About the Job
Position Summary: As the Director, Quality (Apparel Raw Materials), you are the chief architect of material integrity and supply chain resilience across Walmart's apparel categories. You will define and execute a global raw material strategy that ensures world-class quality, sustainability, and cost-competitiveness across all fibers, yarns, fabrics, and trims. This role acts as a critical strategic partner to Sourcing, Product Development, and Design, ensuring Walmart delivers high-quality, responsible fashion through a future-ready upstream ecosystem.
Location: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
About The Team
At Walmart, our fashion business thrives on delivering quality and innovation at everyday low prices. Our Raw Materials team is dedicated to strengthening upstream capabilities—setting rigorous technical standards and qualifying a global network of strategic mills and suppliers. We foster a collaborative, high-performance environment that empowers our associates to drive end-to-end traceability, manage supply chain risk, and deliver consistent, responsibly sourced products at a global scale.
About The Role
This is a high-impact leadership mandate for a strategist who blends deep technical textile expertise with global supply chain acumen. You will move beyond traditional sourcing to lead material innovation, fiber-to-fabric traceability, and proactive risk mitigation. Navigating a fast-paced, matrixed environment, you will have the autonomy to overhaul material governance frameworks and leverage technical insights to maintain Walmart's competitive edge and protect customer trust.
What You'll Do
- Architect Global Raw Material Strategy: Define and execute a comprehensive global strategy for fibers, yarns, fabrics, and trims that aligns with business objectives, brand standards, and sustainability commitments.
- Establish Material Governance: Develop and maintain rigorous material standards, approved supplier matrices, and risk classification frameworks to ensure consistent quality and supply continuity.
- Drive Traceability & Responsible Sourcing: Lead end-to-end fiber-to-finished-fabric traceability initiatives and integrate environmental, social, and chemical compliance standards across the supply chain.
- Lead Innovation & Trend Analysis: Evaluate macro trends in material science and textile technology to translate technical insights into actionable material roadmaps and capability plans.
- Optimize the Supplier Ecosystem: Build and manage a strategic global network of mills and suppliers, driving performance through robust onboarding, nomination processes, and KPI-based scorecards.
- Strengthen Mill Capabilities: Oversee technical audits and capability assessments while leading continuous improvement programs to enhance supplier performance and reliability.
- Mitigate Supply Chain Risk: Proactively identify and assess global risks impacting material continuity, quality, compliance, and cost.
- Partner Cross-Functionally: Collaborate with Design, Product Development, and Sourcing to enable cost engineering, material rationalization, and accelerated speed-to-market.
- Build & Mentor Talent: Lead a high-performing global raw materials team, fostering professional development through active mentoring and succession planning.
- Manage Functional Performance: Oversee departmental budgets and track key performance indicators (KPIs) for all strategic material initiatives.
What You'll Bring
- Professional Experience: 15+ years of progressive leadership in global apparel raw materials, sourcing, or technical manufacturing.
- Technical Authority: Extensive expertise in Woven and Knit manufacturing, testing methodologies, and advanced technical specifications.
- Strategic Sourcing Acumen: Proven success in building strategic mill ecosystems, managing upstream supply chain risks, and implementing performance governance.
- Sustainability & Compliance Expertise: Deep understanding of global environmental, social, and chemical compliance standards and preferred materials strategies.
- Strategic Mindset: Ability to translate complex technical material data into clear business narratives and strategic trade-offs for executive decision-making.
- Leadership & Influence: Exceptional communication skills with a proven ability to influence cross-functional partners in Design, Merchandising, and Supply Chain.
- Educational Foundation: Bachelor's degree in Textiles, Apparel Engineering, Materials Science, or a related field (Master's degree preferred).
- Global Mobility: Readiness for extensive international travel to partner directly with global mills and suppliers.
This job description is intended to provide a general overview of the responsibilities and qualifications for this position. It is not an exhaustive list of all duties and is subject to change based on business needs.
Equal Opportunity Employer
Walmart, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer By Choice. We believe we are best equipped to help our associates, customers and the communities we serve live better when we really know them. That means understanding, respecting and valuing unique styles, experiences, identities, ideas and opinions while being welcoming of all people.
Walmart doesn't charge any recruitment or similar fee in the recruitment process, including but not limited to interview, offering, and onboarding.
