• Lead and actively participate in Design and Development footwear team, focusing on mens dress, casual, and active product categories as well as womens active product for Polo, Polo Sport, and RLX brands. • Constantly improve and evolve the quality of detail execution, construction, and materials. • Partner and facilitate effective communication with merchandising, product management, marketing, sales, innovation, and sustainability teams to ensure cohesive execution of the brand’s strategy and business goals. • Provide strategic direction and mentorship to a team of designers, fostering a creative and collaborative environment. • Collaborate with leaders of other product categories to establish and maintain a unified and consistent design language across the full lifestyle offering. • Work with Mens and Womens Creative Concept Teams to set seasonal concept design direction for footwear. • Design and oversee the creation of both mainline and special makeup footwear collections that align with strategic objectives of internal stakeholders and external retail partners. • Align with sales team partners across North American, EMEA, and APAC regions to develop a product offering which maintains a consistent brand presentation, while catering to regional customer preferences. • Facilitate a seamless product offering between mens and womens active franchises. • Engage in market research and trend analysis to assess new product offerings that drive brand differentiation and retail success. • Introduce and integrate various innovative techniques into the design process, such as 3D modeling and AI. • Work in multiple manufacturing regions that include China, Vietnam, Italy, Spain, Portugal, England, and United States. • Manage special projects, collaborations, and licensee relationships. • Direct footwear sustainability innovation in minimizing the brand’s impact on environment

• Provide expert creative consulting services across footwear, accessories, product, graphic, and strategy design projects, serving diverse client needs and industry demands. • Leverage existing network of reliable manufacturing partners to provide clients with competitive production solutions that align closely with quality, capacity, and compliance needs. • Bring personal conceptual art and design projects from to reality.

• Designed and Developed Mens dress, casual, and sneaker categories spanning across all product segments from Runway to SMU programs. • Partnered with eponymous creative director to establish and execute the vision for the footwear category. • Accountable for all stages of design from seasonal line merchandising and sketch ideation; to last, construction, and pattern development through preproduction approval.• Travel to Italy, Portugal and China to oversee Product Development and Sourcing initiatives. • Gained and leveraged extensive knowledge of diverse footwear construction techniques, including Goodyear Welting, Blake Rapida, Stitch-out, Cold Cementing, and Vulcanization to create high-quality and innovative footwear products aligned with John Varvatos brand DNA • Constantly evolved product through various manufacturing and artisan methods focusing on antiquing, washing, staining, dyeing and finishing. • Supervised and mentored interns, providing guidance and support to foster their professional growth and development. Assigned projects and tasks that align with their skills and career goals.

• Designed and Developed innovative yet timeless Mens footwear for a 130-year-old American brand that honors the brand’s rich heritage and authenticity. • Established seasonal color and material stories for established product franchises. • Communicated, developed product, and worked on-site with numerous international manufacturing partners in various global regions, such as China, Brazil, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and United States, • Involved in all stages of design and development.

• Designed and Developed Mens dress, casual, and active categories. • Created new lasts, outsole tooling, and upper patterns. • Assisted Design Director and the Merchandising team in the planning of seasonal collections by providing design insights, market research, and trend analysis. • Closely communicated with Kenneth Cole China office on sourcing and development. • Traveled frequently to manufacturing facilities in Asia.

• Designed Product & Structural Packaging for Fortune 500 consumer products and electronics brands such as Pepsi Co, Unilever, Mars, Heinz, Proctor and Gamble, Johnson and Johnson, LG. • Collaborated closely with clients to understand their customers and usability challenges. • Assisted in conducting focus group research to gather valuable consumer insights. • Created functional and aesthetically pleasing product and packaging solutions, that enhanced usability, consumer experience, and shelf appeal. • Created and delivered comprehensive design presentations that effectively communicate concepts, strategies, and project progress to stakeholders. • Built high-fidelity physical prototypes to visualize and test concepts.