Vice President, Product and Design

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Job Description:

Vice President, Product & Design

Role Summary

The Vice President of Product & Design is a newly created executive role responsible for establishing and leading an end-to-end product and engineering organization across product management, program/project management, design engineering, advanced R&D, and new product development.

This leader will architect and institutionalize a Product Management Lifecycle (PMLC) framework and drive the transformation from an ad hoc product development approach to a disciplined, market-driven, and metrics-oriented system. The role owns the full lifecycle—from concept through commercialization and in-market performance—ensuring alignment with corporate strategy, revenue growth, margin expansion, and sustained product leadership.

A critical mandate of this role is to build a market-backed innovation engine—ensuring the company consistently identifies emerging customer needs and remains at the forefront of product innovation across firearms, accessories, and law enforcement product segments—while simultaneously elevating engineering rigor, technical excellence, and execution predictability.

Key Responsibilities

1. Build and Lead the Product & Engineering Organization

• Stand up and integrate a unified organization across:
  • Product Management
  • Program/Project Management (PMO)
  • Product Design Engineering
  • Advanced Product R&D / Innovation Engineering
• Define operating model, governance, and decision rights across product and engineering
• Build and develop high-performing teams across commercial and technical disciplines
• Establish strong cross-functional alignment with Operations, Quality, Sales, and Strategy

2. Market Insight & Innovation Leadership

• Establish best-in-class processes for identifying and prioritizing market needs, including:
  • Voice of customer (VOC) systems
  • End-user research (consumer, enthusiast, and law enforcement segments)
  • Competitive intelligence and benchmarking
  • Analysis of regulatory, technology, and channel trends
• Translate insights into differentiated product strategies and innovation pipelines
• Ensure a market-backed approach, where all product investments are grounded in validated demand and clear value propositions
• Maintain product and technology leadership within firearms, accessories, and adjacent categories

3. Product & Technology Strategy

• Own and evolve the product portfolio strategy and multi-year roadmap aligned to corporate objectives
• Define product positioning, segmentation, and lifecycle strategies
• Establish product architecture and platform strategies to:
  • Enable modularity and component reuse
  • Reduce complexity and cost
  • Accelerate development cycles
• Balance breakthrough innovation with core product optimization and refresh cycles

4. Design Engineering Leadership & Technical Excellence

• Serve as the executive leader of design engineering functions, accountable for technical performance and output
• Establish and enforce engineering standards, design principles, and development best practices
• Drive excellence in:
  • Product performance, reliability, and safety
  • Design-for-manufacturability (DFM) and cost engineering
  • Verification, validation, and testing rigor
• Implement robust design review processes and technical governance
• Ensure engineering is tightly aligned with product strategy, customer requirements, financial targets, manufacturing operations and supply chain.

5. Product Management Lifecycle (PMLC) & Product Development Execution Discipline across the Enterprise.

• Design and implement a stage-gate or hybrid PMLC framework covering:
  • Opportunity identification
  • Concept validation
  • Business case development
  • Development and testing
  • Industrialization and launch
  • Post-launch performance management
• Standardize tools, templates, and governance forums
• Drive adoption and compliance across all functions

6. End-to-End Product Lifecycle Ownership

• Own product performance from ideation through commercialization and in-market results
• Ensure disciplined prioritization of initiatives based on ROI, strategic fit, and resource capacity
• Lead cross-functional execution with clear accountability for:
  • Timelines
  • Cost targets
  • Quality outcomes
  • Market success

7. New Product Development (NPD) Excellence

• Build a repeatable, predictable NPD engine
• Improve speed-to-market, development efficiency, and launch quality
• Integrate engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain early in the development process
• Embed design-for-quality and cost discipline from concept through production

8. Engineering Execution & Manufacturing Integration

• Ensure effective allocation and utilization of engineering resources across the portfolio
• Partner with Operations and Quality to:
  • Ensure seamless transition from design to production
  • Minimize late-stage changes and production disruption
  • Improve first-pass yield and product quality
• Proactively identify and mitigate technical and program risks

