Lead - Archive Management / Leading - Archive Management

Join Our Team as a Product Archive Lead

We are excited to announce the establishment of our first-ever Product Archive at our Zurich headquarters. We are seeking a visionary Product Archive Lead to guide this initiative and transition our vision into a reality.

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

Your Mission

• Establish the Center of Competence: Define and execute a holistic archive strategy. Develop criteria for our collection to ensure it serves as a rigorous, authoritative, and accessible knowledge base that fuels internal research while preserving our brand DNA for the long term.
• Oversee Physical Stewardship: Manage the full lifecycle of our physical collections, including depot planning, organization, and qualification processes. Identify and document previously unrecorded object groups (shoes, textiles, accessories) and long-term conservation efforts.
• Drive Digital & Data Infrastructure: Architect our digital repository by leading the implementation and integration of archive databases. Ensure seamless data flow with internal systems and oversee metadata standards (keywording, photo documentation) to make our history searchable and usable.
• Bridge the Past, Present, and Future: Partner with Design and Product teams to establish the archive as a functional, high-access creative engine. Build workflows that enable teams to search, borrow, and analyze historical product references, ensuring our past innovations inform and inspire current seasonal concepts.
• Collaborate on Cultural Engagement: Work closely with our exhibition programming team to position the archive as a cultural landmark. Provide the 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 operating budget, vendor relationships, and IT collaborations to ensure the archive functions as a high-performance, future-proof service.

Your Story

• Heritage & Cultural Expert: You have a robust background in managing high-value archives, heritage collections, or design museums, with 6-8 years of experience. You engage effectively with the cultural sector and know how to translate institutional history into a compelling modern narrative.
• Meticulous & Precise: Your approach is characterized by rigorous organization. You thrive in the details of inventory management, documentation, and data standards, ensuring that every object in our care is perfectly accounted for and categorized.
• Systems Thinker: Comfortable with both database architecture and physical conservation, you can define, implement, and maintain complex systems ensuring seamless data flow from our past into our digital tools.
• Collaborative & Communicative: A natural bridge-builder, you possess the diplomacy to work across departments—from IT and Finance to Design and Marketing—and excel in team environments where knowledge-sharing is prioritized.
• Narrative Driven: You have a talent for transforming archival records into compelling stories, uncovering the "why" behind past design decisions and translating that historical context into actionable insights for today's designers.
• Strategic Self-Starter: Autonomous in your project management, you can handle budgets, coordinate with external vendors, and navigate multi-year timelines with agility in a dynamic environment.

About the Team

You will report directly to the Chief of Staff (CoS) of Design, working within a vibrant and diverse Design Studio that drives On’s innovative product design across footwear, apparel, and accessories. Our team values creativity, curiosity, and collaboration, and we are looking for 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.