VP, Design – Men’s Full Time

As the VP of Design, Men’s, you lead the creation of innovative and exceptional consumer product concepts for our Men’s product lines. You lead our Climb & Mountain, Run & Energy, and Color & Graphic teams. You continuously evolve the Arc’teryx product direction with your energy for relevance and disruption, and your creative leadership drives newness. Your strong consumer-facing product vision delivers resolved and cohesive product design direction, aligned with our product merchandising strategy. You provide bold creative leadership that will keep Arc’teryx Men’s product and brand stories at the global forefront of innovation and style. You co-create and partner with other design leadership to create a red thread across Innovation, Women’s, Footwear and regional specific product, to unite a brand DNA and keep innovation at the forefront of everything we create.

This role is based out of our North Vancouver office. Candidates must be eligible to work in Canada.

Your team consists of highly talented designers, makers and core users. We make, test, iterate and test again. The collaboration of our team is crucial to the success of the product and the experience of the guest. This team leads in perspective and guidance on technical innovation, and we create the overall creative direction that continuously evolves our product and process.

If you were the VP of Design, Men’s now, here are some of the core activities you would be doing:

• • Building, coaching and guiding a high-performing Men’s Design team, driving inspiration and stoke to create and evolve world class innovative and strategic consumer concepts
  • Collaborating to align with the Chief Creative Officer on 3–5-year product strategy, in line with the Design vision
  • Partnering with leadership across Product Line Management (PLM), Development, and Brand teams to bring our product strategy to life
  • Collaborating with and briefing the Advanced Concepts team to ensure materials and technology are continuous and ready for launch approval
  • Defining the Men’s product design direction to deliver against our design vision, product strategy and company goals
  • Providing visionary leadership and creative direction to your product design teams to enable the successful execution of seasonal range plans, as prepared by and aligned on with the PLM team
  • Leading and empowering the Product Design team to identify and create comprehensive and innovative design solutions, technologies, construction methods and components that are in-line with Arc’teryx design values
  • Creating space for your Product teams to balance a high degree of technical innovation with a high degree of progressive styling to achieve aesthetic design breakthroughs, relevant functional product and long-term consumer value
  • Ensuring that product is relevant, resolved and has consistent design language
  • Collaborating to align with PLM leadership on product architecture and activity strategy
  • Participating in broader organizational strategy and planning as a key member of the Creative leadership team
  • Collaborating with leadership in Creative and Product Operations teams to identify and strategize against resource gaps and opportunities to optimize Design
  • Collaborating with Brand leadership to ensure that product and brand stories are aligned with the creative vision
  • Designing and delivering compelling and persuasive design presentations to audiences of varying levels, sizes, and backgrounds, inclusive of team members and senior leadership
  • Travelling globally to research product, participate in activities and attend industry events

Here are some of the things you could be working on in the future:

• • Building a strategy around the full system of dress and product innovation, across all layers
  • Onboarding new partners to enhance the product innovation pipeline, in partnership with the Product Operations and Raw Materials leadership teams
  • Partnering with Creative leadership to build out a 3-year roadmap of special projects, partnerships and ways of working with ambassadors

Are you our next VP, Design, Men’s?

• • • You have 12+ years of experience as a VP of Design, Senior Design Director, Creative Director, or a similar role in the apparel industry, including 10+years in a people leadership role
    • You have proven people leadership experience and a passion for coaching, mentoring, and guiding a team of creative leaders and contributors
    • Your ability to make solid and bold decisions harvests natural leadership and trust
    • You are a highly collaborative partner, ready to strategize with other senior leadership, and you understand the importance of being part of a larger team
    • You have a knowledge and understanding of the technical outdoor/fashion/apparel industry, and the men’s market in particular, as well as the disciplines for which Arc’teryx design products for
    • Your vision is holistic – the nuance matters, but your baseline understanding of technical product enables you to see the bigger picture
    • You display fanatical attention to detail and possess the organizational skills required to manage multiple projects and deliverables across different teams and organizations
    • You have a passion for sustainable design and style
    • You eschew micro trends to instead pursue high impact, enduring, progressive design and experiences
    • You are a creative and strategic thinker with energy to break new ground and thrive in a technical lab-like, fail-forward environment
    • You understand the cultural nuance of the outdoor industry, and you’re experienced in creating and offering moments to different demographics and niche interests
    • You are strong in your vision – you can create stories, and you are skilled at bringing people along, in support of your vision, with proven leadership success in concepted, strategized and globally launched consumer product
    • You have awareness of the global marketplace, and how our product finds relevance across different continents and markets
    • You have a strong understanding of technical product process and calendars, softgoods and hardgoods product design, and manufacturing and supply chain impacts
    • You are stoked to live in Vancouver, to be in the mountains and you regularly get outside to live it