Category Director- Climb, Trail Run & Mountain Essentials

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Category Director- Climb, Trail Run & Mountain Essentials

Apply locations Ventura Headquarters time type Full time posted on Posted 30+ Days Ago job requisition id JOB-REQ-10517

Role: Category Director- Climb, Trail Run & Mountain Essentials
Team: Mountain Sport Business Unit

Scope: People Manager, M5

Years of Experience: 10+

Location: Ventura, CA

The Category Director for Climb, Trail Run & Mountain Essentials will lead and drive the strategic direction of this category. In this role, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of our product lines, ensuring alignment with our brand values, and meeting the needs of our customers.

As our ideal candidate, you have a strong background in product management, team leadership, and a passion for mountain sports. You will develop and implement the strategic vision for the Climb, Trail Run & Mountain Essentials category, ensuring alignment with Patagonia's mission to save our home planet. This includes driving product innovation that meets the highest standards of quality, durability, and environmental responsibility, reflecting our commitment to building the best product and causing no unnecessary harm.

In this role, you will lead and inspire a cross-functional team, fostering a collaborative and inclusive culture that values diverse perspectives and experiences. You will conduct thorough market analysis to identify trends, opportunities, and customer needs, ensuring our product lines remain competitive and relevant. Ensuring that all product development and marketing efforts are centered around the needs and preferences of our customers, enhancing their experience and loyalty, is crucial. This role will work closely with other category directors, marketing, sales, and supply chain teams to ensure cohesive and effective product strategies.

What You’ll Do:

• Develop and steer the Climb, Trail Run, and Mountain Essentials Product Category vision, strategic objectives, and financial targets. Ensure transparency and alignment across teams and channels throughout the process.
• Develop short, mid, and long-term business plans to achieve revenue, margins, P&L, and inventory management goals.
• Ensure products meet customer needs, high-quality standards, and low Environmental P&L (eP&L) requirements from ideation to end-customer.
• Collaborate with Product Line Manager – Mountains to plan product lines and assortments that advance brand goals.
• Support and develop the Product Line Manager for Mountains.
• Synthesize data, identify market developments and customer insights, and support senior leadership decision-making.
• Establish strong working relationships with Category Director peers and other leaders across the product creation process to ensure a cohesive product and brand experience.
• Act as an advocate and ambassador for Patagonia internally, to the media, and the public.
• Manage allocated travel budget for tradeshows, dealer visits, market tours, and regional sales meetings.

Who You Are:

• Healthy Business Mindset: Demonstrates a strong understanding of business dynamics and financial acumen.
• Collaborative Partnership: Fosters a collaborative environment and builds strong partnerships across teams.
• Growing Through Change: Embraces change and drives continuous improvement.
• People & Team Leadership: Inspires and leads teams to achieve their best.
• Business Vision, Strategy, and Product Merchandising: Proven ability to develop and execute strategic business plans and product merchandising strategies.
• Team and Cross-Functional Leadership: Strong leadership skills with experience managing cross-functional teams.
• Endemic to Customer & Category: Deep understanding of the mountain sports industry and customer needs.

Experience You Bring:

• 10+ years of experience leading diverse and global teams with a proven record of inspiring, coaching, and setting a framework for performance and growth.
• 10+ years of experience in category leadership with proven merchant skills in building best-in-class assortments that authentically represent the brand.
• Deep understanding of Patagonia’s product line, the outdoor industry, and market (key consumer trends and moments, aesthetic, preferences, relevant brands, industry collaborations, brand history, etc.).
• Experience working with technical apparel built for the mountain athlete is imperative.
• Proven experience in building a purpose-driven business, playing a critical role in delivering on our purpose.
• Experience and understanding of how to use a diverse set of tools and channels, including physical stores, digital, and social media, to inspire people to action in support of progressive social change.

Hiring range :$190,000 – $220,000 USD Annual

At Patagonia, pay ranges are assigned to a job based on the location specific market median of similar jobs according to 3rd party salary benchmark surveys. Individual pay within that range can vary for several reasons including skills/capabilities, experience, and available budget. Note the full pay range for this role ranges from: $179,100.00 - $268,700.00 USD Annual USD Annual. The Hiring Range reflects where in the range we intend to hire for this role.

Employee Conduct
It is the responsibility of every employee to contribute to a positive, inclusive work environment through cooperative and professional interactions with co-workers, customers and vendors.

Equal Employment Opportunity

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other factors prohibited by law.

About Us

Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.

Our Reason for Being

Patagonia grew out of a small company that made tools for climbers. Alpinism remains at the heart of a worldwide business that still makes clothes for climbing – as well as for skiing, snowboarding, surfing, fly fishing, paddling and trail running. These are all silent sports. None requires a motor; none delivers the cheers of a crowd. In each sport, reward comes in the form of hard-won grace and moments of connection between us and nature.

Our values reflect those of a business started by a band of climbers and surfers, and the minimalist style they promoted. The approach we take towards product design demonstrates a bias for simplicity and utility.

For us at Patagonia, a love of wild and beautiful places demands participation in the fight to save them, and to help reverse the steep decline in the overall environmental health of our planet. We donate our time, services and at least 1% of our sales to hundreds of grassroots environmental groups all over the world who work to help reverse the tide.

We know that our business activity – from lighting stores to dyeing shirts – creates pollution as a by-product. So we work steadily to reduce those harms. We use recycled polyester in many of our clothes and only organic, rather than pesticide-intensive, cotton.

Staying true to our core values during thirty-plus years in business has helped us create a company we're proud to run and work for. And our focus on making the best products possible has brought us success in the marketplace.

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