Design Studio/Product Development Director

SUMMARY:

This role sets direction at a strategic level as well as the tactical execution of the product creation calendar to reliably develop product-to-design intent, quality, margin and timeline expectations, collaborating across department leaders with a multi-season time horizon perspective.

Leadership + Cross Functional Partnership:

• Drives adherence to product development calendar and goals: Partner with cross functional leaders in Design, Merchandising, Sourcing, etc. to achieve maximum efficiency and on-time delivery.
• Provides leadership across the product team while coaching and guiding team-members in order to achieve department and brand results.
• Create and maintain dashboard and reporting of product development/management KPIs for senior leadership review.
• PD Process Ownership: Owns delivering products within parameters set by Design & Merchandising. Ensure products meet design intent, quality, & margin goals.

Calendar Planning

• Leads weekly meetings with fabric, design, and tech teams to outline weekly priorities for style launch and materials status. Ability to multitask and shift priorities as needed.
• Schedules all design worktimes and cross functional design meetings
• Drives cross functional alignment on development goals and ensures product development cycle are kept by all parties (cross-functional team, suppliers, etc).
• Creates Product Development Calendar. Leads communication on follow ups and troubleshoots timelines to meet on time delivery.

Product

• Oversees seasonal knitwear proto and SMS yarn orders in conjunction with Knitwear Product Developer
• Manages all Proto and Salesmen Sample Costing. This includes evaluating material costs, estimating costs for domestic made protos and SMS, reviewing and negotiating factory costing, and entering all final SMS costing in RLM system.
• Coordinates all proto and 1st production fittings in conjunction with the Design, Tech, and Production teams
• Manages all seasonal proto and salesmen sample launches domestically and overseas.
• Responsible for PLM Date Excellence: Oversees the creation of seasonal product in the RLM system and ensures collection data is up to date throughout the season. This includes finalizing linesheet descriptions, confirming sketches, inputting colors &sizing to ensure accuracy.
• In conjunction with the PD coordinator, creates and maintains BOM pages for proto and salesmen sample launches and manages the finalization of BOMs to the production team at seasonal collection handover
• Manages seasonal factory allocation in conjunction with the Fabric and Production teams
• Ensure quality standards and the most efficient price simultaneously - considering all cost drivers (including raw materials, trims, transport costs, supplier capacity, etc.)
• Monitors seasonal domestic sample making needs/costs. Alerts management if additional budget allocation is needed for midtown sample rooms to ensure on time sample delivery
• Identifies opportunities to cost engineer products, leverage materials and implement best practices.

Factory Communication

• Develops deep understanding of vendor/factory capabilities.
• Launches design technique trials with overseas factories based on design concept and intent (such as embellishment sourcing, denim washes, print strikeoffs, stitch trials)
• Leads communication on follow up and troubleshoots on all seasonal development.
• Monitors factory status reports, costing, & xfty dates

Atelier Management

• Manages material supply levels in the atelier to make sure fabrics, trims, fusible, and pattern paper are constantly in stock
• Responsible for the day-to-day organization and workflow of in-house atelier for seasonal collection development

Material Resource & Development

• Supervises accurate production information in PLM and materials library.
• Supervises all seasonal collection trim sourcing and procurement.
• Evaluates trim supplier options in terms of price, quality, and MOQs.

Manages: Senior PD Coordinator, 2 sample sewers, 2 pattern makers