Title: Sr. Manager, Product & Merchandising

Job Description:

Your Mission at Virgin Galactic

The Senior Manager, Product & Merchandising serves as Virgin Galactic's lead merchandise buyer and owns the end-to-end commercial development of merchandise supporting the astronaut journey. The portfolio includes apparel, accessories, collectibles, gifting, amenities, and premium lifestyle products for Spacefarers, flown astronauts, invited guests, and selected Virgin Galactic experiences.

This role is an extention of the creative vision for the astronaut experience into commercially disciplined product assortments. The Senior Buyer leads category and assortment planning, vendor sourcing and negotiation, product selection, costing, pricing recommendations, purchase-order placement, production schedules, inventory requirements, and delivery performance, while continuing to guide creative product development, storytelling, quality, and brand alignment.

Working across Astronaut Operations, Brand, Commercial, Finance, Procurement, Legal, Supply Chain, and experience teams, this leader ensures each product is distinctive, relevant, responsibly sourced, operationally executable, and available at the right time, quantity, quality, and cost.

Key Responsibilities

1. Merchandise Buying & Assortment Strategy

Lead Buyer: Serve as the principal buyer for astronaut- and guest-focused merchandise across apparel, accessories, collectibles, gifting, amenities, and premium lifestyle products.
Category & Assortment Planning: Define category architecture, seasonal and capsule assortments, product mix, price ladders, size curves, and quantities by audience, program, and occasion.
Range Reviews & Buy Decisions: Lead line reviews and make evidence-based recommendations on products, suppliers, cost targets, retail prices, order volumes, launch timing, and replenishment.
Customer & Market Insight: Use astronaut and guest feedback, sales performance, market intelligence, and relevant consumer trends to identify opportunities and refine the range.
Merchandise Calendar: Own the end-to-end calendar from concept, sampling, and approvals through purchase orders, production, delivery, launch, and replenishment.

2. Commercial Planning, Forecasting & Inventory

Buying Budget & Open-to-Buy: Develop and manage purchasing budgets, open-to-buy, category financial plans, and commitments in partnership with Finance and Commercial teams.
Demand Forecasting: Forecast demand across training, global astronaut experiences, spaceflight expeditions, gifting programs, events, and applicable sales channels.
Costing, Pricing & Margin: Manage unit and landed costs, pricing architecture, gross-margin targets, and commercial tradeoffs while protecting product quality and brand integrity.
Inventory & Replenishment: Set initial buys, reorder points, safety stock, and replenishment plans to reduce stockouts, excess inventory, and obsolescence.
Performance Management: Assess data for sell-through, margin, stock turn, availability, returns, forecast accuracy, and category performance; take timely action based on results.

3. Vendor Sourcing, Negotiation & Production

Supplier Strategy & Sourcing: Identify, evaluate, and qualify capable suppliers, makers, and collaboration partners that meet Virgin Galactic's standards for quality, innovation, scalability, and service.
Commercial Negotiation: Negotiate unit costs, minimum order quantities, tooling, lead times, freight, payment terms, exclusivity, and service commitments in coordination with Procurement and Legal.
Purchase Orders & Critical Path: Own accurate and timely purchase-order placement, confirmation, tracking, and issue resolution against approved budgets and launch requirements.
Quality, Compliance & Risk: Oversee prototyping, sampling, testing, quality control, responsible sourcing, packaging, and production risk; establish contingency plans for critical products.
Supplier Performance: Maintain vendor scorecards covering quality, cost, on-time delivery, responsiveness, innovation, and corrective-action performance.

4. Creative Product Development & Brand Stewardship

Product Briefs & Creative Direction: Translate the astronaut journey and commercial strategy into clear design briefs, guiding concept development, design reviews, materials, color, finish, and packaging.
Astronaut Community Collections: Develop distinctive merchandise for the astronaut community that reinforces identity, achievement, belonging, and connection to Virgin Galactic.
Flown Astronaut Exclusives: Create limited-edition, astronaut-specific products incorporating approved flight data, personal milestones, mission storytelling, and spacecraft heritage.
Mission Integration: Collaborate with Mission Operations and relevant approval teams to incorporate authentic mission elements, including patches, flight profiles, assets, materials, and data visualizations.
Material & Craft Innovation: Explore advanced materials, responsible alternatives, aerospace-inspired finishes, and production techniques that strengthen quality and distinctiveness.
Storytelling Through Product: Embed narrative details that celebrate astronaut journeys, human spaceflight, mission heritage, and Virgin Galactic's frontier spirit.

