Product Line Manager II, Footwear

Who We Are

At Brooks, we believe movement is the key to feeling more alive. That’s why we’re driven to create gear and experiences that take people to the place that makes them feel more alive — whether it’s a headspace, a feeling, or a finish line.

Everyone who works at Brooks is propelled by a company culture that sparks excitement, fuels collaboration, inspires creativity, and ignites innovation.

Our brand values help bond us together and drive our success:

• Runner First — We act in the best interest of the runner
• Word is Bond — We do what we say we’ll do
• Champion Heart — We give our all in everything we do
• There is no “I” in Run — We stay generous with our humanity
• Keep Moving — We find ways to move every day, because joy is kinetic!

We welcome everyone from every walk of life looking to inspire others through the power of movement - because we’re all moving towards something. Let’s run there.

The Mission of the Product Line Management and Blue Line teams is to be the voice of the consumer in the product creation process, set the product benefit expectations, and ensure that this vision is maintained from brief to market. The primary goal is to bring Brooks’s complete and competitive footwear product lines to market in a timely and profitable manner and to identify the products, technologies, experiences and processes that will shape the future of running in innovative ways.

The Footwear Product Line Manager II (PLM II) plays a critical role in delivering successful seasonal footwear assortments  this role, you are responsible for the execution of assigned seasonal footwear projects, ensuring consumer wants and needs, product intent, and business objectives come together from brief through commercialization.

As a PLM II, your primary focus is owning and executing within a season, translating consumer insights and springboards into strong consumer-centric product briefs and guiding the product team through the product creation process.

Strategic Planning and Execution

• Be the expert on the evolution of the line plan for your season of focus.
• Partner with Manager, Footwear PLM to translate multi-year strategies, innovation pipelines, and line plan evolution into executable inline briefs.
• Ensure seasonal product assortments are competitive, consumer‑relevant, and aligned to business objectives.

Consumer, Insights, Briefing and Product Execution

Consumer and Insights

• Serve as the seasonal consumer and marketplace expert, staying ahead of trends, competitive moves, and evolving runner needs.
• Participate in insights latent and expressed needs research projects in conjunction with RSL and/or other PLMs that are then leveraged as springboards within the consumer briefs for each season. Mentor PLM-I through this process to grow their knowledge to participate in future projects.
• Curate time in market with key footwear team members, analyzing and interpreting data, interacting directly with consumers including but not limited to leading consumer on-on-one interviews, shop-alongs and rapid prototyping.
• Maintain regular interactions with retailers to identify additional insights and opportunities and anticipate future trends.

Briefs

• Begin with the ‘Why’ and the ‘Key consumer problem to solve’
• Combine consumer insights (latent and/or expressed) and springboards, biomechanics POV, and new or future innovation capabilities to articulate a crafted story that comes to life in a product brief.
• Lead the cross functional and collaborative brief creation process that includes the story crafting, key consumer benefits, KPIs, development toolbox and design concepts

Product Execution

• Work cross functionally within footwear team to drive product execution and be accountable for product readiness at key milestones - design review, triad scorecard and calibration presentations, sales meeting, etc.
• Hold continuous optimal experience and knowledge of technical execution across materials, upper construction, foams, midsole and outsole parts to ensure the team is executing at the highest level for the consumer and product readiness
• Maintain an understanding in Biomechanics to facilitate in-depth dialogue with…