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Director, Innovation Basketball Footwear Product Design

Nike’s Innovation (NXT) Basketball Design team is passionate about the Greatest Athletes of all time and is passionate about our continued legacy to deliver product that is inspiring, aspirational and motivational to all athletes*. On and off the court, we want our consumers to feel confident in looking good, feeling good and playing good, reimagining the strategic direction of sport.

Nike and NXT Design are highly collaborative communities that work together, play together and dream together. We value pushing the edges, we celebrate breaking boundaries, and we keep ourselves passionate about delivering premier experiences for our consumers!

Who we are looking for

We’re looking for an outstanding Design Director to combine their Footwear design experience, problem solving abilities, team leadership, relationship building, management skills, critical thinking, and creativity to help lead the future of the industry. Strong communication skills are required, and experiences working directly with athletes are ideal.

The ideal candidate needs to be a highly creative designer and team leader, have the ability to recognize and build high quality designs, and lead a multi-disciplinary design team which includes product designers, material designers, color designers, and graphic designers.

This person will be passionate about elevating the consumer experience by meeting the needs of the basketball consumer through the impact of culturally connected influences and narratives. They will be crafting, developing and implementing design direction by demonstrating the overarching seasonal creative direction of the performance division.

As a leader, you will motivate the team, celebrates wins, and cultivate a climate that encourages an open collaborative mentality through equity, inclusion and diversity.

What you will work on

If this is you, you will lead and participate in key initiatives - design through execution. You will champion a culturally connected vision with emphasis on product design integrity, forward thinking innovation, and performance right solutions within the category portfolio. Seasonally, you will evaluate consumer trends, macro global insights and marketplace analysis to drive a connected experience across all models and styles within Basketball.

You will communicate and build on design vision, results, and stories to a variety of audiences and run presentation projects at all stages. You will bring innovation into the category through strategy and execution with the advanced concept groups and confer with others to ensure outstanding design excellence!

You will lead category design resources, processes and relationships to ensure project standards and timelines are met. You will also build and run your own seasonal/annual project workload and may be asked at times to extend outside of the primary activity of Basketball to support the larger Nike Design community. In addition, you'll work in conjunction with design leadership to develop design and optimally handle the annual goal setting and evaluation process of your team.

Who you will work with

This role does have direct reports and reports directly to the VP – Innovation Footwear Design, while regularly partnering with functional product leadership teams and key downstream business partners to encourage a culture of creativity that aligns to the broader creative direction.

WHAT YOU BRING

• Bachelor's Degree or higher in product creation, or design and development or Combination of relevant education, experience and training.

• Minimum of 8 years Product Creation (Design and Development) experience and knowledge.

• Creative future visioning, High taste-level and critical thinking.

• Innovation, consumer experience, and product creation knowledge.

• Proven experience with product creation and manufacturing.

• Champion of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

• Project Management experience.

• Team oriented mentality and shown willingness to partner with others.

• Shown experience working in cross-functional and cross-enterprise teams.

• Possesses digital capabilities and competence.

• Strong communication and relationship management skills.

• Presentation/Communication style: Clear, Concise, and Thoughtful (strong verbal and written skills). Ability to present new ideas or seasonal concepts to small and large groups, including addressing executive leaders, and external partners or customers.

NIKE, Inc. is committed to employing a diverse workforce. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, protected veteran status, or disability. NIKE is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please call +1 503-671-4156 and let us know the nature of your request, your location and your contact information.