Job Description
The Manager of Materials will manage, support, and execute the seasonal material development processes, utilizing advanced and innovative product related materials, process, and knowledge. Technical responsibilities include understanding fibers for both lifestyle and performance base fabrications, cut and sew apparel manufacturing, fabric mill and wash processes as well as associated limitations, anticipating issues, problem solving, and timely resolution. As a leader on the team, you are responsible for providing direction, inspiration, and guidance. Leading goes beyond a title, it is a way of being and we are looking for someone who promotes an environment that is curious, diverse, and thought provoking. It is critical that you can balance your workload as well as manage others.
Responsibilities include but are not limited to:
- Passion for mentorship; lead up to 5 direct reports to achieve business, product, and personal goals
- Solution and opportunity oriented within process, resources, timelines, and team engagement
- Lead, develop, and coach Material and Color Developers, promoting career development, and managing performance. Continue to collaborate on the team structure as needed to support the business.
- Demonstrate and set expectations for effective, clear, and timely communication throughout team.
- Manage end-to-end roles for direct reports in the Materials division.
- Be a mentor on the material development team and cross-functional partners on material construction, features, and benefits to enhance their knowledge to enable informed decisions to positively impact the garment.
- Demonstrate expectations for effective, clear, and timely communication throughout team.
- Plan and track the development schedule across multiple seasons & categories across lifestyle and performance developments to ensure timely completion according to calendar.
- Support creation of Materials' seasonal development calendar and advocate for process adjustments and improvements.
- Collaborate cross functionally to optimize timelines and establish necessary milestones to drive efficiencies
- Support department goals through execution of KPI’s
- Support in the assessment and scoring of vendor performance as related to pricing, consistency, sustainability, to allocate appropriately based on strengths and quality.
- Manage the material development process from end-to-end for directly owned lifestyle and performance categories.
- Build and maintain all materials documentation in share systems / files, including material detail specs, pricing, moq, lead time, and critical process information.
- Recommend fabric construction changes and/or finishing to achieve desired performance and aesthetic balance that meets all testing standards.
- Pertinent attendance in fittings to provide technical support as needed as well as ensure materials are fit for best performance.
- Collaborate with the Sustainability Manager to ensure material development alignment with seasonal waypoints and long-term direction of the Vuori Sustainability Roadmap
- Oversee maintenance of material library (digital and physical)
- Co-Implement and facilitate the global raw material strategy.
- Actively manage factory relationships including workflow, seasonal costing, and timelines
- Collaborate with Asia Innovation and testing teams to ensure that all materials pass Vuori’s commercialization process by the specified calendar dates.
- Superior organizational skills, attention to detail and ability to multi-task are required to be able to manage oneself and other direct report deliverables