Director, Costing - Footwear

Who You Are:

You are a strategic Footwear costing leader who partners closely with Product Development, Supply Chain, Design, Merchandising, and factories to drive costing strategy, margin performance, negotiations, and team development.

What You’ll Do:

• Lead the end-to-end Footwear costing process from concept through final cost approval.
• Lead cross-functional alignment with Product Development, Design, Merchandising, and Materials team to achieve seasonal margin targets.
• Drive margin optimization by identifying cost drivers, mitigating risks, and implementing cost-saving opportunities.
• Lead factory cost negotiations and maintain accurate costing documentation and governance.
• Proactively manage costing calendars, systems, and processes to ensure timely decisions and business visibility.
• Educate and influence cross-functional teams on cost drivers, margin impact, and financial trade-offs.
• Monitor factors affecting product costs, including commodities, labor, duties, tariffs, freight, transportation, and foreign exchange.
• Partner with Planning, Finance, and Supply Chain to assess landed costs, tariff exposure, and margin implications.
• Develop executive-level reporting and presentations for leadership, highlighting margin performance, risks, and opportunities.
• Establish KPI reporting for factories and cross-functional partners, including performance against cost targets, variance analysis, and adoption of cost-effective solutions.
• Oversee costing systems, tools, and reporting to ensure accuracy, milestone readiness, and clear business visibility.
• Lead continuous improvement of costing processes, analytics, and reporting capabilities.
• Lead strategic costing and analytics projects that support business objectives.
• Manage two direct reports, Associate Manager and Manager of Footwear Costing.

You’ll Need to Have:

• 10+ years of Footwear costing, sourcing, manufacturing, gross margin management, or related experience, including people leadership.
• Deep knowledge of footwear construction, materials, labor, overhead, manufacturing processes, and key cost drivers.
• Proven ability to identify cost-saving opportunities and successfully negotiate costs with factories and suppliers.
• Strong understanding of footwear duty classifications, tariffs, landed cost impacts, and global sourcing dynamics.
• Advanced Excel and analytics skills, including complex formulas, macros, scalable tools, and executive-level reporting.
• Ability to estimate footwear costs from sketches, CADs, specifications, materials, and construction details.
• Demonstrated success reducing margin risk and driving profitability through strategic costing decisions.
• Strong leadership and communication skills

We’d Love to See:

• Proficiency in PLM, RLM, Tableau, or other reporting tools.
• Strong analytical and mathematical skills.
• A detailed oriented and organized mindset
• Strong planning and time management skills.
• Strong large-scale data analysis
• Excellent data organization, documentation, and follow-through.