Manager, Costing FTW

Purpose

A key player in Product Development & Sourcing (PD&S) in driving PD&S’s vision to be the Most Agile, Most Competitive & Most Innovative PD&S in the industry. Champion data-driven insights, continuous improvement, and collaborative problem-solving to help achieve the company’s margin ambitions.

Key Responsibilities

• Track, analyse, and interpret product and operational cost performance; develop strategic pricing approaches and identify opportunities to enhance profitability and business value.
• Identify cost-saving opportunities and margin leakage points, proactively recommending strategies that improve financial performance and drive sustainable growth.
• Design, build, and maintain trackers, dashboards, and reporting tools that provide visibility into margin performance, cost variances, and actionable business insights for leadership teams.
• Ensure accurate, transparent, and timely cost analysis throughout the product development and commercialization process.
• Collaborate closely with Development, Materials, Product Creation, and Sourcing Operations teams to support achievement of target costs.
• Analyse margin performance across key costing milestones, identifying drivers of variance, emerging trends, risks, and opportunities for cost optimization.
• Provide PD&S Costing Leadership with meaningful insights on margin developments, cost drivers, supplier pricing trends, and competitive benchmarking to support strategic decision-making.
• Continuously strengthen expertise in costing, sourcing, market dynamics, and industry trends while fostering a culture of knowledge sharing and continuous learning.
• Challenge existing costing standards, processes, and policies by identifying opportunities to simplify, streamline, and continuously improve ways of working.
• Ensure all PD&S operational practices comply with the company’s Responsible Sourcing & Purchasing Policies, standards, and applicable legal requirements.
• Role model leadership to foster a culture of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

Key Relationships

Product Development & Sourcing teams, including Sourcing Operations, Materials, Planning, and Manufacturing Excellence; cross-functional teams including Brand Finance and business units; and external Tier 1 Costing stakeholders.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Strong understanding of the sourcing industry, with expertise in product costing, financial analysis, product development, manufacturing, or supply chain operations.
• Highly analytical with strong problem-solving capabilities and a solutions-oriented, customer-focused mindset.
• Advanced ability to work with large and complex datasets, identify meaningful trends, and translate data into clear, actionable business recommendations.
• Fluent in written and spoken English, with strong project management and change management capabilities.
• Strong presentation, stakeholder management, negotiation, influencing, and communication skills.
• Strategic and critical thinker able to challenge the status quo and influence decision-making.
• Self-motivated, proactive, and able to work independently in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Office; experience with BI platforms, data visualization tools, and advanced analytics and AI solutions is an advantage.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, Accounting, Economics, Data Analytics, Supply Chain Management, Business Administration, or a related field.
• Minimum of 5+ years of relevant experience within a multinational environment, such as consulting, commercial finance, product costing, project management, fashion, sourcing, manufacturing, or supply chain management.
• Experience influencing cross-functional stakeholders, driving business performance through analytics, and leading initiatives with commercial impact.
• Experience working across global and regional teams and aligning diverse stakeholders toward common objectives.

Company Culture

Adidas fosters a winning culture built around courage, ownership, innovation, teamplay, integrity, and respect, with a strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.