Head of Business Process Excellence

In short:

The global Operational Excellence team is looking for a Head of Business Process Excellence to lead our Idea-to-Product domain and Business Architecture team. We are seeking a visionary, data-driven leader to revolutionize our Creation processes. In this role, you will define next-generation digital capabilities - including advanced AI integration- while continuously optimizing our current workflows. You will lead a newly formed team of 5-7, acting as the primary business owner and strategic sparring partner for the Senior Leadership Team to drive operational excellence and chart our digital future. The Head of Business Process Excellence will report to the Senior Director for Operational Excellence, supporting Product Strategy, Innovation, Design, Development and Sourcing teams across Apparel & Accessories (A&A), and Footwear (FTW).

Your Mission:

• Vision & Roadmap Development: Shape the future of our Idea-to-Product organization by defining and executing a long-term vision for our business processes, workflows, and digital capabilities. Act as the resident expert and visionary for integrating AI opportunities throughout the value chain.
• Process Optimization & Digital Twin: Document current workflows and processes to identify optimization potential, while developing the "Northstar" setup for the future way of working across Apparel & Accessories (A&A) and Footwear (FTW).
• Tech Partnership & Capability Delivery: Partner closely with the Technology team as the primary business owner and thought partner to design, gather requirements and align advanced business capabilities with strategic goals.
• Operational Leadership & Decision Making: Act as the primary spokesperson for operational teams, taking critical trade-off decisions, managing the user base, and heading up a dedicated team covering the Idea-to-Product domain.
• Business Architecture: Lead the business architecture team, taking end-to-end responsibility for mapping, scaling, and structuring organizational capabilities.
• Stakeholder Engagement & Sparring: Manage high-level senior interactions and act as a trusted strategic sparring partner for the Senior Leadership Team across Product Strategy, Innovation, Design, Development, and Sourcing teams.
• Enablement & Tool Adoption: Coordinate comprehensive training programs for new tools and capabilities, actively driving user adoption and operational excellence across teams.

Your Story:

• Proven Leadership Experience: 10+ years of experience in business process management, digital transformation, or operational excellence, with a proven track record of managing and developing high-performing teams, with experience managing 5+ direct reports preferred.
• Team Architecture & Talent Leadership: Demonstrated success in the strategic recruitment and development of top-tier talent to build high-performing organizational units from scratch.
• Domain Expertise: Deep understanding of the product development value chain (Idea-to-Product) and Creation processes, preferably within the Apparel, Accessories, or Footwear industries.
• Tech & AI saviness: Technical affinity and a data-informed, problem-solving mindset, backed by deep business acumen and process expertise to help shape technology roadmaps and evaluate AI opportunities.
• Strategic Stakeholder Management: Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with demonstrated experience influencing, collaborating with, and acting as a peer to C-suite and Senior Leadership Teams.
• Change Management & Execution: Demonstrated capability in documenting complex workflows, executing gap analyses, driving tool adoption, and managing large-scale user training across cross-functional teams.
• Academic Background: Degree or deep knowledge in Business Administration, Engineering, Operations Management, or a related field with a strong focus on process mapping and capability maturity frameworks.

Attributes of a successful candidate: 

• Strategic Visionary: Ability to look past current constraints to design a digital "Northstar," for our future way of doing business, balanced with a pragmatic approach
• Resilient Decision Maker: Comfortable navigating ambiguity, prioritizing conflicting demands, and making high-stakes trade-off decisions in a fast-paced environment.
• Collaborative Influencer: A natural bridge-builder who can seamlessly speak the language of both deep-tech engineers and creative product operations teams.

Your Team:

As the Business Process Excellence team for the Idea-to-Product value stream, we define, manage, and optimize the workflows and technical capabilities that bring our innovative products to life. We are visionaries who are data-driven, action-oriented, and obsessed with challenging the status quo.

Heading up a team of 5-7 domain experts, we work hand-in-hand with Product Strategy, Innovation, Design, Development, Sourcing, and Technology teams to champion future ways of working - ensuring our global growth is supported by cutting-edge AI, digital twins, and operational excellence.