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Senior Product and Portfolio Manager

Position Type: New Position
On-site Work Location: Woodstock, ON (with travel as required)
Base salary of CAD $120,000–$140,000, based on experience
Individual Contributor: No direct reports

About Workspace48 Inc.
Website: www.workspace48.com
Workspace48 is a growing North American commercial office-furniture company serving customers across Canada and the United States through an established dealer network.

From our Woodstock, Ontario facility, we coordinate inventory, order fulfillment, and distribution for a broad portfolio of workplace products, including office seating, desks, and workstations, worksurfaces, power and cable-management products, privacy and acoustic solutions, lounge furniture, and related workplace accessories.

Workspace48’s brand strategy is Design first. Delivered faster. We are building a focused office furniture portfolio that brings exceptional design, value, and customer experience to project business through our two-day and ten-day programs.

The Opportunity (Job Summary)
As an Individual Contributor, you will own the direction and commercial performance of our product portfolio across Canada and the United States; a unique opportunity to shape the strategic direction of a growing North American business. Your purpose is to ensure we have the right products at the right prices and sustainable margins, with disciplined inventory investment. You will combine strong design judgement with research, financial analysis, and hands-on execution, while demonstrating cross-functional leadership to align teams across departments.
Working directly with the CEO, you will develop and recommend the product roadmap, supported by research and commercial business cases, and drive approved initiatives through launch and ongoing improvement.

Key Responsibilities
Portfolio strategy and design integrity

• Assess the whole office through the needs of our target projects. Identify gaps in our offering and the market, prioritize opportunities and maintain a focused product roadmap supported by customer, dealer and competitive research.
• Create clear product briefs and statements of line covering applications, design, features, finishes, configurations, price positioning and target costs. Build the commercial case and confirm operational feasibility before recommending investment.
• Maintain a coherent design language across the portfolio. Develop practical finish updates and product refinements that make our offering current, recognizable and easy to specify together.
• Balance broader application coverage with simple SKUs, common components and flexible configurations. Every core product must support our two-day or ten-day delivery programs.

Pricing and competitive positioning

• Work with the CEO and Finance to translate portfolio margin requirements into category and product targets. Analyze market prices and recommend increases or reductions based on customer value, competitive position and profitability.
• Give Supply Chain clear product requirements and target landed costs. Work together on viable sourcing options; Supply Chain leads sourcing, supplier negotiations and purchasing, and holds suppliers accountable for agreed costs and deliverables.
• Equip Sales to compete and win with product positioning, competitor comparisons and substantiated customer advantages. Support selected strategic opportunities and turn lessons from wins and losses into portfolio improvements.

Launch delivery and product communication

• Own the integrated product launch schedule and overall readiness, with clear milestones, deliverables, accountable owners and readiness criteria across Operations, Supply Chain, Marketing, Sales and Design.
• Secure cross-functional commitments, track progress and resolve blockers. Escalate risks and capacity conflicts to the CEO early, with practical options and the impact on timing, cost and readiness.
• Coordinate specifications, samples, product data, approved configurations, installation information and training. Confirm required quality and compliance validation with Operations and suppliers before launch.
• Own product positioning and approve product accuracy in launch materials, imagery and typical configurations. Partner with Marketing on a polished, consistent presentation that reflects how products should be specified and used.

Portfolio economics and lifecycle management

• Review sales, category margins, product adoption, customer feedback and inventory performance with Finance, Sales and Operations. Recommend improvements based on evidence and act early when products underperform.
• Build demand assumptions, opening inventory requirements, SKU counts and review points into new-product proposals. Consider working capital, component reuse and practical exit options alongside revenue and margin potential.
• Lead commercial plans to simplify, discontinue or replace products and sell through aging stock. Coordinate with Sales and Marketing on demand generation, Operations on replenishment and inventory execution, and Finance on financial implications.
• Identify improvements to installation, packaging, handling and product usability. Work with Operations, Supply Chain and suppliers to validate changes that reduce total cost and improve the customer experience without compromising quality.

What Success Looks Like

• Category and product margins perform against agreed targets, with clear action on underperformance.
• Priority product gaps are closed, and new products achieve agreed adoption and commercial milestones, shared with Sales.
• Launches meet agreed schedules and readiness standards; risks are identified and resolved early.
• Inventory investment stays within approved plans, and aging and obsolete stock is reduced through active lifecycle management.
• Finishes, configurations and product communication consistently support our design language and market positioning.
• Decisions are grounded in evidence, assumptions are challenged constructively, and commitments are followed through.

Qualifications and Experience

• Degree in Business, Commerce, Marketing, Product Design or equivalent demonstrated experience.
• Commercial product & portfolio management experience: 5+ years managing physical product portfolios in B2B (office furniture or related industry). Proven results in pricing, margins, inventory, and lifecycle management. (Software-only experience doesn't qualify.)
• Strong product design judgment: an understanding of materials, finishes, proportions, applications and how products work together. You can brief and challenge suppliers; detailed engineering can sit with specialist partners.
• Commercial & analytical capability: Build and test business cases. Demonstrate results in pricing, landed costs, assortment choices, and inventory investment. Design/marketing candidates must show commercial results, alongside their creative work.
• Launch leadership: A track record of driving product launches and coordinating people across departments. Communicate clearly, secure commitments and follow through without relying on direct authority.
• Entrepreneurial mindset: Thrive in a  growing, entrepreneurial business. Strategic, hands-on and comfortable doing the research, detailed planning and execution independently.

Location travel and compensation

• Your resume
• A cover letter describing your experience managing physical product portfolios in a B2B environment, including a specific example of how you've balanced design, commercial performance, and cross-functional execution.

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