Overview
Senior Manager Product Development Colors & Materials (F/M) Jobs in Paris, Île-de-France, France at Lacoste
Title: Senior Manager Product Development Colors & Materials (F/M)
Company: Lacoste
Location: Paris, Île-de-France, France
CONTEXT AND PURPOSE OF THE ROLE
The Senior Manager, Product Development Color & Material leads the global execution of color, material (C&M) development across footwear categories. This role is responsible for translating design and brand intent into scalable, manufacturable, and premium material executions, ensuring innovation, quality, cost targets, and speed-to-market are achieved.
Acting as a critical bridge between Design, Materials Innovation, Product Merchandising, Sourcing, and Manufacturing, this role sets standards, drives process excellence, and leads teams across HQ Paris and Asia to deliver consumer-right color and material solutions at scale.
MAIN REPONSIBILITIES
Leadership & Team Management
- Lead, inspire, and develop global Color & Material Development team across HQ and Asia.
- Set clear priorities, ways of working, and accountability across regions and categories.
- Coach and mentor senior developers, building strong succession and capability pipelines.
- Foster a culture of excellence, innovation, and continuous improvement.
Product Development & Innovation
- Own end-to-end color and material development from design handoff through production approval.
- Ensure feasibility, manufacturability, durability, and performance meet brand and consumer expectations.
- Partner with Design and Materials teams to push innovation in materials, finishes, dyes, and sustainable solutions.
- Translate creative vision into scalable executions without compromising quality or intent.
- Drive seasonal material strategies aligned to category, price point, and margin targets.
Operational Excellence
- Partner with Sourcing and Manufacturing to optimize cost, lead time, quality, and material availability.
- Establish and monitor KPIs across development timelines, material adoption, cost targets, and quality performance.
- Lead seasonal development calendars and manage risk across multiple product pipelines.
- Proactively troubleshoot material, color, or production challenges and implement scalable solutions.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Act as a key liaison between Design, Product Merch, CSR, Quality, and Supply Chain.
- Influence long-term material roadmaps and platform strategies with leadership and innovation teams.
- Ensure sustainability goals are embedded into material and color development decisions.
- Partner with leadership on strategic planning and future capability building.
- Extensive experience in footwear color and material development, with proven people leadership experience.
- Deep technical knowledge of materials, finishes, color application, dyeing, and manufacturing processes.
- Proven experience managing cross-regional teams with direct exposure to Asian manufacturing hubs.
- Strong track record of delivering premium, innovative footwear at scale.
- Strong project and calendar management skills in fast-paced, consumer-driven environments.
- Excellent leadership, communication, and cross-cultural collaboration skills.
- Strong business acumen with ability to balance creativity, cost, and scalability.
