Manager, Costing

ABOUT YOUR ROLE

• Acts as the global functional focal point for apparel costing, driving enterprise standards, influencing strategic sourcing decisions, and enabling margin delivery across the product creation lifecycle.
• Leads end-to-end costing execution across a global sourcing portfolio, ensuring cost accuracy, transparency, and alignment to brand margin targets.
• Owns global costing delivery by embedding enterprise costing standards into disciplined regional execution, enabled through active leadership, development, and coaching of Senior Costing Engineers within key manufacturing regions.
• Partners cross-functionally with Sourcing Development, Engineering, Product Supply Enablement (PSE), Brand Planning, Product Development, Design & merch to drive margin optimization, strengthen cost discipline, and enable fact-based, data-driven decision making across the organization.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

The Costing Manager will act as central connector across Finance, PSE and Brand to establish and develop end-to-end product cost governance. This includes:

1. End-to-End Costing Delivery

• Own global FOB validation, consolidation, and submission across all GTM milestones
• Ensure costing accuracy, completeness, and alignment to margin targets
• Provide structured visibility of FOB evolution, risks, and variance to enable decision making
• Maintain discipline in milestone tracking, forecast accuracy, and buy readiness

2. Cost Governance & Standards Execution

• Implement and enforce global costing standards, frameworks, and processes across regions
• Ensure consistency in costing methodologies, assumptions, and tools
• Own governance of cost changes, exceptions, and approval processes
• Drive transparency and accountability in costing outcomes

3. Regional Costing Leadership

• Lead regional costing execution through Senior Costing Engineers in key sourcing countries (e.g., Vietnam, Bangladesh)
• Set clear expectations, monitor performance, and ensure delivery against timelines and targets
• Drive alignment of regional execution to global costing strategy and operating model
• Identify and escalate risks impacting cost performance or GTM readiness

4. Cost Optimization & Commercial Impact

• Lead vendor-facing cost negotiations and cost engineering initiatives
• Identify opportunities across materials, construction, and manufacturing efficiency to improve margins
• Partner with Engineering, Sourcing, and Product teams to balance cost, quality, and product intent
• Support sourcing allocation decisions through cost competitiveness insights

5. Cross-Functional Partnership

• Partner with Product Development, Merchandising, Sourcing, PSE, and Finance to align on cost targets and margin delivery
• Provide insights on economic trends, cost drivers, trade impacts, and regional dynamics to inform decision making
• Contribute to integrated planning and cost projection discussions

6. Reporting & Insights

• Lead structured costing communication at key GTM milestones
• Consolidate regional inputs into clear, actionable global insights
• Highlight risks, opportunities, and recommended actions to stakeholders

7. Capability Building

• Build costing capability across regions through coaching and guidance of Sr Costing Engineers
• Develop team discipline in:
• Costing fundamentals
• Analytical rigor
• Stakeholder communication

COMPETENCY REQUIREMENTS

• Strong commercial acumen with the ability to connect product costs, sourcing strategies, margin performance, and business outcomes.
• Demonstrated analytical thinking and problem-solving capability, with the ability to translate data into actionable business recommendations.
• Proven ability to influence and build alignment across cross-functional stakeholders in a complex, matrixed environment.
• Strong leadership capability with experience coaching, developing, and leading teams while driving accountability and continuous improvement.
• Results-oriented with a strong ownership mindset and ability to deliver in a fast-paced, milestone-driven environment.
• Effective communicator with the ability to simplify complex topics and influence decision-making through clear insights and business storytelling.
• Proven change agent with the ability to drive process standardization, governance, and adoption of new ways of working.
• Digital and continuous improvement mindset with a passion for leveraging data, systems, and technology to improve performance.

KEY QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's degree in Textile Engineering, Apparel Manufacturing, Industrial Engineering, Supply Chain, Finance, or a related field.
• 6+ years of experience in apparel sourcing, manufacturing, product costing, cost engineering, or supply chain operations, including multi-country sourcing environments.
• Strong expertise in apparel costing, garment construction, manufacturing processes, material cost drivers, and vendor economics.
• Proven track record of delivering cost optimization, cost engineering, and vendor negotiation initiatives that improve margin performance.
• Strong understanding of FOB development, cost forecasting, margin management, and costing governance processes.
• Advanced analytical and financial modeling capabilities, including proficiency in Excel and costing tools.
• Knowledge of global sourcing dynamics, trade regulations, tariffs, and regional manufacturing competitiveness.
• Experience working in a global matrix organization with cross-functional stakeholder management responsibilities.