Head of Footwear Sourcing Strategy

This role\’s mission is to bridge the gap between global sourcing and product development, ensuring sourcing is a strategic enabler from the outset. By fostering strong partnerships across Innovation, Creation, Quality, Supply Chain, and Sustainability teams, you\’ll drive a learning culture that enhances quality and on-time delivery. Ultimately, your success hinges on delivering a sourcing roadmap that enables the flawless execution of our product portfolio, balancing cost, quality, and delivery objectives.

Your Mission

• Strategic Alignment: Drive close collaboration between the sourcing organization (primarily based in Vietnam) and the wider product organization (based in Switzerland)
• Integrate Sourcing Considerations: Ensure sourcing requirements are strategically embedded into the product roadmap, enabling all projects to be fully ‘sourcing ready’ by the time of product freeze
• Stakeholder Management: Act as a strategic partner across cross-functional teams including Innovation, Creation, Quality, Supply Chain, and Sustainability
• Learning Culture: Embed a ‘learning culture & process’ within our product development process to structurally enhance quality & on-time delivery
• Portfolio Execution: Deliver a sourcing roadmap that supports flawless execution of the product portfolio, balancing cost, quality, and delivery objectives

Your story

• 8+ years of progressive experience in strategic footwear sourcing, production operations (apparel & accessories experience is a plus)
• Product Development Acumen – strong understanding of the product development lifecycle, from concept to commercialization, with a specific emphasis on the points of integration for sourcing, experience across upstream product strategy, innovation, product creation, and quality management
• Strong ability to ‘connect the dots’ across functions, ability to navigate ambiguity and adapt to changing priorities
• Strong leadership skills to manage a portfolio of cross-functional projects
• Strategic Thinking & Execution – proven ability to translate strategic objectives into actionable plans and drive their successful execution within a complex organizational structure
• Cross-cultural Collaboration – experience working in a global organization, demonstrated experience in fostering effective collaboration between geographically dispersed teams (e.g., Europe and Asia)
• Stakeholder Management – exceptional ability to build and maintain strong relationships with diverse internal stakeholders at all levels, influencing outcomes and driving consensus
• Continuous Improvement Mindset – experience in implementing continuous improvement methodologies and fostering a learning-oriented environment
• Analytical & Problem-Solving Skills – strong analytical capabilities to evaluate complex trade-offs (cost, quality, delivery) and develop effective solutions, strong ability to synthesize, structure & simplify complex problems
• Excellents Communication Skills – ability to articulate complex ideas clearly and persuasively to various audiences; engaging, influencing and aligning with senior leaders

About the Team

You will be part of the Product Organization: The innovation engine that is responsible to design, develop & source innovative products.

Relationships are so important to us. From our teammates to our suppliers, we’re here to bring joy to everyone we work with. We’re energized by sharing ideas, making connections and solving problems together.

Just by the banks of the Limmat you’ll find our largest global hub in Zürich West – On Labs – where you can hike up 12 floors through our custom-built spiral trail.

On is a place that is centered around growth and progress. We offer an environment designed to give people the tools to develop holistically – to stay active, to learn, explore and innovate. Our distinctive approach combines a supportive, team-oriented atmosphere, with access to personal self-care for both physical and mental well-being, so each person is led by purpose.

On is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to creating a work environment that is fair and inclusive, where all decisions related to recruitment, advancement, and retention are free of discrimination.

We want to set everyone up for success, so here’s the lowdown on how we hire. Our process is a two-way street – bringing you into our culture, while helping us learn how you think.

Our full process can last about eight weeks from application to offer, because we care about getting it right. These steps explain how we usually do things.

Before you get started, feel free to consider if you want to work with us. Strange question? Well, we give people a lot of space to navigate their day-to-day and that style isn\’t for everyone. We want you to be passionate about what you do and be sure this is the right fit. Because when skills and passion combine – it creates that \’Wow\‘ moment.

Step One:

It starts with you…

You\’ll start by submitting your application to a specific role.

We try to keep this step as simple as possible. We do get a lot of applications, but we review them all. We ask that you allow around 14 days for us to come back to you with a response. If you are a good fit to the role, someone will follow up with you within that window. If you didn\’t receive a reply, or were unsuccessful this time around, we encourage you to look for other possible matches at On.

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