Melinda Freeman Email Address

Senior Director Merchandising and Planning at Shinesty

Shinesty is an online retro clothing retailer that founded in June 2014.

Melinda Freeman is currently the Director of Merchandising, Planning, and Logistics for an apparel start up and is an expert in capacity planning, sales forecasting, and product line management. She has her APICS CSCP certification and a Master of Textiles from North Carolina State University. After spending over a decade in the apparel industry and working in supply chain, Melinda has an intricate understanding of what drives product success and the importance of efficient inventory. She partners with leadership for continual improvement by building the annual budget through gap analysis and consensus planning, improving inventory metrics and visibility, reducing forecast error, and increasing the quality of product lines and assortments. Melinda’s successful track record stems from her philosophy that decisions should be data-driven, and all assumptions need to be tracked and compared against in order to learn from historical decision-making. Melinda has worked for large-scale brands such as The North Face, Hanesbrands, VF Corporation, VF Jeanswear (now Kontoor Brands) as well as startups. Throughout her time in the industry she has learned supply chain best practices from her roles in Global S&OP, Demand Planning for Mass markets and Specialty markets, enhancing the customer experience in retail, subscription businesses, participating in DTC projects, and leading the entire process from line planning through PO placement and front-end logistics. Melinda has extensive experience building processes from the ground-up and implementing business initiatives through cross-functional communication to gain buy in.