Organized in 1899, VF Corporation is a global leader in branded lifestyle apparel, footwear and accessories with nearly 70,000 associates and $12.4 billion in revenue. In August 2018, VF announced its plans to spin off the Jeanswear business comprised of approximately 20,000 employees and $2.5 billion in revenue. The new company, Kontoor Brands, Inc., will be a separate publicly-traded company headquartered in Greensboro, NC and includes the Wrangler, Lee, and VF Outlet brands.

The spin is planned to be effective in the first half of 2019 and will position Kontoor Brands as the home of iconic denim brands steeped in heritage and authenticity. Kontoor Brands will be the leading player in denim globally, delivering steady growth, consistent profitability and strong cash flow to support high dividends to our shareholders. As an independent, publicly-traded company, Kontoor Brands will have greater opportunities to modernize and evolve the business, pursue new market opportunities, and expand our geographic footprint. 

Sr. Manager, Solution Architecture: Become the Newest Member of the Kontoor Family   

With Kontoor’s focus on a flexible next generation platform, the solution must support the growth, retail and global expansion, investments in innovations, emphasis on acquisitions/divestitures, and commitment to enhanced security which requires a leader who can understands Kontoor’s global business requirements and architect technological frameworks and deliverables that enable Kontoor’s success.  This candidate will lead Kontoor’s foundational technology architecture team.  

Responsibilities 

• Inform the design and development of market-leading IT solutions that support Kontoor’s strategic imperatives & capabilities by creating and advocating for use of enterprise-level architectural models or views that enable efficiency, sustainability, agility, and adaptability of our IT investments. Leverage the SAP S4 HANA for Fashion enterprise solution as the core while enabling advanced capabilities using proven yet innovative solutions. 
• Business Models and Ecosystems 
• Take a collaborative business-centric approach to inform solutions and frameworks. 
• Use business economic and financial levers to effectively support and guide technology investment decisions. 
• Apply new and emerging technologies in a pilot / deploy mode to enable future and current-state business models. 
• Seek architectural solutions that can be leveraged across a global organization. 
• Collaborate with business and IT stakeholders to understand the desired experience/outcome before determining a solution.  
• Strategy and Execution 
• Formulate, translate and execute enterprise technology architecture strategy to achieve targeted business outcomes. 
• Work with strategy functions to Identify gaps in key business capabilities and propose technology solutions to close those gaps and create competitive advantage 
• Demonstrate the business value of architecture as an enabler of strategy and a driver of Kontoor’s top and bottom line. 
• Bring the right architectural disciplines to each unique business problem and create structure that enables innovation in areas of competitive advantage but encourages standardization and simplification in areas of parity with the industry. Build and leverage a consistent architecture framework to establish a consistent, repeatable, and efficient global standard. 
• Construct technology-enabled operating models and options, and create visibility into execution issues. 
• Lead development, maintenance, and update of architectural blueprints for related systems. 
• Accept ownership of maintaining accurate, up to date models that can be used to understand how systems are integrated, how data flows, and points of access. 
• Technology and Non-technology Trends 
• Scan the world for major disruptive technology and nontechnology trends (trendspotting) that have potential to affect our business, and provide practical advice and best practices to overcome these challenges and successfully deliver the expected business outcomes. 
• Contextualize the technology trends based on social, economic, political and other nontechnology trends. 
• Constantly update the technical system architecture requirements based on changing technologies, knowledge related to upcoming vendor products/solutions, best practices, and lessons learned. 
• Innovation 
• Track and apply innovative and existing technologies, anchoring them in the business model to assess their potential, and use rapid prototyping approaches to evolve innovations. 
• Run technology experiments, helping to create new products and services, and integrate the best of these into steady-state operations for the organization. 
• Business Outcomes and Deliverables 
• Assess the inter-relationship between people, processes, information, technology, and the external environment. 
• Develop diagnostic and actionable deliverables that help business guide investment decisions in support of executing business strategy. 
• Recommend and participate in the design and implementation of information technology standards, tools and methodologies. 
• Organizational Readiness 
• Provide perspective on the readiness of the organization to change and innovate. 
• Present a gap analysis and/or IT investment roadmap that reflects the status of the existing IT estate, namely, its ability to contribute to future-state business capabilities around ecosystems and digital platforms. 
• Leadership 
• Identifies, hires, and develops a team of talented architects with specialized skills (e.g., solution architects, data architects, infrastructure architects, integration architects, security architects) who collaborate with business partners and each other to design and develop technology solutions that enable the business and create a competitive advantage. 
• Articulate highly technical architecture models and approaches to business partners and executive leaders in a non-technical way. 
• Competencies
• Building, developing, and coaching diverse, cross-discipline teams, to drive superior results 
• Leading change through the ability to influence diverse business partners and peers 
• Ability to develop and implement the vision and plans of the organization 
• Business acumen and global perspective 
• Driving execution with a passion for results 
• Highly compelling communications across all levels of the organization 
• Collaboration and strategic partnerships 

Skills for Success  

• Ability to work independently with users and upper management. 
• Ability to prepare and deliver formal presentations. 
• Proficient in current data processing technology and solutions to systems problems. 
• Ability to Team management (tasks, schedule, activities) 
• Driving for Results 
• Initiating Action, Energy / Proactive 
• Innovative Problem Solver 
• Capacity to develop self & others 
• Collaborating 
• Thorough 
• Multi-tasking 
• Adaptable to New Solutions 
• Positive, get-it-done attitude 
• Drive technical solutions across teams 
• Strong organizational and communication skills. 
• Self- motivated; ability to work and lead a team with limited oversight.