Director of Costing - Johnston & Murphy

The Ideal Candidate

As the Director of Costing for both Johnston & Murphy and Genesco Brands Group, you will be a strategic leader responsible for overseeing the brand's costing function. This role leads a costing team, drives cross-functional collaboration, and shapes long-term costing strategies to enable margin improvement and support corporate growth objectives. You will partner with Product, Sourcing, Merchandising, Finance, and external suppliers to manage and mitigate cost inflation. Additionally, you will develop and execute initiatives that enhance costing processes, systems, and efficiency, bringing strong business acumen and the ability to generate clear, insightful reporting and analysis.

How You Will Make an Impact

• Manage overall costing processes for footwear to deliver brand objectives and results that are critical to brand success.
• Develop and oversee seasonal and forward-looking costing plans, lead key milestone costing reviews, and drive cost-saving initiatives to ensure margin requirements are met.
• Collaborate with Design, Development, and Sourcing each season to highlight opportunities for margin improvement, help brainstorm suggestions and guide strategic decision making.
• Partner cross-functionally with Merchandising, Planning, and Finance to understand objectives and provide data-driven insights that help influence pricing and margin-enhancing decisions.
• Manage factory and supplier partnerships, including seasonal negotiations, leveraging volume, product mix, and price architecture to drive sustainable cost and margin improvement.
• Directly manage and validate factory first cost, duties, tariffs, and freight inputs to ensure accurate landed cost calculations.
• Deliver executive-level weighted margin rollups and insights to Finance and senior leadership, highlighting tariff impacts and mitigation strategies.
• Research global commodity and financial markets (i.e. leathers, petroleum, exchange rates,) to better understand the overall challenges and opportunities across the global supply chain.
• As a strong people leader, you will foster a high-performance culture that enables continuous improvement, operational excellence, and scalable growth.

Experience and Skills You'll Need to Have

• Bachelor's degree with an emphasis on financial or business. Advanced Degree preferred.
• 7+ years of footwear related costing experience
• Knowledge of footwear, accessories and international manufacturing
• General knowledge of financial and pricing models, and ability to think through and problem solve critical business issues.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Highly organized and able to adapt quickly to changing priorities.
• Effective communicator and great team player with ability to work closely with cross functional areas.
• Domestic and international travel required.