9. Commercial Performance & Financial Ownership

• Own product line revenue, gross margin, and lifecycle profitability
• Partner with Finance and Strategy to:
  • Translate corporate strategy into product roadmaps
  • Set pricing and margin targets
  • Evaluate business cases and capital allocation
• Drive portfolio optimization across innovation, refresh, and rationalization

10. KPI & Performance Management System

• Define and institutionalize KPIs such as:
  • % revenue from new products
  • Time-to-market / cycle time
  • On-time / on-budget delivery
  • Product gross margin vs. target
  • Launch success rate (forecast vs. actual)
  • R&D productivity (ROI on innovation spend)
• Build dashboards and establish a rigorous operating cadence

11. Advanced Product R&D and Technology Development

• Lead long-term R&D strategy and technology roadmaps
• Identify and invest in next-generation technologies, materials, and design approaches
• Maintain a balanced innovation pipeline across short-, mid-, and long-term horizons
• Leverage external partnerships where appropriate

12. Transformation Leadership

• Act as a change agent to embed discipline, accountability, and cross-functional alignment
• Transition the organization to a market-driven, insight-led product development model
• Introduce scalable processes, tools, and cultural norms required for sustained performance

Required Experience & Qualifications

Core Experience

• 15+ years of progressive leadership across product management, engineering, and product development
• Proven success leading end-to-end product lifecycle in a manufacturing environment
• Demonstrated experience building or transforming product and engineering organizations
• Track record of implementing PMLC / stage-gate systems at scale
• Experience owning or influencing P&L, revenue, and margin performance
• Must be able to successfully pass a background check and drug screen
• Must be willing and legally able to handle firearms

Industry Experience (Required)

• Direct experience in firearms, firearm accessories, or law enforcement / tactical product development,
  OR
• Significant experience in adjacent, highly engineered and regulated industries (e.g., defense, aerospace, military equipment, industrial products) with strong transferability

OR

• Significant experience in adjacent commercial environments (e.g., outdoor products, etc.)

Engineering Leadership Depth

• Significant experience leading multi-disciplinary engineering organizations
• Demonstrated ability to elevate engineering rigor, standards, and technical processes
• Proven track record of delivering complex, high-performance physical products to market
• Ability to operate as both a strategic leader and hands-on technical reviewer

Functional Expertise

• Deep expertise across:
  • Product management and portfolio strategy
  • New product development (NPD)
  • Engineering leadership
  • Program/project management disciplines
• Strong financial acumen (business cases, pricing, margin management)
• Demonstrated ability to translate market insights into commercially successful products

Leadership & Transformation Capabilities

• Proven ability to lead through ambiguity and build structure where none exists
• Strong cross-functional leadership across engineering, operations, finance, sales, and strategy
• Experience driving change in a mid-sized or scaling public company
• Ability to balance innovation, speed, and operational discipline

Key Success Outcomes (First 24–36 Months)

• Fully implemented and adopted PMLC framework across the organization
• Established market insight engine driving product strategy and prioritization
• Measurable improvements in:
  • Time-to-market
  • New product revenue contribution
  • Forecast accuracy and launch success rates
• Elevated engineering performance, including improved product quality, reliability, and manufacturability
• Clear, strategy-aligned product and technology roadmap
• Stronger competitive positioning through differentiated, innovation-led product offerings

Profile of the Ideal Candidate

• A product + engineering hybrid leader with equal strength in commercial and technical domains
• A market-back innovator with deep customer and end-user orientation
• A builder and systems thinker capable of creating scalable processes and organizations
• A change agent who can lead transformation in an established business
• Credible with executive leadership, engineering teams, customers, and manufacturing operations

Reporting Structure

• Reports to: CEO
• Key stakeholders:
  • CFO
  • Head of Sales
  • Head of Marketing
  • Head of Operations
  • Head of Corporate Strategy