Head of Footwear Development - Football at On in Zürich

Job description

In short Based at our Zurich HQ, you will be the visionary force and executive technical leader driving On’s entry and dominance in Football footwear. In this pivotal role, you will champion groundbreaking creation, build a world-class team, and fearlessly disrupt traditional manufacturing processes to engineer the most premium, disruptive performance products in the industry. As Head of Football Footwear Development, you will seamlessly connect the granular with the macro-strategic—serving as the ultimate technical authority while shaping the long-term vision for On’s newest and most critical category. By ensuring absolute synergy between radical design vision, elite biomechanical performance, and next-generation manufacturing feasibility, you will set the benchmark for football footwear creation. You will provide the technical governance, cross-functional leadership, and pioneering strategy needed to build our football department from the ground up, driving innovation straight into our inline product strategy while scaling the category globally. This role reports directly to the Head of Innovation Footwear , leading the dedicated Zurich-based Football Development team and partnering closely with global footwear leadership. Your Mission Strategic & Disruptive Leadership: Define and execute the overarching technical and development strategy for Football footwear. Pioneer the adoption of agile, disruptive manufacturing methods and next-generation tooling to bypass traditional constraints. Inline Innovation Engine: Drive category-defining innovation directly from the inline development process, elevating brand equity, performance standards, and technological capabilities across the broader organization. Technical & Category Governance: Serve as the final technical authority during briefing, design, and execution phases—ensuring football-specific demands (traction, stud configuration, upper lockdown, ball feel, and touch) meet rigorous scientific standards. Strategic Global Synchronization: Lead high-level alignment between Zurich-based Design, Product Management, Biomechanics, and Asia-based development and manufacturing partners, safeguarding the performance "soul" of the football category across all franchises. Team Building & Talent Empowerment: Build, mentor, and scale a elite team of developers and engineers, inspiring a culture of relentless curiosity, technical rigor, and hands-on experimentation. Manufacturing & Supply Chain Evolution: Identify technical bottlenecks and transform global supply chain capabilities by partnering with tier-1 suppliers and novel manufacturing vendors to enable quick-turn, high-agility production. Elite Performance & Quality Assurance: Establish and oversee category-wide validation benchmarks for fit, feel, traction, energy return, and long-term durability across all factory partners. Your Story Experience: 10–15+ years of deep expertise in footwear development, with a proven track record specifically within high-performance Football (Soccer) footwear . Disruptive Mindset: Highly adaptable with demonstrated experience implementing unconventional, agile, or disruptive manufacturing methods (e.g., advanced automation, additive manufacturing, 3D/textile innovation, automated bonding). Proven Executive Leadership: Experience building, leading, and mentoring technical teams, with the executive presence to influence product management, design, and external partners at the highest levels. Deep Domain Mastery: Comprehensive understanding of football-specific biomechanics, plate dynamics, stud pressure distribution, specialized last development, and upper material behavior under match conditions. Systemic & Commercial Vision: Exceptional ability to balance high-risk/high-reward innovation with commercial viability and global supply chain scalability. Collaborative & Culturally Agile: A natural bridge builder capable of translating creative vision into technical reality across diverse, multi-regional te