Senior Manager, Mens Sports Style, Global - Converse

ABOUT CONVERSE

Are you interested in working for the most iconic and well-loved sneaker brand in the world? Born in sports and made for the street, Converse is a place to explore your potential, obliterate boundaries and push out the edges of what can be. We seek people who can lead, grow, think, dream, and create. Our culture thrives by embracing diversity and rewarding imagination. Converse seeks achievers, leaders, and visionaries. At Converse, it's about each person bringing their authentic self, skills, and passion to serve the daring spirit of youth.

ABOUT OUR TEAM

At Converse, we are independent enough not to follow. At Converse, designers build what's next, shaping the culture and advancing our product collections. The Design Teams include industrial designers, inventors, and specialists, all with different focuses, including color and material experts, and apparel, footwear and graphics designers. Converse designers look to the future, courageously pursuing new ideas that further elevate the consumer's experience, set the standard for modern style and propel our athletes to greater heights.

Converse Designers combine relentless curiosity and passion for street style and sport to transform the insights of our consumers into innovations that advance the independent spirit of youth. The Global Design & Innovation Team is a diverse community with a broad set of expertise in Consumer Insights, Innovation, Footwear Design, Apparel Design, Accessory Design, Color Design, Graphic Design, Material Design, and Design Operations. We work collaboratively across the Converse brand to deliver meaningful concepts to our consumer in brand, product and experience.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We're looking for a Senior Manager, Mens Sports Style with outstanding design skills to build original, athlete-led product and stories for the Converse Basketball Consumer. This role must demonstrate creative excellence, understanding both the art and science of product creation and an exceptional knowledge of Basketball culture - on and off court. Through professional athlete engagement and basketball consumer connection, this role will be able to translate innovative ideas into significant products that resonate with our consumers and will respond to business objectives with creative design solutions aligned to consumer insights. This role will assist in setting direction, concept & design for our Basketball category - both professional athlete models and the broader collection. Excellent communication skills will be critical with teammates across the organization, including listening, collaborative problem solving & deep emotional intelligence. The role demands big picture thinking and strong leadership capabilities with regards to product relevance, product positioning, timing & collections.

WHAT YOU WILL WORK ON

If this is you, you'll be working within the Footwear Design function, with a sharp focus on Basketball footwear product - both performance and lifestyle. You will elevate the consumer experience through athlete centric storytelling, outstanding product craft & use of performance technologies. You will engage directly with professional athletes to build product to the highest level of performance and style. You will ensure key product creation process dates/gates are met, design tools are effectively applied, and cross-functional partnership occurs appropriately. You will be the expert in Basketball culture and will help to educate the broader Product Creation Function on the latest trends and research regarding Basketball Culture and the Basketball Marketplace. You will create consumer relevant original concepts that appropriately reflect Converse's Design Ethos and our Creative Direction. You will maintain healthy cross-functional relationships and build matrix relationships outside of immediate team. You will demonstrate curiosity and proactively enhance business acuity. You will strive to continuously improve the Footwear Design function, identifying ways to work smarter, gain more insights and position the brand competitively in the market.

WHO YOU WILL WORK WITH

As our Senior Manager, Mens Sports Style you'll work under the direction of the Category Design Director to create innovative designs for Converse Basketball Footwear products and partner with the cross-functional Category teams to create a basketball footwear collection from concept to reality. You'll develop seasonal product direction and clearly position Converse's performance and design leadership to ensure that creative strategies and products inspire key consumers and lead our business forward. You'll also communicate creative direction, product concepts and consumer insights to internal and external audiences; finalize tech packages and proactively follow the execution of all product details, including construction, color, form, style, detail, fit performance and cost/value requirements; and review all samples and clearly communicate changes required. You will also travel to factories to ensure the highest level of product creation. This opportunity also involves serving as a consumer expert for our Category and Design teams and applying insights from a consumer perspective into all product designs and strategy creation. In addition, you'll ensure product fit and performance criteria, manufacturability, cost/margins, merchandising, aesthetic finish while, meeting the product creation timelines for key financial and statement models.

You will report to the Category Director and work alongside Design Leadership when setting seasonal direction. Our culture is one that highly collaborative, so you will work closely with Product Merchandising, Developers and adjacent business partners. You will also partner globally with our geographies and across Converse Inc where necessary.

WHAT YOU BRING

Bachelor's degree in Industrial Design or Product Design and 8 years of progressive post-baccalaureate experience in the job offered or a related occupation or no degree and 7 years of progressive work experience involving the following.

Experience must include:

• Performance and lifestyle basketball footwear design

• Expertise in basketball culture and marketplace

• Pro Athlete product creation experience

• Pro Athlete engagement

• Presentation and public speaking skills

• Technical footwear manufacturing

• Factory experience

• Rapid prototyping skills

• Basketball and lifestyle trend insights/research

• Mood board creation

• Consumer insights research

• Market Research

• Illustrator

• Photoshop

• Miro

• Keynote

• 3-D modelling tools and 3D printing experience a plus

• AI ideation and rendering skills a plus