Design Manager - Athleisure and Sportswear

Our client is a global buying house of apparel and accessories from Asia selling to retailers and brands in the U.S and Europe. Due to strong growth they are now seeking a Design Manager to lead and nurture their athleisure and sportswear design team. This is an expat position based in Bangladesh, responsible for managing a team of nearly 20 designers.

Purpose of the Role: 

• Lead the design team for athleisure and sportswear products to generate cohesive stories and themes. 
• To ensure the most effective use of talent to create competitive advantage from concept through to delivery.  
• To ensure the development of commercial product ranges for customers

Responsibilities:

Leadership & Teams

• Be the creative leader and partner to all stakeholders 
• Set and guide creative direction for the categories including putting together option plan
• Lead, train, hire, motivate design team to deliver high quality, customer focused design work
• Attract, develop and retain talent
• Monitor and evaluate performance of individuals and teams

Strategy & Development

• Lead and implement the creative strategy across the various product areas in line with consumer preferences and overall business plan
• Provide direction on seasonal requirements on fabrics, trims etc
• Strategically partner with other business units (merchandising, production, development, sourcing)
• Keep abreast of customer preferences, changes in style and trends to remain competitive in the market

Operation & Results

• Coordinate and optimise the use of design resources 
• Allocate and distribute projects and workload across design teams
• Set design goals and articulate business metrics, and motivate teams to deliver results
• Ensure consistently high quality of design work
• Be aware of market trends across the major markets and business units
• Ensure that the design teams provide trend-appropriate design concepts that meet market needs and drive sales
• Set, manage and monitor the design team budget

Design Manager: The Candidate:

The ideal candidate is a Senior Designer/Design manager with strong athleisure/sportswear experience gained with a supplier/brand/retailer in the UK or Europe. 

You will have a global creative view and be able to translate all that into ideas for the team

You will be a leader with strong management experience. We are quite happy to consider senior designers who have management skills and are ready to step up to lead a bigger team.

While you are a Design Manager and you will be setting the creative strategy for your team, however you will be a designer at heart and be prepared to become hands on if needed.

You will be willing to relocate and live and work as an expat in Bangladesh

Remuneration:

$4000-5000 / month (net of tax) plus expat benefits including housing, insurances, family flights, family visas, car plus driver, family membership at expat club, family repatriation at the end of contract.