Lead - Archive Management / Leadess - Archive Management

Product Archive Lead - Join Our Innovative Team

We are excited to announce the establishment of our first-ever Product Archive at our Zurich HQ. We are seeking a visionary Product Archive Lead to transform this concept into reality and drive it into its operational phase.

As a remarkable self-starter with deep roots in the cultural sector, you will become the custodian of our Design heritage. The Archive will serve as a dynamic, multi-faceted ecosystem: acting as an internal creative engine for our designers, an external-facing cultural landmark in the heart of Zurich, and a secure digital repository for our innovations. This role presents an opportunity to bridge our rich history with our future creative ambitions, turning our archive into a world-class source of inspiration.

Your Mission

• Establish the Center of Competence: Define and execute a comprehensive archive strategy. Develop criteria for our collection to ensure it serves as a rigorous, authoritative, and accessible knowledge base, fostering internal research and preserving our brand DNA for the long term.
• Oversee Physical Stewardship: Manage the complete lifecycle of our physical collections, including depot planning, organization, qualification processes, and the documentation of previously unrecorded object groups (shoes, textiles, accessories) as well as ensuring long-term conservation.
• Drive Digital & Data Infrastructure: Architect our digital repository, leading the implementation and integration of archive databases to ensure seamless data flow with internal systems. Oversee metadata standards (keywording, photo documentation) to make our history searchable and usable.
• Bridge the Past, Present, and Future: Collaborate with Design and Product teams to establish the archive as a functional, high-access creative engine. Build workflows that allow teams to search, borrow, and analyze historical product references, ensuring that our past innovations directly inform current seasonal concepts.
• Collaborate on Cultural Engagement: Work with our exhibition programming team to position the archive as a cultural landmark. Provide necessary historical context, exhibit curation, and material expertise to bring our brand stories to life through internal and external showcases.
• Operational Excellence: Manage the archive’s working budget, vendor relationships, and IT collaborations to ensure it operates as a high-performance, future-proof service.

Your Story

• Heritage & Cultural Expert: You have 6-8 years of experience managing high-value archives, heritage collections, or design museums. Your comfort in engaging with the cultural sector enables you to translate institutional history into a compelling modern narrative.
• Meticulous & Precise: Your methodical approach is defined by rigorous organization. You excel in inventory management, documentation, and data standards, ensuring that every object in our care is perfectly accounted for and categorized.
• Systems Thinker: You are proficient in both database architecture and physical conservation. You can define, implement, and maintain complex systems that ensure seamless data flow from our past into our digital tools.
• Collaborative & Communicative: You are a natural bridge-builder with the diplomacy to work across departments—from IT and Finance to Design and Marketing—and you thrive in a team environment where knowledge-sharing is prioritized.
• Narrative Driven: You excel at bringing our heritage to life, transforming archival records into compelling stories. You have the ability to uncover the "why" behind past design decisions and translate that historical context into actionable insights for contemporary designers.
• Strategic Self-Starter: You take initiative in building processes and are capable of managing budgets, external vendors, and multi-year timelines with agility in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.

About the Team

You will report directly to the Chief of Staff (CoS) of Design, becoming part of a vibrant and diverse Design Studio that drives On’s disruptive product design across footwear, apparel, and accessories. Our team values creativity, curiosity, and collaboration, and we seek someone who shares our passion for transforming the "why" of our past into the "what's next" of our future.

Apply online using the form below. Please note that only applications matching the job profile will be considered.