Vice President, Enterprise Innovation

The Enterprise Innovation Leader leads the strategic direction and execution of an innovation ‘mesh network’ and Innovation pipeline across footwear, apparel, equipment, and accessories. This role provides visionary leadership in identifying, developing, and delivering next-generation concepts, platforms, materials, and testing methodologies. Partnering closely with brands, the leader will ensure innovation is both brand-relevant and enterprise-leveraged. The role fosters collaboration, sets best-in-class product creation standards, and establishes a future-focused innovation culture that champions consumer-centricity, product excellence and sustainability.

Key Responsibilities:

Enterprise Innovation Strategy & Leadership

• Define and lead the innovation vision and strategy across the organization.
• Ensure innovation initiatives align with long-term business and consumer goals, including sustainability and social responsibility.
• Inspire a culture of creativity, experimentation, and future-focused thinking.

Innovation Portfolio Management

• Identify, prioritize, and manage a robust and diverse portfolio of innovation initiatives that address both near-term opportunities and long-range needs of brands.
• Govern the evolution of the innovation funnel through rigorous stage-gate criteria, ensuring consumer desirability, technical feasibility, and financial viability are met at each milestone.

Consumer Insight Integration

• Establish a system for the continuous flow of foundational and emerging consumer insights into the innovation process.
• Champion a consumer-back approach to all innovation, ensuring solutions are deeply informed by unmet needs and future behaviors.

External Innovation Ecosystem Development

• Develop and maintain a strong network of external partners—including academic institutions, startups, material innovators, and industry collaborators—to ensure early access to cutting-edge technologies.
• Scan and scout technologies from both within and outside the industry to fuel disruptive innovation.

Cross Functional Team Leadership

• Build, lead, and inspire a diverse, high-performing team that includes design, development, research, consumer insights, and program management experts.
• Foster a culture of collaboration, psychological safety, and continuous learning.

Product Innovation Leadership

• Be the enterprise innovation champion, guiding platform development and influencing product creation practices across brands.
• Advocate for enterprise-level adoption of innovation platforms and scalable technologies.

Innovation Process & Testing Excellence

• Establish gold-standard methodologies for product creation, material testing, and rapid prototyping.
• Promote sustainable design principles and tools to support responsible innovation across all product categories.
• Drive implementation of efficient, agile product creation processes including rapid prototyping and iterative development cycles.

Knowledge Sharing & Internal Enablement

• Create structured forums and frameworks for sharing innovation learnings, consumer trends, and technology developments across the enterprise.
• Equip inline teams with playbooks, tools, and support to bring innovation to market effectively.
• Leads the establishment of VF’s innovation lab.

Business Impact of Role:

1. Drives Long-Term Revenue Growth

• By identifying and commercializing breakthrough products and platform innovations, this role helps fuel future growth engines for VF brands.
• Platform-level innovations can be scaled across multiple brands, creating shared revenue opportunities and maximizing return on R&D investment.

2. Strengthens Competitive Differentiation

• Keeps VF brands ahead of consumer trends and competitor offerings through disruptive innovation.
• Positions VF as a market leader in sustainable and future-forward product design, especially in categories like footwear and performance gear.

3. Unlocks Cross-Brand Synergies

• Facilitates collaboration and knowledge sharing across VF’s portfolio, driving efficiency and enabling faster innovation cycles.
• Leverages enterprise scale for shared technology platforms, testing infrastructure, and best practices, reducing redundancy and cost.

4. Enhances Speed to Market

• Introduces agile creation processes like rapid prototyping and consumer testing loops, accelerating time from idea to market-ready product.
• Builds an