Senior Manager Strategic Projects at Adidas Group in Portland, OR

Develop, support and manage key strategic initiatives/projects/programs, from planning to execution, across the North America market (NAM). Particular focus will be on managing NAM’s two biggest priorities in the coming years, Profitability and Transformation.

• Translating high-level, long-term corporate strategy into concrete activities, milestones and goals
• Driving and guiding initiative owners in planning, execution and tracking the modules and initiatives – while providing deep-dive support on select initiatives with value-added analysis
• Initiating regular communication and working sessions with the management team on initiative progress, issues, decisions and recommended future actions. Also developing and executing multi-channel communications plans across the Market and Globally.
• Developing and sharing best practices across the organization

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Planning

• Develop and execute a systematic approach to support senior management in identifying the right strategic priorities to focus on
• Coordinate and manage initiative development, planning and prioritization across functions
• Drive and guide initiative business owners in setting objectives, developing detailed plans and KPIs

Management

• Alignment with senior director to ensure projects and resources are focused on the right strategic initiatives and priorities
• Engage with business owners and management to determine role and contribution for each initiative
• Coordinate and drive regular progress updates while ensuring consistent planning and execution from function to function

Financial

• Drive budget management, business case modeling, cost/return estimations, analytics (as required)

Systems and Processes

• Closely track project life cycle and organize regular updates with management on initiative progress
• During planning and execution, provide value-added analytical support to enable fact-based decisions
• Coordinate with Human Resources on initiative KPI’s and performance evaluation

People Management

• Develop and lead the project/program team to fulfill its mission and targets
• Provide objective perspective on progress, priorities and directions while managing expectations
• Provide feedback to initiative business owners/team to ensure high quality, timely execution
• Actively manage a network across the organization to ensure the project remains highly relevant to the business and its priorities

Training

• Drive and guide initiative business owners to further develop project leadership skills and discipline

KEY RELATIONSHIPS:

Internal

• Global project leaders & stakeholders
• Function heads, senior management, key stakeholders of projects and initiatives

External

• Service providers / vendors
• Accounts

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

• Project Management (including planning, organizing, and communications)
• Manage relationships and diversity
• Analysis and problem solving
• Willingness and ability to learn and grow, building business acumen and technical skills
• Initiative & entrepreneurial – to take initiative and proactively seek opportunity for improvement
• Leadership & Influence – lead diverse teams and influence strategically towards common goals
• Managing through change – ability to manage through changes and uncertainties

REQUISITE EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE / MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

• Minimum of 5 years of general business experience
• Experience with leading consumer brand
• Extensive experience in and strong skills of process and project management
• Experience in working closely with senior managers and leaders across functions
• Experience in leading management consulting firm is a plus
• MBA or other business related qualification is a plus
• Deep skills in Word, Excel, Power Point etc.
• Basic financial and modeling knowledge