McClatchy Retail Network  ·  Category Growth
The First 90 Days
PREPARED BY MATT IRBY
AUGUST 2026

How I'd spend the first 90 days — building trust with the people who run this business today, seeing it from the ground floor, and turning what I learn into a roadmap we shape together.

01
DAYS 1–30
Lay of the Land
Build trust and understand the business before proposing to change it.
  • Map the vendor landscape across books, calendars & chargers
  • Build relationships with category managers, retail HQ sales & field merchandising
  • Pull real planograms & reset processes — validate the manual-Excel picture
  • Begin early store visits to build field instinct
Checkpoint
Informal state-of-the-business view — fragmentation by category, what's working, what's not
02
DAYS 31–60
Ground Floor
See the business the way shoppers and store teams experience it.
  • Visit stores across footprints — small-format, grocery, mass / club
  • Talk with store leads & associates about resets, stockouts & fixture conflicts
  • Cross-check field reality against HQ assumptions
  • Test planogram tooling against one category's real data
Checkpoint
Point-of-view review with manager — prioritized read on what's working and sequencing
03
DAYS 61–90
The Roadmap
Turn ground-truth into a plan worth resourcing.
  • Build short-term (process & tooling), medium-term (first VOR pitch), long-term (category expansion) roadmap
  • Set explicit success metrics & resourcing needs at each horizon
  • Present findings, priorities & asks to my manager
Checkpoint
Written roadmap and resourcing ask, delivered
AS OF

Start date
Pull date
Dimensions
Fixture

Notes for this placement