Manager, Materials Sourcing (Leather)

Primary Purpose : Ensure that materials meet performance expectations and are delivered on time. Follow all aspects of leather sourcing.  

Key Responsibilities :

• Support SPs in Cambodia, Indonesia and Material Sourcing team in managing leather and other materials sourcing.
• Ensure quality standards are maintained with newly sensitive leathers introduced from Coach and Kate Spade Product Development.

• • Collaborate with PD to establish cutting standards.
  • Quickly resolve any quality issues to maintain production flow.
  • Ensure Finished Goods are produced with proper standards.

• Manage day to day material issues in Cambodia/Indonesia.
• Ensure SPs understand new materials prior to launching production, based on:
  • Article appreciation.
  • Best Practices.
  • SOPs for cutting/application 

• Ensure non-conformance issues are dealt with to ensure continuous production.
• Ensure factories are properly set-up to receive, inspect, and store materials.
• Crosstrain and develop on-site teams to better understand materials.
• Support the Tapestry Cambodia Sample facilities.
  • Manage material inventory.
  • Support PD during sample making (Design visits).

Education & Experience Requirements 

• 5 years working experience in leather sourcing, manufacturing and product development.

• Strong understanding of manufacturing trends and innovation across a global vendor base.  

• Strong in leather manufacturing, ideally in fashion industry; experienced in managing 3rd party relationships and a proven track record to improve service levels.

• Ability to adapt comfortable in culturally diverse environment.

• Good analytical and project mgmt. skills to quickly identify root cause of problems and implement sustainable corrective actions.

• Excellent relationship builder that can influence change in a matrix environment; excellent communicator.

Key Competencies 

• Strategic Agility: Sees ahead clearly; can anticipate future consequences and trends accurately; can create competitive and breakthrough strategies and plans.  

• Building Effective Teams: Blends people into teams when needed; creates strong morale  

and spirit in his/her team; creates a feeling of belonging in the team. 

• Developing Direct Reports and Others: Provides challenging and stretching tasks and assignments; constructs compelling development plans and executes them; cooperates with the developmental system in the organization; is a people builder. 

• Customer Focus: Is dedicated to meeting the expectations and requirements of internal and external customers. 

• Creativity: Comes up with a lot of new and unique ideas; tends to be seen as original and value-added in brainstorming settings. 

• Interpersonal Savvy: Relates well to all kinds of people, up, down, and sideways, inside and outside the organization. 

• Dealing With Ambiguity: Can effectively cope with change; can shift gears comfortably; can decide and act without having the total picture; isn’t upset when things are up in the air; doesn’t have to finish things before moving on; can comfortably handle risk and uncertainty. 

• Drive For Results: Can be counted on to exceed goals successfully; is constantly and consistently one of the top performers; very bottom-line oriented; steadfastly pushes self and others for results. 

• Learning on the Fly: Learns quickly when facing new problems; enjoys the challenge of unfamiliar tasks; quickly grasps the essence and the underlying structure of anything. 

• Courage: Doesn’t hold back anything that needs to be said; provides current, direct, complete, and “actionable” positive and corrective feedback to others; is not afraid to take negative action when necessary.