswear, menswear, accessories, lifestyle products, sportswear, and kids wear, I have a comprehensive understanding of the industry. Regional expertise includes leading global merchandising teams at Esprit and collaborating with headquarters, overseas clients, suppliers, and regional operation teams at PVH and Burberry. Possessing strong numerical and analytical skills, I am self-motivated and results-oriented with excellent communication skills to engage effectively with diverse cultures and individuals at all levels within the organization.
Overview
18
18
years of professional experience
Work History
Consultant for Buying
Giordano Limited
01.2025 - 03.2025
- Evaluated needs and expectations, collaborated with cross-functional teams to establish clear goals for buying team.
- Streamlined internal processes to enhance team efficiency and improve overall results
- Evaluated teammates' performance and provided coaching to address inefficiencies.
- Introduced reports and presentations to stakeholders, providing insights and actionable recommendations to enhance business review capability.
- Guided the team through product assortment planning tool and store grading tool in order to complete FW2025 buy.,
VP of Global Merchandising
Esprit De Corp (Far East) Ltd.
11.2022 - 06.2024
- Lead Global Merchandising team in Asia, while working closely with Global Merchandising team in NYC to cover merchandising and buying globally for all channels.
- Lead Asia design team for product development with key focus on premium price point brand led assortment.
- Work closely with senior executive to lead restructuring of merchandising and planning teams in Europe. Clearly define roles and responsibilities of key markets, regional teams, and global teams to improve efficiency.
- Focus on Europe e-commerce business in transitional period of restructuring. Guide EU team with new ways of working and company goal to optimize efficiency to achieve financial KPIs.
- Collaborated with cross functional teams including design, sourcing, wholesale, and retail team to refine Go-To-Market calendar. Implement new ways of working with built-in milestones that ensure rigor in analysis, also to check and balance needs across different regions, channels, and brand. Presented 9-month product development process in CEO Summit to gain alignment on new processes and to make sure all teams understand milestones intent, commitment, and delivery.
- Implement new assortment building methodology to strategically curate assortment by channels to balance brand elevation and yet achieving sales and profitability targets. Deep dive into product needs of different distributions in terms of cost structure, retail price, product lifespan and markdown cadence.
- Work with new business partners to bring kidswear, activewear and underwear as in house development with better control over branding, assortment and pricing comparing to previous licensing model.
- Directed and implemented market analysis on product offering and pricing across Asia, North America, and Europe markets for all channels. Identify opportunities and improve Go-To-Market strategies by regions.
- Worked with business intelligence and global planning team to identify reporting needs and KPI. Set up reporting tools and established regularly published reports to help all parties analyzing business.
Senior Buying Director
PVH Ltd.
03.2011 - 11.2022
- Joined as Buying Manager and then being promoted to Buying Director in Dec 2013 and Senior Buying Director in April 2018.
- Responsible for strategic merchandise assortment planning and buying functions for direct retail markets and online platform of CK Jeans, CK Jeans Accessories, CK Underwear, CK Performance and CK Apparel for HK+ (Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan) with nine teammates.
- Budgeting, merchandising strategy definition, premarket proto review, and line adoption, liaise with corporate merchandising team and product selection during market week, monitoring sales performance, merchandise planning and allocation, initiating markdown and promotion, plus product training for direct retail markets.
- Review business plan, suggest merchandise assortment for wholesale and travel retail teams to make sure partners' merchandise mix goes in line with corporate direction. Conduct market visits and product training for wholesale markets like Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam to ensure coherent brand image and service standard across HK+.
- Tapped into visual merchandising, marketing, and project field after latest promotion in April 2018 to push business more effectively with GTM partners.
- Key accomplishments
- - Managing buying activities of five brands with SKU count of around 3500 per year.
- - Running around 140 stores with annual sales volume 115 million USD in 2020.
- - Being nominated as committee of “Innovation Think Tank” in the company to help generating and developing innovative ideas applicable across all business lines.
- - Being selected as PVH representative in Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Frontier Challenge, an annual program to select the most innovative fashion start up. Participated in workshop held in Amsterdam helping the finalists developing and presenting their ideas to the jury panel.
Regional Merchandising Manager
Burberry Asia Limited
04.2009 - 03.2011
- Awarded as Burberry Asia Icon 2010 for Womenswear division.
- Joined as Assistant Merchandising Manager of HK and Macau and being promoted to Regional Merchandising Manager of Asia Pacific, covering China, Hong Kong, Macau, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Australia, and Japan markets.
- Function as voice of Asia and work closely with corporate, North America and Europe merchandising team for global assortment.
- Budgeting, product selection, monitoring sales performance, merchandise planning and allocation.
- Worked closely with visual merchandising team on seasonal floor set and actively participate in marketing activities.
Merchandising Manager
Esprit Regional Services
11.2006 - 10.2008
- Responsible for outlet business in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and New Zealand with sales contribution of over 20 percent within Asia.
- Work with merchandising team of all divisions to ensure Made for Outlet products achieving financial goals yet not jeopardizing full price business.
- OTB planning, product selection and development for MFO, merchandise planning and allocation, monitoring sales performance and initiating markdowns and promotions for all product lines in outlets
Education
Online - Digital Marketing: Customer Engagement, Social Media, Planning & Analytics
Columbia Business School
New York11.2021
Certificate of German as Foreign Language -
Goethe Institute
Hong Kong12.1999
Bachelor of Arts (Honor) - Comparative Literature, German, Fine Arts
University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong07.1998
International Summer Course - German Language, Culture and Economy
University of Bremen
Germany07.1997
Skills
- Communication Skills
- Analytical Thinking Skills
- Creative Problem Solving
- Client relationships
- MS office
Languages
English
Mandarin
Cantonese
German
References
References available upon request
Timeline
Consultant for Buying
Giordano Limited
01.2025 - 03.2025
VP of Global Merchandising
Esprit De Corp (Far East) Ltd.
11.2022 - 06.2024
Senior Buying Director
PVH Ltd.
03.2011 - 11.2022
Regional Merchandising Manager
Burberry Asia Limited
04.2009 - 03.2011
Merchandising Manager
Esprit Regional Services
11.2006 - 10.2008
Online - Digital Marketing: Customer Engagement, Social Media, Planning & Analytics
Columbia Business School
Certificate of German as Foreign Language -
Goethe Institute
Bachelor of Arts (Honor) - Comparative Literature, German, Fine Arts
University of Hong Kong
International Summer Course - German Language, Culture and Economy
University of Bremen
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