adidas Hiring for Senior Costing Manager – Ivy Park Human Race at Los Angeles, California Full Time

Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organisation:

Leads and manages a cross-divisional team of costing managers to e nsure that the business units (BU) cost and margin targets are met and that there is constant transparency and communication regarding cost and margin throughout the creation process. In addition, this role manages assigned costing projects and creates costing best practices for future product ranges based on marketing finance sales data.

Key Responsibilities:

Costing

• Collaborate with category partners in marketing, design, development and sourcing to ensure margin maximization for the respective categories, within the parameters of adidas strategic objectives .
• Drive implementation, ensure adherence, conduct training and secure up-to-dateness of a fact-based costing process in respective Creation Center and sourcing regions through the evaluation and optimization of cost standards.
• Implement and support functional costing direction within the respective BUs (Business Units).
• Support development and/or enhancement of systems to ensure costing requirements are met and in order to improve costing performance.
• Drive costing process improvements and meet business requirements and objectives.
• Increase awareness and understanding of cost drivers within the organization through the education and training of key business counterparts.
• Work collaboratively with liaison offices to communicate model-level pricing tactics and effectively address critical issues to achieve price targets as part of the escalation process.
• Collaborate with sourcing and finance to ensure all business models are covered by the costing framework during product creation to product finalization/commercialization.
• Collaborate with finance and brand to ensure focus on margin contribution in reviewing range size and new product creation.
• Compile cross-divisional management reports across all product creation milestones till finalization (CR0, CR1, CR2, Final Price List, Color Way Activation, Buy-ready).
• Review and evaluate finance sales data post product launch (e. g. price points, article efficiencies, drop rates) and apply best practises for future ranges.
• Ensure all costing timelines are met in full across all product creation milestones till finalization.
• Be a key contributor to category growth and profitability by gaining a full understanding of category business potential, anticipating requirements and proposing cost-based solutions to achieve objectives.
• Manage assigned costing projects.

People Management

• Build the appropriate structure to be able to manage the respective organization effectively, identify and develop the future talents and create realistic succession scenarios for key positions.
• Ensure appropriate leadership skills are present at every level through creating a motivational and supportive work environment in which employees are coached, trained and provided with career opportunities through development.
• Allocate the different topics and work streams to the respective teams and employees considering experience, complexity, workload and organizational efficiency.
• Continuously monitor and evaluate team workload and organizational efficiency with the support of systems, data and analysis and team feedback and make appropriate changes in order to meet business needs.
• Provide team members/direct reports with clear direction and targets that are aligned with business needs and objectives.

Key Relationships:

• Marketing
• Design
• Development
• Materials
• Sourcing
• Finance

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities :

• Strong knowledge of athletic footwear, apparel or accessories industry, specialising in product costing, product development, or marketing
• Exposure to the latest in footwear, apparel or accessories materials, components, processes and concepts
• Strong technical knowledge of footwear, apparel or accessories construction and production, material construction and properties, and product pricing
• Strong analytical and reporting skills
• Ability to translate data into management decision proposals (storytelling)
• Ability to manage and complete multiple projects under a deadline
• Computer literacy
• Fluency in English

Requisite Education and Experience/Minimum Qualifications:

• Undergraduate university or technical degree with major focus in footwear and/or apparel development or manufacturing
• Minimum 5 years of progressive experience in relevant industry
• Proven project management experience
• People management experience beneficial