Project Manager-CA

Posted: January 15, 2024

The KUIU New Product Commercialization Project Manager reports to the Director of Merchandising, is based at the headquarters in Dixon, CA and provides end-to-end project management of all initiatives in the new product pipeline, from ideation to product delivery. The core responsibility of this role is ensure new products deliver on-time, on-cost and on-strategy. This role will work cross functionally, but most heavily with the product, planning and supply chain teams to move new products through the various stage gates of development, commercialization, manufacture, and delivery. This person has exceptional attention to detail and follow through and can cut through complexity to help the team reach decision as issues and opportunities emerge during commercialization. The role will help to upgrade the new product launch process, written tools and meeting forums and continually look for opportunities to automate and standardize work. Once established this role will be the single source of truth for how KUIU’s multi-year pipeline is tracking against timeline and budget based on stage of development. In addition to bringing exceptional project management skills to the new product commercialization process, this individual will also help instill a culture of follow through and provide training and coaching to processes that are related to the new product commercialization process (E.G. those we are instituting with suppliers etc). The goal of the project manager is to bring value added process and standardization to new product commercialization, without slowing it down or creating bureaucracy. ESSENTIAL JOB DUTIES - Organize the new product commercialization pipeline into an integrated series of programs and projects that can be tracked and managed from ideation to launch through the stage gate process - Coordinate meetings and decision forums to ensure efficiency, effectiveness and follow through in problem solving and planning for new products - Organize the ideation process to ensure all new ideas are captured and assessed, and relevant data is available to enable decisions on progression. - Oversee project pipeline health within the project timelines, identify and mitigate risk, and provide leadership, insight and cross-functional data to show variance in scope, schedule, cost and quality of each project. - Manage project budgets and bring visibility early to risks and opportunities to budgets and cost - Contribute to the standardization and automation of processes, tools and agendas to enable speed and improve team productivity. - Partner with IT to identify and implement best practices around project management systems. EXPERIENCE/REQUIREMENTS: - Undergraduate degree in business, supply chain or life science field - 5+ years of professional project management in the premium technical clothing / gear industry or consumer product industries(with 50-100 new product launches per year) - Experience project managing multi-year new product pipelines (process, forums, tools, budgets) - Experience with complex, multi-step supply chains (including offshore sourced and manufactured product) distributed through DTC (Direct to Consumer) and owned retail. - Exceptional collaborator and communicator - Excellent written skills and highly proficient with excel, powerpoint, ERP and project management systems AS A KUIU EMPLOYEE, YOU MAY BE ELIGIBLE FOR THESE BENEFITS: - 401K retirement plan - Hybrid Work Schedule - Health Insurance - Flexible Spending Account - Life Insurance - Paid Time Off *All benefits subject to eligibility per company policy