Product Category Leader For Carpet And Lvt/Mrf

Interface is a global flooring solutions company and sustainability leader, offering an integrated portfolio of carpet tile and resilient flooring products that includes Interface carpet tile and LVT, nora rubber flooring, and FLOR premium area rugs for commercial and residential spaces. Made with purpose and without compromise, Interface flooring brings more sophisticated design, more performance, more innovation, and more climate progress to interior spaces.

A decades-long pioneer in sustainability, Interface remains "all in" on becoming a restorative business. Today, the company is focusing on carbon reductions, not offsets, as it works toward achieving its verified science-based targets by 2030 and its goal to become a carbon negative enterprise by 2040.

Reporting to the Chief Innovation & Sustainability Officer, the Product Category Leader for Carpet and LVT/Multilayer Resilient Flooring ("MRF") has global responsibility for developing and driving the growth and profitability for Carpet Tile and LVT/MRF product categories at Interface.

Working collaboratively with senior company executives, cross-functional teams, customers, and critical external partners and suppliers, they will develop and execute strategic initiatives to take an ownership role in driving the development, growth, and profitability of both product categories, while simultaneously ensuring alignment with market trends and customer requirements. These responsibilities include creating robust business cases and selling and pricing strategies to support the company's regional commercial leadership team's achievement of annual targets.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Strategic Planning: Develop and implement a comprehensive global product category strategy aligned with the company objectives and market needs. This includes a demonstrable record of effective category definition and assessment, including macro trend evaluation, customer and influencer positioning and behavior assessment, and share measurement and trend monitoring.

Market Analysis: Conduct thorough market analysis to identify current market share positioning and opportunities for growth through both over category growth and share gain, evaluate competition, and anticipate market trends, with a particular focus on understanding and responding to regional variances in product preferences and minimum requirements.

Design Collaboration: Understand current and future design trends, and work in tandem with the company's design teams to ensure the category's products reflect design leadership principles, the company's brand positioning, and regional market needs, and are designed in a manner that facilitates efficient manufacture and coordinates effectively with the Company's other current and future product categories.

Product Development: Lead product development efforts from concept to launch, collaborating with Supply Chain, Product Management, Design, Marketing and Sales teams to deliver innovative, low carbon, highly sustainable and competitive products in furtherance of the company's Science-Based Targets and other sustainability goals and commitments.

Portfolio Management: Lead the management of the product portfolios, including lifecycles, introductions, recolorations, deletions and product modifications. Support Planning and Logistics on both introductory and deletion inventory strategies for both product categories.

Pricing and Margins: Optimize pricing strategies to maximize margins while maintaining competitiveness in the regional markets. The product category leader will need to collaborate closely with the company's finance and commercial teams to ensure alignment with financial expectations.

Cross-Functional Leadership: Collaborate with cross-functional teams including Supply Chain, Product Management, Design, Marketing, Sales and Finance to ensure alignment and execution of product strategies.

Customer Focus: Champion the voice of the customer throughout the product development process, ensuring that the products meet customer needs and expectations.

Performance Monitoring: Establish key performance indicators, including category P&Ls, to track the performance of the product by region, category, and segment, taking corrective actions as needed.

Vendor/Supplier Coordination: Collaborate closely with the company's strategic sourcing/procurement function to ensure alignment with third party suppliers for key raw materials, product components, and sourced finished goods.

Requirements:

The role requires strong financial acumen, exceptional communication and influencing skills, and a demonstrated ability to successfully operate across the boundaries of both geographies and cultures.

• Degree level qualification in Business Administration, Marketing, Engineering, or related field

• A minimum of ten years of experience in product management, with a proven track record of success in developing and launching products for a global market.

• Strong track record of effective team and people leadership, including success in building new functional capabilities and related organizational structures within an existing organization to respond to evolving market demands.

• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret complex data and market trends. Familiarity with current data analytics platforms and data visualization tools.

• Excellent leadership and communication skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate across geographies, functions, and different hierarchical levels of the organization.

• Strategic thinker with the ability to develop and execute long-term product strategies.

• Experience in sustainability and sustainable practices is highly desirable.

• Experience in flooring, textiles and interior design is highly desirable.

• This position will be based in Georgia, USA and will require frequent international travel.

We are a VEVRAA Federal Contractor. We desire priority referrals of Protected Veterans for job openings at all locations within the State of Georgia. An Equal Opportunity Employer including Veterans and Disabled.