Textile Innovation Lead

Company Description
Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:RL) is a global leader in the design, marketing and distribution of premium lifestyle products in five categories: apparel, accessories, home, fragrances, and hospitality. For more than 50 years, Ralph Lauren's reputation and distinctive image have been consistently developed across an expanding number of products, brands and international markets. The Company's brand names, which include Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lauren Collection, Ralph Lauren Purple Label, Polo Ralph Lauren, Double RL, Lauren Ralph Lauren, Polo Ralph Lauren Children, Chaps, among others, constitute one of the world's most widely recognized families of consumer brands. At Ralph Lauren, we unite and inspire the communities within our company as well as those in which we serve by amplifying voices and perspectives to create a culture of belonging, ensuring inclusion, and fairness for all. We foster a culture of inclusion through: Talent, Education & Communication, Employee Groups and Celebration. Any offer of employment is contingent upon proof of full COVID 19 vaccinations upon hire. Accommodations due to medical or religious reasons will be evaluated in compliance with the law.

Position Overview
You will take innovative material and process proofs of concept to a scale-ready level of development in collaboration with the innovation team, startups, suppliers and our sourcing organization. The output of this work will be materials and processes that are ready for the sourcing organization to drive scale across our supply chain. This will require strong problem solving, documentation, collaboration, knowledge of functional textiles and fiber chemistry as well as a deep understanding of textiles equipment and processes.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

* Assess materials innovation solutions for scalability and market fit.
* Determine materials innovation solutions alignment to strategic and sustainability goals.
* Develop tools and metrics to rank potential solutions in cooperation with the materials and sustainability teams.
* Lead key textiles projects from concept development through to commercialization, with a focus on deployment at scale.
* Work in supplier and partner facilities to support trials, scale up, technology transfer, trouble shoot and develop standard operating procedures in close collaboration with sourcing.
* Liaise with solutions providers, as well as RL sourcing teams, and our supplier base to develop and communicate strategies for deploying and scaling materials innovations over time.
* Support the innovation team in conversations with potential partners to ensure that scale feasibility, scale roadmap and pricing is determined early on in the process.
* Support relationship building with external technology partnerships, ensuring that the innovation team and the broader organization are staying connected to the latest information and solutions.
* Feasibility - create and deploy a consistent screening process to filter out new materials that lack potential and drive toward industrial deployment of viable, valuable, and strategically aligned materials.
* In concert with the sustainability team, identify key areas of focus and gaps in the sustainable materials portfolio where the materials innovation team should focus efforts.
* Offer support to materials teams, sourcing and sustainability teams on technical materials questions.
* Develop relationships with universities, investors, and NGOs in materials and materials related organizations to help the RL organization keep up to date on the latest information, technologies and regulations.
* Work with corporate communications, sustainability, quality, compliance, merchandising, marketing and external testing/certification organizations to define consumer facing messaging and steer to make sure that communication is accurate and supported by real data.

Experience, Skills & Knowledge

* Strong experience in the textile industry.
* Deep knowledge and experience with textile production and processes.
* Deep functional knowledge of textile manufacturing and finishing equipment, and ideally experience developing and utilizing equipment at the manufacturer or mill level.
* Experience with textiles sustainability practices, nomenclature and proof points.
* Ability to work with diverse groups internally and externally.
* Experience with both knits and wovens.
* Understanding of textile chemistry and finishing.
* Strong connections in the textile equipment and chemicals industry globally.
* Strong presentation skills.
* PowerPoint and Excel.
* Project management systems. #LI-EJ1