Director, Core Studio Footwear Materials Design Expression

NIKE, Inc. designs the future. At NIKE, Inc. designers chase their curiosities and build what’s next, shaping the culture and advancing human potential. The Central Design teams include artists, inventors and specialists, all with different focuses, including experts in color, sustainability and materials, as well as apparel and footwear product designers. Nike designers look to the future, aggressively pursuing ideas and forms that elevate the athlete experience, raise the bar for modern style and reduce environmental impact.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We are looking for an exceptional leader to join the team as the Materials Design Director for the Nike Core Footwear design team.  The ideal designer is a curious observer, eager participant and a cultural sponge – seeking insights to solve problems. You leverage your expert design skills along with your deep material knowledge in highly creative problem solving to create material design direction for a range of categories across performance, lifestyle and solar.  

You will use your design knowledge to create seasonal direction to align your functional team, and your crossfunctional business partners to consumer and trend relavant solves. You manage and mentor your team to success and work with the Senior Director to ensure Product, color and materials are all telling a cohesive and compelling story through industry-leading product. You leverage your versatility and creativity to lead our material design team across the wide range of product in the sport performance and sport lifestyle footwear landscape. You will partner with innovation, materials development and our vendors to keep our product on the leading edge of performance and culture.

The ideal candidate thrives on team collaboration and building new working relationships, project management skills, strategic thinking and the ability to work through ambiguity to lead your teams to successful project completion - from concept to reality. You challenge the status quo, embrace the unknown and push boundaries in order to create industry-leading solutions that meet the needs of each athlete*. You are motivated to elevate our consumer’s experience by creating new materials and palettes that are innovative, distinct, benefit-driven and athlete-relevant for a range of products. You are passionate about ensuring the emotional connection of our product for the consumer through the use of narrative and storytelling.

WHAT YOU WILL WORK ON

If this is you, you will be working on a range of technical and complex projects across a range of product from sport performance to sport lifestyle that sit under the Core footwear umbrella. You will employ your understanding of the latest material innovations and existing capabilities to design concepts and deliver toolboxes that keep NIKE on the vanguard. You will also help to curate, elevate and modernize NIKE’s existing material palettes, while looking to drive the direction, and expectations of material design for the Core division forward.

Your work will range from trend and market research, insights gathering, to design direction. You will partner with the Senior Director and Color Director on seasonal direction and palette creation across the range of categories and product in Core Footwear. You will partner with the category business, development, engineering and costing partners to shepard top quality design from brief to box. In this, you will communicate with a wide range of experts across NIKE, from manufacturing partners, to operations, and at times directly with *athletes; the daily responsibilities of this role are wide ranging, challenging, and rewarding.

• Lead the materials design direction and seasonal design strategy for Core Expression in conjuction with your Color Director counterpart and the Core Footwear Senior Director.   
• Build seasonal narratives and end-in mind ideas that are culturally and consumer relevant. 
• Develop and deliver a Design Toolkit that inspires, empowers drives the core material team to action  
• Create compelling collections that integrate street fashion, art, culture, and sports. 
• Partner closely with internal category design, merchandising, and brand teams to ensure consistency and authenticity across all licensee work. 
• Review and approve seasonal design proposals from licensee partners, providing actionable feedback and creative guidance. 
• Drive innovation by identifying new materials, constructions and expression techniques by partnering with teammates across Space, NXT, Advanced production, Materials Development teammates and our vendor partners.
• Bluesky and longer lead time development of innovative opportunity spaces for materials, method-of-make, texture and finish.
• Proactively identify new opportunities and translate them into consumer relevant design direction.
• Mentor and develop a high-performing team of designers and cross-functional collaborators. 

WHO YOU WILL WORK WITH

You will work closely with the Senior Design Director of Core Footwear and the Footwear Color Design Director to set silo and seasonal direction for your team and oversee the success in how that comes to life in our footwear – for new creation model and seasonal expression footwear. You will closely collaborate with Innovation, Footwear Material and Product Design teams, to formulate new ideas with impact to our product, consumer and brand. You will maintain collaborative relationships with your material design leadership peers in the categories Core crosses over to maintain a consistent brand presence , while understanding the nuance needed for our consumers, stories and product. You will partner with Development, Color Design, Graphic Design, Digital Design and Marketing teams in bringing to life key material concepts and  scalable innovation - all the way to our consumer. You will have direct reports of varying levels, with the aim to create a strong bond within your team, and into the culture of collaboration within the larger Core Design team.

WHAT YOU BRING

• Bachelor's Degree in Design or related field. Will accept any suitable combination of education, experience and training.
• Experience creating consumer-relevant and culturally inspiring design direction and working with a team to action and bring that vision to life.
• 8+ years of relevant design experience exemplifying ability to push textile design, and/or relevant experience in Material Design.
• 3+ years relevant experience directly managing a team.
• Brings new sustainable methods into product and production
• Ability to design advance material concepts, High technical skillset including engineering and Flyknit constructions
• Strong understanding of brand systems, cultural storytelling and consumer lead design.
• Deep knowledge of street fashion, art, culture and sport as design drivers.
• Passionate and curious problem solver with an entrepreneurial mindset.
• Demonstrated knowledge of textile methods-of-make such as weaving, knitting or printmaking and the ability to create mock-up samples by hand.
• Ability to create concepts, grounded in research and the exploration of the latest in textile innovation; raw materials, technologies and techniques.
• Stong influencing, verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to translate consumer and athlete* knowledge/insights into product executions and narratives.
• Talent for collaborating and building interpersonal connections with design and adjacent functions.
• Experience building inspiration/concept presentations and mood boards.
• Experience presenting design concepts to internal and external audiences.
• Ability to participate in multiple seasonal projects with competing resources and deadlines.
• Understanding of Footwear Product Creation process, or relevant footwear or accessories experience.
• Exceptional communication and presentation skills; ability to influence across functions and cultures. 
• Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite and 3D design tools; strong visual and technical design skills. 
• A portfolio that demonstrates creative excellence, strategic thinking, and leadership impact.

We offer a number of accommodations to complete our interview process including screen readers, sign language interpreters, accessible and single location for in-person interviews, closed captioning, and other reasonable modifications as needed. If you discover, as you navigate our application process, that you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please complete the Candidate Accommodation Request Form.