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Design Director, Creation Center Tokyo Sportswear & Performance

Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization:

  • Develop and drive industry leading creative solutions for concepts across Sportswear & Performance (Training, Running, Football), to create a highly relevant, desirable and clear adidas brand image, with primary focus on the Japanese consumer.
  • Lead and manage the internal creative teams across all categories for Apparel, Footwear & Accessories.

 

Key Responsibilities: 

  • Demonstrates strong leadership in driving the end-to-end product design function, ensuring commercially successful product creation that elevates brand competitiveness and contributes to sustainable market share growth.
  • Steer and coach the apparel and accessories design team and their creative processes, driving development of direct reports and inspiring and motivating the team to pursue cutting edge ideas that are innovative and original.
  • Accelerate the development and launch of footwear products to drive and establish a new footwear business in the Japan market.
  • Develop concepts and creative strategies that fulfil objectives of category, concept, brief
  • Collaborate with cross-functional brand & creation partners to ensure consumer- and brand focus, as well as impactful & memorable storytelling
  • Define category Creative Direction for CCT and lead the execution of creative strategies to ensure end to end creative excellence, from sell-in to sellout (consumer-facing)
  • Proactively identifies and interprets consumer and customer needs to drive locally relevant product creation and ensure market driven design decisions.
  • Direct variety of creative resources (agencies, freelancers, writers, videographers, photographers, etc) on creative execution to ensure holistic creative excellence
  • Participate in creation of annual and long-term Creative Direction strategies
  • Present and communicate creative solutions with clarity, effectively selling in ideas to variety of stakeholders
  • Identify opportunities of improvement and change, and initiate own proposals/projects
  • Seek out new Design resources & processes that can deliver world class results

 

Key Relationships: 

  • Senior Director Product & Design
  • Design Directors, Designers
  • CCT Product Marketing
  • Japan Business Units & Brand Activation
  • Channel teams (Wholesale, Retail, Ecom)
  • Global product & design team (CCH)
  • External Agencies and Creative Resources

 

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

  • IT skills:  Excel, Word, PowerPoint: advanced /Outlook
  • Design apps: expert
  • Strong visual and verbal skills with the ability to create impactful/exciting visuals
  • Language: English (excellent) & Japanese

 

Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualifications: 

  • Under-graduate level Design education or combination thereof
  • Solid education and advanced experience in the creative development of successful design concepts
  • At least 10-15 years experience in Sporting Goods/Fashion Industry or Design on managerial level
  • 7 years personnel management experience
  • Passion for adidas and its mission
  • Passion for sports, culture, design

AT ADIDAS WE HAVE A WINNING CULTURE. BUT TO WIN, PHYSICAL POWER IS NOT ENOUGH. JUST LIKE ATHLETES OUR EMPLOYEES NEED MENTAL STRENGTH IN THEIR GAME. WE FOSTER THE ATHLETE’S MINDSET THROUGH A SET OF BEHAVIORS THAT WE WANT TO ENABLE AND DEVELOP IN OUR PEOPLE AND THAT ARE AT THE CORE OF OUR UNIQUE COMPANY CULTURE: THIS IS HOW WE WIN WHILE PLAYING FAIR.

  • COURAGE: Speak up when you see an opportunity; step up when you see a need..
  • OWNERSHIP: Pick up the ball. Be proactive, take responsibility and follow-through.
  • INNOVATION: Elevate to win. Be curious, test and learn new and better ways of doing things.
  • TEAMPLAY: Win together. Work collaboratively and cultivate a shared mindset.
  • INTEGRITY: Play by the rules. Hold yourself and others accountable to our company’s standards.
  • RESPECT: Value all players. Display empathy, be inclusive and show dignity to all.


At adidas, we strongly believe that embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into our culture and talent processes gives our employees a sense of belonging and our brand a real competitive advantage.

– Culture Starts With People, It Starts With You –

By recruiting talent and developing our people to reflect the rich diversity of our consumers and communities, we foster a culture of inclusion that engages our employees and authentically connects our brand with our consumers.

Job Title:  Design Director, Creation Center Tokyo Sportswear & Performance

Brand: 
Location:  Tokyo
TEAM:  Design
State:  Toky
Country/Region:  JP
Contract Type:  Full time
Number:  542171
Date:  Mar 18, 2026
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