Manager - Merchandising & Product Development

The Ideal candidate for Manager of Merchandising & Product Development will be responsible for product strategy, managing cross-functional teams, and driving excellence with strong emphasis on sustainable product development. This role involves leading teams, ensuring product development excellence, and driving the company's growth and profitability.

Key Responsibilities:

Product Design & Development:

• Lead the conceptualization and development of seasonal collections, ensuring alignment with brand identity, buyer requirements and evolving market trends.
• Drive pre-development initiatives, including fabric sourcing, material innovation, and sustainable alternatives to strengthen product value.
• Collaborate with overseas designers, buyers, and suppliers to develop detailed tech packs, finalize specifications and ensure seamless design-to-production handoff.
• Incorporate and implement buyer feedback into designs while safeguarding the creative essence and originality of the collection.
• Oversee the merchandising calendar, ensuring timely execution of product development milestones and adherence to delivery timelines.

Fitting & Prototyping:

• Manage the garment fitting process to ensure accuracy, comfort, and alignment with brand fit standards.
• Supervise sample creation, conduct detailed fit evaluations on mannequins, and provide actionable feedback. Guide fitting technicians in pattern corrections and provide aesthetic oversight to refine samples.

Cross-Functional Collaboration:

• Partner closely with merchandising, production, and supply chain teams to ensure seamless sample turnaround and timely production readiness.
• Track and communicate development timelines, risks, and milestones with both internal and external stakeholders.
• Oversee the workflow from design briefs to sample dispatch, ensuring timely delivery and adherence to quality benchmarks.

Market Analysis & Risk Management:

• Monitor global fashion trends, consumer insights, and competitor activities. Translate market intelligence into actionable recommendations for design and merchandising teams to shape upcoming collections
• Conduct critical analysis throughout the product lifecycle, starting from the design brief.
• Perform rigorous risk assessments on development samples, covering fabric durability, garment safety (with a strong focus on kids wear) and production feasibility.
• Ensure compliance with global quality and safety standards, review fabrics, trims, tech packs, and final samples to maintain consistency and excellence.

Performance, Budget Management & Sustainability:

• Drive key KPIs such as sample-to-order conversion rates and First-Time-Right sampling, ensuring efficiency, accuracy and operational excellence in product development.
• Optimize sampling costs while maintaining design integrity, product quality, and alignment with customer requirements.
• Champion sustainable practices across product development, material sourcing, and sampling processes.
• Identify and implement eco-friendly materials, techniques, and innovative solutions to minimize environmental impact and reduce waste, energy consumption, and carbon footprint.
• Lead initiatives to embed sustainability into every stage of product development, from concept to final delivery, ensuring alignment with quality, cost, and environmental standards.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate sustainability principles into design, production, and sourcing decisions, driving long-term environmental responsibility and brand value.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in any discipline.
• 8 to 10 years of relevant experience in garment manufacturing. Must have experience handling woven products.
• Proven experience in handling end-to-end design-to-production workflows. Excellent knowledge of global fashion trends, fabrics, trims, and garment construction.
• Highly motivated and result-driven individuals.
• Strong business acumen with the ability to understand and drive strategic business objectives.
• Prior experience working in BD will be an added advantage.
• Forward-thinking mindset with the ability to anticipate challenges and identify innovative solutions.