PURPOSE  

• A key player in Global Sourcing in driving Sourcing’s vision to be the Most Agile, Most Competitive, Most Digitalized & Cleanest Supply Base in the industry. 

• Drive engineering & manufacturing innovations on both process and product level from concept validation to full deployment to create overall industrial competitiveness. Take priority action as a consultant pool of technical experts guiding to a world-class supply of rubber, EVA, PU, injected plastic components, ink/paint, textile coloration, adhesive and other chemical products. 

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES  

• Research sporting goods, technologies, supply partner via reality checks and other industries to benchmark and identify potential opportunities for innovative technology, processes, or materials that create an overall industrial competitive advantage. 

• Understand IP (Intellectual Property) landscape and pro-actively raise potential IP filing opportunities with team to brand legal. 

• Project team based collaboration for engineering & manufacturing innovation product concepts and ingredients from validation to full deployment via technical expertise and action throughout the readiness levels, gate 1 & 2 meetings, and scalability for projects and phases assigned to. 

• Identify challenges & opportunities during the innovation readiness level stages and initiate workstreams needed while maintaining an emphasis on performance, efficiency, cost and sustainability benefits.  

• Work closely with project management teams to provide input for the steering committee decision process and resource allocation. 

• Receive seasonal compound requests from product creation teams and guide supply partner counterparts to experiment, formulate, test and effectively transition from development to production to satisfy those needs. 

• Ownership of Material Lifecycle Management system for bottom material creation and management (clean ups).   

• Validation of and releasing new bottom material suppliers and raw materials.  

• Give technical consultant feedback to materials teams for: 

• New bottom component tier 2 supplier onboarding 

• Overall seasonal strategic capacity  

• Seasonal validation of compound and pigment formulations for final price list  

• Provide the technical expertise when requested to provide solutions options for Quality related issues, solving large scale chemistry related technical issue quality claims, Yearly update A-01 policy in relation to chemistry topics and relevant project and reports. 

• Ensure all sourcing operations and practices fully comply with adidas’ Responsible Sourcing & Purchasing Policy, adidas standards and legal requirements, while managing the relevant processes internally and externally. 

• Role model leadership to foster a culture of Diversity Equity & Inclusion that strives for an inclusive workplace. 

KEY RELATIONSHIPS  

• Global Sourcing: costing, materials, engineering and manufacturing innovation team 

• Headquarter innovation and Business Unit teams. 

• External stakeholders: Sourcing Suppliers 

KNOWLEDGE SKILLS AND ABILITIES  

• Advanced knowledge of polymer chemistry, and other chemical products including formulations, processing, machinery, and physical testing.in the field of “Solid”, “Liquid”, and/or “Gas” specialties: 

• “Solid”: rubber, injected plastic components,  

• “Liquid”: ink/paint, textile coloration, adhesive  

• “Gas”: EVA, PU, TPU. 

• Strong analytical skills for problem solving and for creation, planning and delivering of project work.  

• Ability to successfully explain highly technical concepts to a non-technical audience. 

• Good visionary mindset, continuously updated where the industry is going and consumer needs, challenging the status quo. 

• Basic understanding of costing principles.  

• Strong influencing, people, presentation and communication skills. 

• Strong ability in leading multidimensional teams. 

• Fluent in English (written and spoken). 

• Strong Microsoft office skills. 

REQUISITE EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE  

• University Degree in Chemical Engineering, Polymer Science, Materials Science or related engineering areas. 

• Minimum 7+years of relevant experience