Senior Project Manager – Innovation Management

Purpose

This is a key in-house strategy position for an organized, passionate and goal-oriented future leader who understands how a product related innovation portfolio is identified, prioritized, managed & implemented in a cross-functional stakeholder landscape.

• Drive major product related innovation projects across functions
• Manage (senior) stakeholders relationship and secure buy-ins to project deliverables
• Furthering project management capabilities and knowledge management of the team
• Uphold and represent Innovation Management with (senior) stakeholders

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and drive overall innovation project(s) and workstreams deliverables (e.g. project planning, milestones execution and monitoring) in alignment with strategic direction
• Manage cross-functional project teams & provide clear direction and project targets aligned with business needs
• Identify business opportunities through development of new capabilities, and align and balance cross-divisions’ interest
• Manage effective and timely communication on project progress and results to sponsors and senior management
• Lead interpretation of project results and translate into insights to steer the project successfully
• Effectively deploy project management toolkit across innovation projects and workstreams to ensure high quality and consistency of deliverables
• Coach and Manage activities of (assistant) project managers and business analysts
• Manage Advanced Creation – Innovation Management departmental activities (e.g. knowledge sharing and employer branding)

Key Relationships

• Drive project activities and connect with other stakeholders to share activities across work streams
• Initiate and drive discussions with x-functional stakeholders to collect and consolidate feedback, prepare and align solutions
• Proactively manage stakeholders, build relationships and manage communication
• Stakeholders can relate to the following core functions:
  • Product Operations (Advanced Creation, Advanced Development in BUs, Footwear, Apparel and A&G product ops, etc.)
  • Marketing (horizontal and vertical BU divisions)
  • GOPS (Global IT, SCM, etc.)
  • Corporate functions (e.g. legal, finance & performance management)
  • (BU) Future

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Soft skills:

• End-to-end mindset, big picture view of problems on hand
• Engaging, empathic open and react to feedbacks and improve
• Highly self-motivated individuals
  • Independently manage portfolio of tasks and handle upward communication proactively
• Change management skills of influencing network of stakeholders
• Coaching experience
• Willingness to travel

Hard skills:

• Proven track records on wide areas of tools (e.g. Project planning, process mapping, enterprise solutions, Excel analytics, etc.)
• Solid presentation and storytelling skills
• Discipline in planning time management and organization skills
• Project management certification preferred (e.g. Lean Six Sigma, PMP)

People management skills:

• Manage project teams
• Coach junior team members through providing feedbacks to support the development and performance of the team
• Drive and manage onboarding
• Support recruiting
• Fosters a team culture that encourages trust, open and constructive discussion of important issues

Qualifications