Senior Footwear Designer

About the Role

JSW Sports is looking for a Senior Design Consultant – Footwear to provide strategic design leadership in building a world-class performance footwear business to join their team in Mumbai.

This is a senior consulting role for an accomplished footwear design expert who will define the long-term design vision, drive product innovation, and help create footwear purpose-built for Indian athletes and consumers.

The ideal candidate will bring global experience in performance footwear design and innovation, along with the ability to mentor emerging talent and establish best-in-class design capabilities.

This can be a consulting, fractional, full-time role.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Design Leadership

• Provide strategic leadership and guidance for the overall footwear design function.
• Define the footwear design architecture across key categories, including running, training, and sneakers.
• Shape the long-term design vision, product philosophy, and innovation roadmap for the footwear portfolio.
• Advise leadership on global footwear trends, emerging technologies, and consumer preferences.

Product Innovation

• Lead the conceptualization of innovative footwear solutions that meet the performance needs of Indian athletes and consumers.
• Collaborate with elite athletes and leverage insights from the Athlete Innovation Lab to develop athlete-centric products.
• Drive innovation in comfort, performance, durability, and aesthetics across the footwear range.
• Ensure products combine technical excellence with compelling design and commercial relevance.

Technical Design Excellence

• Provide expert guidance on footwear construction, including tooling, last development, outsole engineering, upper construction, and material selection.
• Advise product development teams throughout the design and prototyping process to ensure design intent and technical feasibility.
• Review prototypes and provide recommendations to enhance product performance, fit, and quality.

Cross-functional Collaboration

• Partner with Product Development, Sourcing, Manufacturing, Marketing, and Brand teams to bring innovative products to market.
• Work closely with manufacturing partners to ensure high-quality execution from concept through production.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Footwear Design, Industrial Design, Product Design, Fashion Design, or a related discipline.
• 15–25 years of global experience in footwear design, preferably with leading sports or performance footwear brands.
• Proven experience designing and developing innovative performance footwear.
• Prior experience in a consulting, advisory, or leadership capacity is highly desirable.
• Demonstrated success in mentoring design teams and building organizational capability.