Senior Director Sportswear Apparel Category Management

Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization:

• Be the Sportswear Apparel lead by creating and executing GTM plans to drive business success with brand’s KPI and ambition

Business responsibilities:  

• Drive & develop short and long term (1-3 year) category plan based on overall adidas SBP process (in collaboration with Global and GCA)
• Provide leadership within category (across all related functions & departments) on vision, strategic objectives/actions & financial targets as defined in brand SBP
• Deliver financial expectations set out in the SBP/IBP across all channels and countries.
• Define category CI and lead the communication with Global BU to deliver solution that address GCA needs.
• Define & implement category availability and pricing strategy across GCA country cluster & channels
• Deliver credible, compelling, commercial, viable range/concept/key franchise selection for GCA to support the overall brand strategy, purpose & direction.
• Create and Own Seasonal Product plan and calendar, collaborate with Brand Activation to align prioritization of category and key concepts allocation.

Team leader responsibilities:  

• Lead all creation needs, validate SMU requests for GCA and leverage CCH & CCS to fulfill GCA needs to support the SBP. Effective application of speed to market.
• Lead and guide team on Sell-through and sustainable lifecycle management of the category across GCA, develop performance tracking dashboards and share update with Global BU
• Drive performance and development culture through #MYBEST
• Drive employee engagement for team development and performance rating

Remark:

BU: Business Unit

CCH: Creation Center Herzo

CCS: Creation Center Shanghai

SBP: Strategic business planning

IBP: Integrated business planning

GCA: Greater China

CI: Commercial input

Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

• Ability to develop and implement strategy. Experience in apparel merchandising. Creation knowledge is a plus.
• Proven leadership and management abilities especially in managing a diverse ~10 people team (incl. remote management)
• Strong presentation/communication, negotiation and influencing skills, especially with senior stakeholders within a global matrix organization.
• Broad Brand management experience, with a distinct track record of success including expert Merchandising knowledge and trading mentality.
• Strong cross-functional and stakeholder management experience across commercial functions (e.g. marketing, sales, etc.) and support functions (finance preferred), as well as different organizational levels (Global, Market, etc.)
• Expert understanding of Asian markets’ consumers, accounts, economic environment, and commercial needs
• Act with agility without losing the strategic focus and ability to lead a team through ambiguity in fast-paced consumer goods market segment. 

Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualification

• 12-15+ years of experience in merchandising/product, marketing, sales/retail required. Regional experience preferred.

• University degree in Business or equivalent professional experience, ideally in Sales and/or Marketing.

• Previous experience in managing a global matrix organization required

• Sporting goods industry experience required
• Fluent in English
• Fluent in local language (if applicable) preferred
• Has lived and worked in different cultures or has substantial experience working in regional teams
• Willingness to travel upwards of 20% of time