Vice President of Quality Assurance

ABOUT THE ROLE

Peloton is offering a career defining opportunity to join its senior leadership team and lead the global Quality Assurance (QA) department. At Peloton, customers who purchase our industry-defining Connected Fitness Units (CFUs) are more than just customers, they are Members. It is not about the sale, it is about the ongoing relationship with the Member. It is about how the Members come together and grow in the Peloton community. It is not by accident that Peloton’s first core value is “Put Members First”. This value gives the Peloton team the framework for how we need to develop our strategies and gives us the drive to execute them. Building quality into every step of the product life cycle from concept to End of Life (EOL) is a key part of the Member journey. Member safety is job one.

This leader will be responsible for continuously refining the strategies that will best serve our quality and safety requirements and ensuring alignment of our QA teammates so we can be effective. The QA strategies must be aligned with all stakeholders, in particular Marketing, Product / Engineering, Operations, Service & Repair, Product Safety and Finance teams. The QA team is also responsible for providing feedback and insights to the business units about what quality trends the business is seeing in all stages and to share these insights with all stakeholders.

YOUR DAILY IMPACT AT PELOTON

Processes:

• Design, develop, implement and maintain quality business processes through the entire PLM cycle (Discovery, Concept, Alpha, Engineering Validation Testing (EVT), Design Validation testing (DVT), Production Validation testing (PVT), Mass Production (MP), Sustaining and End of Line (EOL)) and protect the exit gates for each phase to ensure a high quality and safe product.
• Measuring all quality KPIs, assessing gaps and opportunities for improvement, collecting stakeholder and Member feedback and implementing systematic improvements.
• Lead the test and measurement services to track actual results of pre-production, manufacturing and post production ensuring established standards, and driving risk mitigation learned into the development cycle to achieve clean new product launches and assure a continuous improvement mindset.
• Ensures conformity to product design and specification requirements.
• Oversee development and implementation of Quality Assurance programs cross-functionally between product development teams, operations, suppliers, shipping and logistics processes to drive improvements aimed at defect-free work.
• Derive insights from data and drive actions, as the voice of the Member internally to the core teams.

Quality Management Systems

• Manage the root cause analysis and product return process, including 8D/Problem Solving process for failure analysis and corrective actions.
• Ensures Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) and closed-loop quality systems, processes and infrastructure are in place to secure continuous improvement.
• Routinely audit the performance and execution of the quality operating system across all businesses and functions and guarantee applicable third party certifications.

Operations and Supply Chain Quality

• Oversee cross-functional operational QA and control (facility, manufacturing, assembly, testing services) and establish, improve and maintain quality processes across all functions / areas.
• Accountable for supply chain quality and supplier quality and compliance (e.g., audits, supply quality agreements, supplier prequalification process and supplier compliance and performance monitoring).
• Drive supplier quality across component suppliers, subcontract assembly, and test partners.
• Develop and maintain QA/QC metrics to assess and test product performance.
• Help operations managers to develop the right continuous improvement culture to establish strong quality standards and ways to improve it.

Post Sales & Member Satisfaction

• Manages pertinent aspects of the post-sales function including field investigations.
• Oversees risk management and mitigation for quality issues.
• Work cross functionally with Member Support and Service & Repair to identify opportunities to increase efficiency in service, minimize and mitigate warranty issues.
• Coordinate and drive Field Testing for new and improved products to validate features and improvements with members prior to product release to mass production.
• A strong background working with complex, systemic change initiatives is required. Additionally, leadership and working knowledge of product testing, lean six-sigma, lean principles, field quality, QMS processes, quality assurance, quality control is required.
• The inclination to seek and analyze data from a variety of sources to support decisions and to align others with the organization's overall strategy.
• The ability to effectively balance the desire/need for broad change with an understanding of how much change the organization is capable of handling, to create realistic goals and implementation plans that are achievable and successful.

YOU BRING TO PELOTON

The right candidate should have extensive experience operating in a fast paced startup like environment. The leader should be able to seamlessly switch between contributing tactically and being able to develop / communicate easy to understand strategies to be effective.

Peloton is looking for a leader that inspires the QA team to develop, align, drive and execute the quality strategies. The right person must be able to facilitate a culture of collaboration within the team and all of Peloton’s business units while at the same time driving informed decisions to conclusion. Allowing analysis paralysis to slow down work will cause the leader to be unsuccessful. The first and most important objective for this new leader is to be focused on hiring the right team, coaching teammates into greatness and upgrading teammates as needed so Peloton can achieve its business objectives.

The right leader needs to have successfully managed a global QA team for durable consumer goods, or similar industries at companies who have both D2C and B2B business streams at a global level. This is not a “journeyperson” position. The right person will be able to discuss in detail their past strategies that succeeded and failed and how they would approach the issues that Peloton is facing and will face in the future.

The leader needs to possess a strong business acumen and have intellectual curiosity to quickly understand the business, what drives it and how QA can help enable the success of the business. Having a proven track record of identifying gaps in all aspects of the quality life cycle.

Lastly, the right leader will understand the company P&L and how the Global Member Support team fits into the companies’ financials. Financial responsibility is table stakes. Meeting cost goals while delivering simple and elegant solutions on time will positively define your career at Peloton.

Leadership Style

• Prioritizing Talent Density, the most important objective following member safety, with a proven history of constructing and leading high-performance teams. Consistently assessing existing talent, providing active coaching to teammates requiring support to enhance their effectiveness, and demonstrating the courage to transition underperforming team members is critical.
• Instill a culture that emphasizes accountability and transparency among the team.
• Hold the ability to attract and recruit top talent, motivate the team, delegate effectively, celebrate diversity within the team, and manage performance.
• Be widely viewed by other managers as a strong developer of teammates.
• Drive teammates to be self-reflective, comfortable with failure and truly learn from failure, with the goal of being more effective.
• Instill the notion that feedback, given correctly and received correctly, is a gift that helps teammates be more effective.
• Bring a high energy level, inspire and drive engagement with a strong sense of urgency.
• Persevere in the face of challenges and exhibit a steadfast resolve and relentless commitment to higher standards, earning respect from followers.
• Ability to deal with ambiguity in fast paced environments and decisions needs to be made in concert with other organizations in a timely manner.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in engineering or a relevant technical field. An MS in engineering or an MBA is preferred.
• 15+ years of direct experience in managing engineering, quality, or operations teams.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience managing a QA team.
• Ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally up to 50-60%, depending on business needs.
• Experience with AI to predict quality issues in manufacturing and post-consumer use.
• Proven and demonstrable experience in building lean, organized, and high-functioning teams.
• Clearly defining roles and why they are needed, being able to anticipate roles that will be needed in the future, and being ahead in recruiting for them.
• Hiring exceptional people, coaching/developing individuals to meet the company's short- and long-term needs, and having the courage to separate teammates who don’t possess the proper skill set to meet Peloton’s requirements.
• Proven capability to simplify complex subjects into engaging narratives, effectively establishing the context of “What, Why, and How” behind both tactical initiatives and long-term strategies.

Interpersonal Skills

• Lead with emotional intelligence and conduct yourself accordingly.
• Lead and execute by establishing context rather than enforcing command and control. Translate and communicate business priorities effectively to empower teammates to make informed decisions independently, rather than simply following orders.
• Possess strong communication skills across all mediums, capable of simplifying complex needs and goals into easily understandable explanations for all audiences.
• Inspire trust and foster followership through compelling influence.
• Encourage others to share the spotlight and openly celebrate and support the team's successes