Senior Director, Technical Design

Senior Director Technical Design

URBN is seeking an accomplished and visionary Senior Director to guide our Technical Design teams into the next era of product creation. In this role, you will lead the digital transformation of our technical design function, elevating our capabilities across all URBN brands. This strategic leader will drive a "digital-first" mentality, shifting from physical to virtual workflows to leverage DPC at every stage of fit. You will establish best-in-class 3D processes to ensure exceptional quality, consistency, and unprecedented speed-to-market, serving as the expert authority on garment engineering and digital innovation.

Role Responsibilities

Digital Strategy & Acceleration

• Visionary Roadmap: Define and execute a forward-thinking global strategy that places 3D/DPC at the core of technical design, ensuring the digital workflow supports each brand's aesthetic while accelerating business objectives.
• DPC Integration: Champion the aggressive adoption and scaling of DPC tools (Clo3D, Browzwear, AI) across all brands and categories, moving beyond "pilot" phases to full operational integration to shift towards digital decision making.
• Virtual Ecosystem: Oversee the management and standardization of digital asset libraries—including 3D blocks, material physics, and avatars—to create a seamless foundation for virtual product development and fit.

3D Digital Fit & Virtual Approvals

• Virtual Fit Protocol: Revolutionize the fitting process by establishing protocols for 100% digital fit approvals, minimizing the reliance on physical prototypes to make decisions.
• Digital Standards: Establish and maintain comprehensive digital fit standards and avatars, ensuring that virtual representations match physical reality with high accuracy across all vendors.
• Innovation in Construction: Lead the implementation of innovative digital pattern-making and grading techniques to solve complex fit and costing challenges within the 3D environment.

Operational Excellence

• Process Optimization: Standardize the end-to-end virtual fitting process to drive speed and accuracy, utilizing digital twins to secure first-time approvals.
• Vendor Digital Onboarding: Partner closely with Sourcing to vet and onboard vendors based on their 3D/digital capabilities, ensuring factory partners can execute against URBN's digital technical specifications.
• Data-Driven ROI: Implement data-driven metrics to measure technical design effectiveness, using these insights to continuously refine the DPC strategy.

Organizational Leadership & Upskilling

• Team Transformation: Lead, mentor, and inspire a global team of Technical Design and Pattern Makers, guiding their evolution into digital decision making.
• Digital Fluency: Oversee workforce planning and professional development to ensure the team possesses the advanced skills necessary for a digital-first product creation environment.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Act as the primary change agent, partnering with Design, Merchandising and Sourcing to demonstrate how 3D assets can be used for early decision-making, line adoption, and reducing development redundancies.

Role Qualifications

• Experience: 12+ years of progressive experience in Technical Design and Garment Engineering, with a minimum of 3 years in a senior leadership role, specifically within organizations utilizing advanced digital workflows.
• Digital Knowledge: Demonstrated mastery and executive-level experience leading the implementation of DPC ecosystems (Clo3D, Browzwear, AI, etc.) and achieving successful 3D digital fit adoption at scale.
• Technical Expertise: Expert knowledge of garment construction, grading, and global manufacturing, with the ability to translate these traditional skills into a digital environment.
• Change Management: Proven track record of building and transforming teams, specifically guiding traditional technical design teams through digital transformation.
• Communication: Exceptional ability to communicate complex technical to non-technical executive stakeholders to secure buy-in for digital initiatives.

The Perks

URBN offers comprehensive Perks & Benefits to employees. Availability and eligibility to specific benefits may be subject to your location and employment status. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, PTO, generous employee discounts, retirement savings and much more! For additional information visit www.urbn.com/work-with-us/benefits

EEO Statement

URBN celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We are proud to provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, sex (including gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression), religion, creed, age, physical or mental disability, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, citizenship, service in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other protected characteristic as established by law. We believe strongly in fostering a safe, fair and respectful work environment. To ensure compliance with our non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, we offer anti-harassment training to managers and employees.