Director, Kids Footwear Design

Leads and establishes a team and helps create the seasonal creative direction for the Kids FTW category together with the category head. It maintains and nurtures the design, material and colour direction with the Design team, ensuring consistency across products and ranges. The role steers conceptualisation, innovation and team development within the category and works with internal and external teams to ensure efficient processes and communication.

• Develop the seasonal direction of the Kids FTW category according to market trends and the overall Design Direction, ensuring consistency through products and ranges.
• Be at the global forefront of design trends and innovation and their application.
• Steer and drive the conceptualisation process within the category.
• Manage a team toward category objectives and implement process changes.
• Steer and coach team members and their creative processes and drive the development of direct reports.
• Inspire and motivate teams to pursue cutting-edge, innovative and original ideas by researching functional criteria for product and product concepts and outlining areas of innovation.
• Ensure the correct execution of Corporate Identity guidelines and legal restrictions within the category.
• Present category strategies verbally with clarity and expertise and disseminate Design Strategy into the category and cross-functional teams.
• Create professional-level presentations of ideas from loose sketch to detailed renderings to digital presentation.
• Ensure efficient processes and communication between external and internal teams and maintain key relationships with Marketing, Development, the Global design head, team members and external partners.

• Profound knowledge of fashion product and fashion design/industrial product or industrial design.
• Innovative and collaborative leader and coach.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Strong influencing skills.
• High level of initiative and maturity.
• Ability to inspire, think creatively and strategically and act tactically.
• Problem-solving attitude and can-do personality.
• Fluent in English, spoken and written.
• Advanced IT skills in Photoshop, Illustrator, Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook.
• Bachelor degree (B.A.) from a four-year college or university in a relevant Design subject or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Minimum of 10 years practical experience in FTW design, with kids' FTW experience as a must-have.
• Minimum of 5 years of management including team leadership.

The company believes that embedding diversity, equity and inclusion into its culture and talent processes gives employees a sense of belonging and the brand a competitive advantage.