Head of Footwear Creation, Asia

 

The Mission

At On, Swiss Engineering is our mindset. It’s a devotion to craft, performance, and quality that defines every product we make. As we scale globally, we are seeking a pivotal leader to embed this ethos directly at the source. As the Head of Footwear Creation, Asia, you will be the senior brand-side leader in Vietnam, entrusted to unify our creation teams and ensure every shoe that is created in our partner factories are a testament to our commitment to quality, excellence, craft and innovation.

You will be the critical interface between our Zurich-based functional leads and our sourcing and factory partner ecosystem. This is not a sourcing role; you are the voice of the brand and the champion of the consumer, empowered to make product decisions that protect the integrity and elevate the performance and premiumisation ambitions of our footwear. By leading a high-performing, multidisciplinary team, you will drive the end-to-end product creation process, from concept all the way to delivering a premium, world-class range that can be transferred for commercialisation and manufactured on-time to consistency and scale.

Your Impact & Key Responsibilities

• This role leads and mentors Asia-based creation teams across Inline Development, Engineering, and Testing, cultivating a high-performing culture rooted in collaboration, clarity, and executional excellence. It brings the precision and care of Swiss Engineering to the creation centres, ensuring our values are lived where the product becomes real.
• As the senior creation representative at source, this role partners closely with Sourcing and T1 creation teams to guide product execution through a brand and consumer lens. Together, these teams ensure that every product reflects On’s commitment to fit, finish, performance, and premium quality before scale.
• A core responsibility is to drive milestone readiness and sampling execution with speed and precision. By optimizing sample workflows, localized testing, and technical handovers, the role helps eliminate bottlenecks and raise the bar on consistency, craftsmanship, and quality.
• Acting as the conduit between Innovation and T1 partners, the role helps translate advanced (TRL8+) concepts into manufacturable, validated, and scalable solutions, applying engineering rigor and collaborative problem-solving to bridge concept and commercialization.
• The position plays a central role in implementing global, source-led initiatives such as factory direct development, speed-to-market workflows, and sample quality standardization. It also champions the ramp-up of 3D collaboration tools and digital creation systems that bring structure, visibility, and speed to the product lifecycle.
• With deep expertise in design-for-manufacturing and automation, this role helps design and creation teams understand how to design for scalable execution. Through the development of playbooks and toolkits, it enables smarter product and engineering choices, driving precision, repeatability, and creation integrity across the supplier network and aligning closely with Zurich teams.
• As a trusted counterpart to Sourcing and T1 leaders, this role ensures alignment without functional overlap, representing the voice of Product Creation, while supporting seamless execution through shared ownership and partnership.
• Responsibility for talent development, performance management, and cultural leadership sits at the core of this role, ensuring On’s values of care, craft, and ingenuity are reflected in how teams lead, collaborate, and bring products to life.
• Regular travel to Zurich is expected to ensure strategic alignment, maintain cross-regional cohesion, and contribute actively to global leadership and planning discussions, helping bring brand strategic choices and Swiss Engineering principles to life from concept to consumer.

Your Story

• You are a seasoned footwear creation leader with over 15 years of experience in the industry, including a strong track record in senior roles close to manufacturing in Asia. Deeply technical and execution-focused, you bring end-to-end fluency across the footwear creation lifecycle, from upper and tooling engineering to pattern development, materials, construction methods, and quality standards, particularly in the performance segment.
• You are a strategic architect of process and scale. You understand the operating models required to build footwear of varying complexity and know how to deploy the right systems, capabilities, and tools, including PLM, 3D, and predictive testing to drive speed, consistency, and quality at scale.
• As an autonomous and inspiring leader, you combine strategic thinking with operational clarity. You plan effectively, lead with empathy, and create high-performing environments grounded in trust, accountability, and shared purpose.
• You thrive in complex ecosystems and know how to bring people together across geographies and cultures. Whether you're in the creation centre, factory floor or in a global leadership meeting, you act as a unifier and a strong advocate for the brand and its values.
• You are relentlessly focused on execution and problem-solving. You identify friction points, diagnose root causes, and implement durable solutions that improve performance across the value chain.
• Above all, you have a strong consumer and brand mindset. Every decision you make is rooted in delivering premium product quality and an exceptional end-user experience.