Tapestry Vice President of Production Operations

About Tapestry

Tapestry is a New York–based house of modern luxury, uniting the distinctive worlds of Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman. As an employer, the group offers the scale and sophistication of a global fashion leader while preserving the creative spirit and heritage of its iconic brands. Tapestry cultivates an inclusive, purpose-driven culture where design, craftsmanship, digital innovation, and commercial excellence intersect. Its teams are encouraged to think boldly, grow continuously, and contribute to a more responsible future for fashion, making Tapestry a compelling environment for talent seeking impact, creativity, and international opportunity.

Role & Responsibilities

• Lead the annual supply of finished leather goods and products, ensuring quality and on-time delivery while meeting Tapestry’s standards for capacity, capability, compliance and cost.
• Maintain an agile operations team that balances available capabilities, capacity and cost against demand signals, and determine available resources and capacity.
• Procure more than US$330 million in raw materials globally, ensuring high quality and competitive cost to support gross-margin improvement.
• Oversee production quality and on-time delivery across 16 Service Provider groups and 31 locations in nine Asian countries, covering more than 150 million manufacturing hours across Coach and Kate Spade leather goods categories and more than US$330 million in leather, hardware and textile sourcing.
• Negotiate annual labor, overhead, profit and production-efficiency terms with Service Providers in partnership with Planning and Strategic Costing; influence product cost through production-location decisions and efficiency gains, working with factories to lower prices while developing their capabilities.
• Make final decisions on Service Provider claims negotiations and settlements.
• Identify, assess and select new Service Providers in response to business needs.
• Ensure Service Providers have the capabilities, technical skills and machinery needed to produce current and future products.
• Establish the strategic footprint for the Long-Range Plan and ensure sufficient Service Provider capacity to deliver it.
• Own and govern production and quality Balanced Scorecard KPIs and the Service Provider assessment system; oversee team inputs, approve Service Provider ratings and rankings, and align them with strategic priorities.
• Represent Asia Operations and Sourcing globally and own communications with external parties.
• Lead communication and priority alignment across Product Development, Planning, Finance, Costing, Quality, Fulfillment and Logistics, and other key stakeholders.
• Drive cost savings through initiatives that enhance planning processes and improve overall efficiency and quality.
• Analyze quality data and feedback to identify trends and implement corrective actions.
• Lead monthly reviews with POMs, PODs and Quality to drive continuous improvement and feed learnings back to Product Development.
• Set the quality assurance and audit strategy, including warehouse quality-control audits, and continuously improve audit practices.
• Lead more than 80 team members across nine Asian countries, Italy and the USA.
• Enforce Tapestry compliance standards for quality, trade, environmental and social matters in relationships with Service Providers and raw-material suppliers; partner with ESG and Global Trade Compliance and resolve related issues.
• Ensure compliance with quality standards, assisting with the assessment and resolution of quality issues as they arise.
• Own the Direct Sourcing and Materials Management strategy, setting the approach to raw-material quality, timing and location; direct the raw-materials plan and seek new sources and diversification when needed.

Qualifications

• Understand Asia Service Provider capabilities and production processes.
• Have a deep understanding of supply-chain systems: S4, Gateway, Tradelink, ecV, Nexgen/Avery Dennison, BI and JDS; drive infrastructure improvements that deliver business objectives.
• Demonstrate expertise in resolving issues, including those involving third-party providers.
• Manage cross-functional team expectations and collaborate to hold key stakeholders accountable.
• Have strong written and verbal communication skills and communicate efficiently with global audiences at all levels.
• Thrive in a fast-paced environment with a high degree of ambiguity.
• Show intellectual curiosity and a drive to improve processes and ways of working.
• Hold a degree in Business or Supply Chain (preferred).
• Have at least 15 years of relevant experience in supply chain, finance or a related area; retail experience is a plus.
• Have leather goods and handbag manufacturing experience, with cross-category awareness.
• Demonstrate the ability to manage and develop talent.
• Be able to analyze, compile and manage highly detailed data.
• Bring a strategic mindset and balance short-term needs with long-term priorities.
• Have a track record of influencing cross-functional partners.
• Build strong, trusted relationships with Service Providers and internal teams.
• Bring leadership experience in the Asia region and cultural awareness.
• Demonstrate ownership and accountability, strong negotiation skills, initiative, problem-solving, adaptability, flexibility, change leadership, teamwork, collaboration and strategic thinking.
• Be self-motivated, able to work under pressure, decisive and willing to fail fast and pivot.
• Balance Service Provider and Tapestry interests fairly and equitably, with a results-driven, future-focused approach.
• Demonstrate courage by giving direct, complete, actionable positive and corrective feedback, addressing people issues promptly and taking necessary action.
• Show creativity by generating original ideas, making connections across concepts and contributing value in brainstorming settings.
• Maintain customer focus by understanding internal and external customer needs, using firsthand feedback to improve products and services, and building trusted customer relationships.
• Deal effectively with ambiguity and change, make decisions without complete information, and handle risk and uncertainty.
• Demonstrate a strong drive for results, consistently pursue goals and push self and others to deliver.
• Show interpersonal savvy, build constructive relationships across organizational levels, use diplomacy and tact, and diffuse tense situations.
• Learn quickly when facing unfamiliar challenges, analyze successes and failures, experiment with solutions and adapt to change.
• For people management, demonstrate strategic agility by anticipating trends and consequences and developing credible strategies and plans.
• Develop direct reports and others through challenging assignments, regular career-development discussions and plans, and support for developmental moves.
• Build effective teams by fostering morale, open dialogue, shared success, accountability and belonging.

Skills

Experience

15+ years of relevant work experience in supply chain, finance or another related area; retail industry experience is a plus.

Education

Degree in Business or Supply Chain preferred.

Culture

Tapestry fosters a collaborative, inclusive workplace where creativity, craftsmanship, and consumer insight come together across its portfolio of iconic fashion and lifestyle brands. As an employer, it encourages entrepreneurial thinking, global perspective, and continuous growth, empowering teams to shape meaningful brand experiences while contributing to a culture of innovation and belonging.

About Cerulean

Cerulean is the definitive career portal for the global luxury industry. We match exceptional professionals with exclusive opportunities at the world's most prestigious brands. From haute couture and fine watchmaking to prestige beauty, hospitality, and boutique retail, Cerulean centralises luxury employment to help you find the career for which you were destined.