For over 50 years KENT OUTDOORS has been the ultimate destination for outdoor enthusiasts, offering a curated collection of industry-leading brands driven by the pure pursuit of adventure. KENT Outdoors is a collection of brands all obsessively focused on building the most innovative and reliable equipment for use in our most revered natural playgrounds. We relentlessly dream, build, and offer products that empower the very best days outside. We're a collection of outdoor fanatics, product geeks, marketing mavens, and entrepreneurs all focused on pushing through boundaries, both on land, and in the water. Holding true to our roots while evolving for the future, the family of KENT brands today includes Absolute Outdoors, Arctic Shield, Aquaglide, Arbor Snowboards, Barefoot International, BOTE, Connelly, FatSac, Freedom Foil, Full Throttle, HO Sports, Hyperlite, KENT, Liquid Force, Margaritaville, O'Brien, and Onyx. Your Impact The Head of Raw Materials and Product Costing is responsible for developing the raw material strategy for our Personal Flotation Devices (PFD)/lifejackets division. This role will manage the sourcing and procurement of raw materials while ensuring accurate and strategic product costing. This role plays a crucial part in optimizing material costs, maintaining cost-effective procurement strategies, and ensuring that product pricing aligns with business objectives. The role involves close collaboration with the finance, Product Management, Master Planning, Compliance and manufacturing teams to maintain a competitive cost structure. What You'll Do
Raw Materials Management: - Oversee the sourcing and procurement of raw materials, ensuring quality, cost-effectiveness, and timely delivery.
- Develop and implement strategies to optimize raw material costs while maintaining supplier quality and reliability.
- Monitor global market trends and supply chain disruptions to anticipate and mitigate risks in raw material availability and pricing.
Supplier Relationship Management: - Build and maintain strong relationships with suppliers to negotiate favorable terms, ensure quality, and secure the best pricing.
- Lead supplier performance reviews, focusing on cost, quality, delivery, and continuous improvement. Ensure that Kent has a robust capacity planning process in place with key raw material suppliers to ensure that our future demands are met and collaborates closely with the Sr. Dir. of Manufacturing and Planning Manager.
- Work closely with suppliers to identify and implement cost-saving opportunities.
Cost Analysis and Reporting: - Provide detailed material cost analysis reports to senior management, highlighting key cost drivers and trends.
- Develop and implement cost control measures to ensure that raw material costs remain within budgeted levels.
- Support financial planning and forecasting processes with accurate and timely costing information.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: - Work closely with R&D, Manufacturing, and Supply Planning teams to ensure that raw materials and product costing are aligned with operational and strategic goals.
- Provide input on product design and development from a cost perspective, ensuring that new products are cost-optimized from the outset.
- Works closely with IT and Master Planning to ensure that the material master is complete in D365
- Collaborate with the sales and marketing teams to ensure that pricing strategies reflect accurate product costs.
Risk Management: - Identify potential risks related to raw material sourcing and costing, and develop strategies to mitigate these risks. Develop localized sourcing strategies to reduce overall lead-times and reduce tariffs
- Implement contingency plans for raw material shortages or price fluctuations.
- Work with Compliance to ensure all relevant regulations and standards in raw material sourcing and product costing.
What You've Accomplished
- Education: Bachelor's degree, Supply Chain Management, Engineering, Business Administration, or a related field.
- Experience: Minimum of 10 years of experience in procurement, raw materials management, or product costing, Experience in manufacturing or a related industry is highly desirable.
- Strong leadership and influencing skills.
- Extensive experience in raw materials sourcing, supplier management, and product costing.
- Strong negotiation, communication, and interpersonal skills.
- Proven ability to drive cost reductions and improve supply chain efficiency.
- Analytical and strategic thinking with strong problem-solving abilities.
- Proficiency in relevant software and tools (e.g., ERP systems, costing software, Excel).
- This role involves working in both office settings and interacting with suppliers and manufacturing teams.
- Occasional travel may be required to meet with suppliers, conduct audits, or visit manufacturing sites.
How You Thrive You go all out. You tend to approach everything you do with velocity. From your next exhilarating outdoor adventure to scaling meaningful peaks at work, you act with speed, direction, ethics, and forethought. Your efficiency is rooted in the knowledge that resources are not infinite. You are goal-oriented and focused on outcomes. When you see a challenge or obstacle to overcome, you jump in collaboratively to find a solution; team achievements should be celebrated more than individual performance. You are compelled to share your perspective because it is rooted in experience and synthesis thinking - you know that healthy debate yields better decisions. You are humble despite your impressive past accomplishments. Your communication style is honest and forthright, yet empathetic, with everyone. KENT Outdoors is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.