5. Experience, Guest & Launch Integration

Astronaut Operations Integration: Ensure merchandise supports training, global experiences, expedition touchpoints, gifting, and post-flight engagement without disrupting operational requirements.
Guest Category Development: Create elevated products for invited guests, friends, and family that complement astronaut collections while protecting the exclusivity of astronaut-only categories.
Event & Expedition Integration: Align product launches and drops with Welcome Events, Training Days, Flight Day, Post-Flight Celebrations, and Astronaut Office global experiences.
Channel Readiness: Coordinate allocation, packaging, fulfillment, and availability so the correct product reaches the correct audience, location, and experience moment.
Brand & Partnership Alignment: Work with Brand, Commercial, and Experience teams on cohesive launches, approved collaborations, partnership integration, and guest-facing execution.

6. Leadership & Governance

Cross-Functional Leadership: Create clarity across internal stakeholders, resolve tradeoffs, and maintain shared accountability for product, financial, operational, and launch decisions.
Team & Resource Leadership: Lead and develop internal and external creative, buying, and production resources; establish clear briefs, priorities, expectations, and feedback.
Standards & Documentation: Maintain approved product specifications, costing records, vendor files, purchase-order documentation, quality standards, and repeatable operating processes.
Values-Driven Decision-Making: Apply Virgin Galactic's values and approved brand standards to sourcing, product, commercial, and creative decisions.

Qualifications

Experience: 10+ years in merchandise buying, category management, product development, or retail merchandising, ideally with premium consumer, lifestyle, travel, hospitality, or experiential brands.
Commercial Ownership: Proven responsibility for buying budgets, open-to-buy, demand forecasting, pricing, margin, inventory, and assortment performance.
Negotiation & Vendor Management: Strong record of commercial negotiation, supplier relationship management, purchase-order execution, and on-time production delivery.
Product Lifecycle Management: Experience leading multiple categories from concept and sampling through production, quality approval, launch, replenishment, and end-of-life decisions.
Financial & Analytical Acumen: Ability to interpret sales and inventory data, build sound forecasts, evaluate tradeoffs, and convert insights into buying actions.
Creative & Brand Judgment: Strong product sensibility and demonstrated ability to build cohesive, storytelling-led ranges that protect a premium brand position.
Sourcing & Production Knowledge: Working knowledge of manufacturing, materials, costing, quality assurance, responsible sourcing, packaging, logistics, and supplier risk.
Collaboration & Leadership: Ability to influence across mission-critical functions, lead creative and commercial partners, and work effectively with high-touch customer communities.

Success Looks Like

Commercially Disciplined Portfolio: A distinctive, premium merchandise range that elevates the astronaut journey and is supported by a clear buying strategy, category plan, and financial discipline.
Right Product, Right Place, Right Time: Merchandise is available in the correct quantities for each training, event, expedition, gifting, and guest-experience moment.
Healthy Performance: Strong sell-through, margin, inventory turn, forecast accuracy, and availability, with minimal stockouts, excess inventory, defects, and returns.
Reliable Supplier Network: Partners consistently deliver approved quality, innovation, cost, and timing, with risks identified and resolved early.
Signature Collections: The Flown Astronaut Collection and astronaut community ranges become recognized hallmarks of Virgin Galactic identity and spaceflight heritage.
Meaningful Products: Products are seamlessly integrated into astronaut operations and become cherished symbols of achievement, belonging, and human spaceflight.

#LI-ID1

The annual U.S. base salary range for this full-time position is $121,650.00–$185,625.00. The base pay actually offered will vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, location, and experience and take into account internal equity. Other forms of pay (e.g., bonus or long term incentive) may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and other benefits, dependent on the position offered. For more information regarding Virgin Galactic benefits, please visit https://vgcareers.virgingalactic.com/global/en/benefits

Who We Are

Virgin Galactic is an aerospace and space travel company, pioneering human spaceflight for private individuals and researchers with its advanced air and space vehicles. We are making the dream of space travel a reality, delivering spaceflight at an unprecedented frequency, with the development of next generation space vehicles.

Export Requirements
To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a U.S. Person (either a U.S. citizen, a lawful permanent resident or a protected individual as defined 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3) or be able to obtain the required authorization from either the U.S. Department of State or the U.S. Department of Commerce. The applicant must also not be included in the list of Specifically Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control. See list here.

EEO Statement
Virgin Galactic is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Virgin Galactic is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other legally protected status.

Drug Free Workplace
Virgin Galactic is committed to a Drug Free Workplace. All applicants post offer and active teammates are subject to testing for marijuana, cocaine, opioids, amphetamines, PCP, and alcohol when criteria is met as outlined in our policies. This can include pre-employment, random, reasonable suspicion, and accident related drug and alcohol testing.

Phoenix Employment Requirements
For individuals seeking employment at our Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport facility, employment is contingent upon you obtaining and maintaining a TSA authorized security badge. This includes initial and annual mandatory background checks that are governed by TSA, and conducted by the Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport badging office.

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