Manager, Product Development-UA

About Centric Brands

Centric Brands is a leading lifestyle brand collective that designs, sources, markets and sells high quality products in multiple segments, including women’s, men’s and kid’s apparel, accessories, entertainment and beauty. Centric Brands focuses on customers and brands that drive the company’s future growth. The company emphasizes innovation, creativity and analytical thinking, and values respect for others and the hard work needed to achieve goals.

From sourcing raw materials to manufacturing, order placement, pricing, quality control and delivering finished products, the production/product development team ensures high standards and profitable operations at every step. We seek focused, results-driven, tenacious and highly flexible team players who will have opportunities to build rewarding careers with a leading lifestyle brand collective.

• Collaborate with Design, Production, and Technical Design to ensure deadlines are met and communicate status updates to all departments. Establish an efficient and transparent process to maintain a consistent flow of approvals.
• Participate in style-by-style milestone meetings to understand customer and brand vision while guiding development strategy and execution.
• Work directly with overseas vendors to review and approve complex product development submissions, including lab dips, fabric prints, graphic screen prints, decorative trims, sales samples and pre-production samples, ensuring brand quality and integrity are maintained.
• Evaluate lab dips with a strong understanding of color science to ensure color accuracy across product categories.
• Utilize extensive knowledge of woven and knit fabrics, fabric print techniques, graphic screen prints and garment construction across multiple categories.
• Evaluate initial tech packs through PLM while creating comment logs and reviewing samples to ensure details are executable by factories.
• Collaborate with Design, Production, and Sales teams to keep development on schedule per the design calendar, monitoring deadlines and communicating status to all departments.
• Lead department head review meetings on product and development, establishing direction and priorities while driving accountability across the team.
• Drive fabrication and technique development, identifying opportunities for innovation and efficiency across product lines; partner cross-departmentally to develop new print technique options and treatments.
• Identify and resolve technical issues related to artwork, garment construction, and factory capabilities, ensuring final production pack approvals reflect product requirements and artwork executes as intended in production.
• Maintain and continuously develop standard libraries of fabrics, prints, graphics and trims to support future development.
• Partner with Product Development leadership to improve department processes, establish consistent development standards, and identify opportunities to enhance team effectiveness.

• Expert understanding of the apparel product development lifecycle, seasonal milestones, and cross-functional development processes.
• Advanced technical knowledge of garment construction, fabric development, color science, graphic screen printing, embellishment techniques, decorative trims, packaging, and manufacturing processes.
• Demonstrated experience independently managing product development across multiple product categories from concept through production.
• Extensive experience evaluating and approving complex product development submissions and communicating technical direction directly to overseas vendors.
• Strong leadership, organizational, analytical, project management, and decision-making skills.
• Ability to anticipate development risks and implement effective solutions while balancing quality, cost, and calendar objectives.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to collaborate with cross-functional partners.
• Understanding of Child Safety Guidelines.
• Proficiency in FlexPLM, Microsoft Office, and Adobe Illustrator preferred.
• Bachelor's degree (Product Development or related field).
• 5+ years of apparel…