DESIGNTEX, a leading design and product development company that offers innovative and performance-tested, environment enhancement surfaces and solutions. An inquisitive nature allows us to be leaders in unique design, fabric technology, environmental responsibility and service. A Steelcase (NYSE:scs) company.

Job Description

Designtex is built on three ideas: Beauty, Utility, and Sustainability. As our VP of Product Management, you'll be the leader who makes sure every product we bring to market lives up to all three.

You'll lead a multidisciplinary team of specialists across Product Development & Launch, Sustainability, Applied Research, Compliance, Lifecycle Strategy, and Materials & Application. Together, this team turns design-complete materials into specification-ready products and keeps them that way for their entire lifecycle.

This is a role for a systems thinker who loves complexity, champions sustainability, and wants to shape how a design-driven brand innovates, launches, and grows.

What You'll Do

Own product integrity. You'll be ultimately accountable for every product Designtex offers. Your team qualifies material performance by end use, builds accurate specifications, and translates supplier descriptions into our taxonomy, all in service of launching on time and on budget, with the sampling, digital assets, and documentation customers need to specify with confidence.

Champion sustainability. Designtex was an early adopter and remains a market leader in sustainability. You'll lead our Sustainability and Applied Research team in setting ambitious goals, maintaining transparency, and building voluntary initiatives that support human, climate, and ecosystem health.

Accelerate time to market without compromise. You’ll maintain the comprehensive launch readiness that differentiates Designtex in the marketplace while advancing initiatives that shorten the path from design to market availability. You’ll set benchmarks to track progress against time-to-market objectives and ensure that increased speed does not dilute the customer experience.

Set the strategic vision. Your team leads the organization in structured product data, including data that optimizes AI search for our audiences. You'll keep this precise, detail-driven work aligned with customer focus and growth.

Elevate product management as a core capability. You'll give visibility to a vital behind-the-scenes team, listen closely to subject-matter experts, and bring their insights to light. You'll rally cross-functional partners to solve systemic problems and guide choice-making when priorities compete.

Partner for Compliance Intelligence. The VP maintains our relationship with Steelcase for guidance on Global Trade and Chemical Compliance and charts the course the team will take to apply that guidance across our offering for the entire lifecycle.

Enable Sales. Your team is a trusted source of application guidance, performance and sustainability expertise, and product knowledge content. You'll balance urgent Sales needs with long-term product strategy.

Reframe our innovation agenda. Designtex has a long history of industry firsts. You'll propose a go-forward innovation strategy with clear criteria for what fits our capabilities and stays authentic to our brand.

What You Bring

Leadership

• Proven success leading, coaching, and developing a multidisciplinary team of specialists and people leaders, from project managers to senior directors
• Skill guiding teams through change, including shifting priorities, new processes, technology adoption, and organizational transformation
• Confidence and empathy to foster cross-functional collaboration with adjacent teams and external partners. Vision to shape shared goals and enthusiasm to achieve them.

Strategic and business thinking

• A systems mindset: you see dependencies and downstream impacts and turn complex technical, customer, and regulatory factors into clear priorities
• A talent for integrating specialized disciplines into cohesive outcomes. You don't need to be the top expert in every area, but you know how to connect the experts
• Commercial and financial acumen linking product decisions to revenue, sampling and certification costs, and lifecycle value

Product, data, and sustainability expertise

• Experience establishing governance that protects product performance, specification accuracy, compliance, sustainability commitments, and brand reputation
• Fluency with structured product data, analytics, PLM, and enterprise technology
• A technical curiosity for refining products for performance, sustainability, and ease of application

Minimum Qualifications

-Bachelor’s degree in a relevant technical, design, or business discipline.    

-Significant relevant industry and leadership experience may be considered in combination with educational background. 

-Minimum of 10 years of work experience, with 5 or more years leading high-functioning teams, in the textile or design industry, with comprehensive knowledge of product development practices and sustainability standards within the industry. 

-Located in NYC – on site.  

Preferred Qualifications

- Advanced degree preferred. 

-Degree in Textile Engineering, Industrial Design, Sustainability, or Business Administration.

-Broad knowledge of the woven, coated-textile, and digital-imaging industries 

Core skills

• Excellent written and verbal communication
• Sophisticated problem-solving
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint

Doing better for people and planet  

 Steelcase is a global design and thought leader in the world of work. Along with our expansive community of brands, we design and manufacture innovative furnishings and solutions to help people do their best work in the many places where work happens. 

Why People Choose to Work with Us 

 At Steelcase, we put people at the center of everything we do. We understand the role of work and believe that it can bring meaning and purpose to the lives of our customers and our employees. We prioritize supporting our employees both in and out of work, in all aspects of their lives. When we bring our talents together, we make a positive lasting impact through our work and communities.  

 Steelcase provides employment opportunities to all qualified employees and applicants without regard to race, color, creed, genetic information, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, disability, or veteran status and bases all employment decisions only on valid job requirements. If we can make the application process easier through accommodation, please email us at [email protected].    

In compliance with New York City’s Human Rights Law, the expected annual base salary range at the time of hire for this position is $194,500-$240,000 + 30% Bonus Target. Please note that the salary information is a general guideline only. Steelcase considers factors such as (but not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate’s work experience, education/training, key skills, internal peer equity, as well as market and business considerations when extending an offer. 

At Steelcase, we put people at the center of everything we do. We understand the role of work and believe that it can bring meaning and purpose to the lives of our customers and our employees. We prioritize supporting our employees both in and out of work, in all aspects of their lives. When we bring our talents together, we make a positive lasting impact through our work and communities. 

Steelcase provides employment opportunities to all qualified employees and applicants without regard to race, color, creed, genetic information, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, disability, or veteran status and bases all employment decisions only on valid job requirements. If we can make the application process easier through accommodation, please email us at [email protected].