Director of External Manufacturing & Sourcing

Position Snapshot

Gorilla Commerce is seeking a Director of External Manufacturing & Sourcing to serve as the company’s senior U.S.

-based leader responsible for production readiness, cost validation, and supplier execution across the product lifecycle. This role sits at the critical intersection of Product Development and Sourcing — ensuring that product intent translates into manufacturable, cost-realistic, and scalable outcomes, and that suppliers ultimately deliver against those expectations. The Director is the conduit between design intent and cost realization: validating what can be built at target cost and margin, shaping that cost through upstream manufacturing decisions, and ensuring the sourcing function executes with the precision and accountability the business requires.

As Gorilla scales its product portfolio and retail footprint, the need for tighter upstream production discipline has become a clear organizational priority. Too much cost problem-solving and production iteration currently sits downstream — with suppliers and in the sourcing process — rather than being resolved at the point of design and specification. This role is designed to shift that dynamic: building the internal capability, rigor, and decision quality needed to improve first-pass execution, reduce avoidable iteration cycles, and deliver products to market at the right cost, quality, and speed.

This is a senior operating role for a leader who brings both manufacturing depth and commercial judgment — someone equally credible on a factory floor, in a product brief, and in an executive conversation.

What We Do:

We’re a leading e-commerce company focused on creating high-quality, affordable products that make everyday life easier.

Scale & Footprint:
Headquartered in Norwalk, CT, Gorilla Commerce is a Top 10 Amazon U.S. seller with rapid growth and expanding into an omnichannel presence.

Industry Differentiator:
Known for our flagship brand, Gorilla Grip, we combine creativity with data-driven insights to deliver obsession-worthy products.

Culture Highlights:
Fast-paced, collaborative, and customer-focused environment where innovation and growth thrive.

Impressive Growth:
We’re a rapidly growing e-commerce company with ambitious plans to expand our reach and evolve into a true omnichannel business.

• Own U.S.
  
  -side production readiness across new product development, supplier transitions, and retail programs — from brief to build-ready.
• Validate product specifications for manufacturability, completeness, and cost feasibility before they enter the sourcing and manufacturing process.
• Translate product concepts and design intent into executable manufacturing plans, defining materials, construction, tolerances, process requirements, and packaging with the precision required for first-pass supplier execution.
• Develop and own should-cost frameworks — including BOM breakdowns, labor and process assumptions, and packaging cost structures — to ensure cost realism upstream and reduce gaps at the negotiation stage.
• Pressure-test manufacturability early, identifying technical risks, cost implications, and required decisions before supplier engagement begins.

• Partner with Product Development to validate design-to-cost assumptions, ensuring that design choices are grounded in production and cost reality.
• Drive tradeoffs when design intent conflicts with cost targets, manufacturability, or scalability — bringing structured recommendations rather than open questions.
• Shape cost upstream through material selection, design simplification, process optimization, and packaging engineering — before positions harden in the sourcing process.
• Provide Sourcing with clear, structured cost targets and detailed cost breakdowns to enable sharper negotiation and more effective supplier dialogue.

• Build and manage a North America external manufacturing ecosystem spanning finishing, packaging, display, and value-add operations.
• Evaluate suppliers based on technical capability, process maturity, cost…