Director, Projects - Supply Chain

Purpose: The Director Projects- SCM NAM will lead the planning and implementation of key strategic initiatives to create competitive advantage for the North America Supply Chain Team (including Purchasing, Order Fulfillment, Deployment, Omni-Chanel Operations, SCM Development, Logistics and Transportation). Strategy and Programs is a department within Global Operations (GOPS) with a mission to shape strategy and implement new programs/capabilities into adidas markets across the globe. Implementation is always a partnership between the operational SCM teams and S&P project managers.

Key Responsibilities:

• Led the implementation of SCM initiatives, portfolios, or programs in the North America market in alignment with Global/Corporate strategic direction
• Drive the full program lifecycle from planning/discovery through full delivery and sustainment from the all-encompassing perspectives of people, process and tools
• Facilitate strategic decisions for the NAM SCM team with global relevance, working together with corresponding stakeholders to ensure alignment of objectives and needs
• Collaborate cross-functionally to implement and evolve SCM solutions that meet business objectives in terms of profitability, service improvement and business growth
• Drive alignment between global and market project & functional teams. Ensure harmonization of global and market processes with reduced complexity, increased transparency, and clear accountability to achieve business results.
• Support the execution of a clear roadmap for strategic SCM projects and identify sub-initiatives and inter-dependencies across various initiatives to ensure alignment across functions
• Ensure project planning, resource planning, milestone tracking, risk management and Governance oversight according to project discipline standards
• Provide regular status updates to project business owners and Senior Management as well as change management and stakeholder communications across appropriate platforms
• Build and cultivate a high-performance team of direct reports and matrixed reports to deliver business value through the execution of strategic supply chain projects.
• Perform line manager role on direct reports (e.g. recruiting, performance appraisal, team building, career development, succession planning)

Key Relationships:

• Lead project activities and partner with stakeholders
• Steer and encourage discussions with x-functional stakeholders to ensure adequate and timely alignment on proposed direction(s)
• Independently identify and manage (senior) stakeholder group, establish solid working relationship and steer communication
• Stakeholders can relate to the following core functions:
• Global Supply Chain (Global Product Supply, Global Logistics & Distribution, etc.)
• Markets (regional Supply Chain and Sales functions, etc.)
• Sourcing (Footwear, Apparel and Accessories Sourcing, etc.)
• Other GOPS functions (Sustainability, Global IT/Tech, Data & Analytics, etc.)
• Marketing (horizontal and vertical Business Units divisions)
• Corporate functions (Corporate Strategy, Finance, HR, etc.)

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
Soft skills:

• End-to-end mindset, big picture view of problems on hand
• Ability to think and understand topics tactically, operationally, and strategically
• Creative, energetic personality, able to influence the agenda
• Decisive, taking ownership and leadership appearance
• Track record on coaching, talent and team management
• Experience in multi-cultural and cross-divisional management
• Ability to demonstrate our values for living an inclusive and respectful culture of belonging
• Ability to hold others accountable in effective ways
• Ability to manage diverse stakeholders and drive change within varied cultures and viewpoints
• Ability to thrive in/bring clarity to ambiguous situations
• Ability to work within a fast-paced, high-expectation environment

Hard skills:

• Excellent facilitation, negotiation, presentation, and story-telling skills for executive level audiences
• Proven track records in managing large teams and/or external consultant
• Ability to launch large-scale complex projects and proven track record of strategic project management experience, advanced understanding of business process management, methodologies, and principles
• Strong and disciplined project management skills. Expertise and experience in promoting and applying project management tools and services
• Change management experience (defining and implementing process, system, organizational, and reporting changes)
• Strong analytical skills and quantitative skills necessary to create business cases, cost/benefit analyses, and option/trade-off analysis in order to influence Senior Management

People management skills:

• Lead and direct team of (senior) project managers
• Handle all related line management responsibility
• Coach and mentor team members with people development plan
• Foster a highly motivational and encourage highly diverse working environment
• Instills a team culture in which all important issues are discussed openly and constructively
• Support definition and drive people strategy (e.g., recruitment, development)
• Empowers individual team members and generates a can-do culture
• Ability to effectively delegate work as appropriate and provide individual goals and development plans to staff.

Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualifications:

• Four-year college or university degree with emphasis in supply chain, IT, logistics or operations preferred. We welcome other relevant experience or a combination of education and experience in place of formal education or a degree.
• Minimum 7-8 years of relevant work experience in supply chain management (include top tier consulting practices), project management, apparel/fashion, or related industry, within which 2-4 years' proven track record of large-scale project / program management experience; direct report / team management a plus
• PMP and lean sigma certification preferred