Senior Manager, Leadership & Performance Development

Role: Senior Manager, Leadership & Performance Development

Team: People, Culture & Impact (PCI) / Talent & Workforce Development
Scope: Team Leader, M4
Years of Experience: 8+ years
Location: Ventura, CA or Reno, NV (Hybrid)

Overview

Patagonia believes growth happens through meaningful work, strong leadership, continuous learning, and shared accountability. The Senior Manager, Leadership & Performance Development is responsible for building the leadership, performance, and learning foundations that help employees and leaders grow, contribute, and perform at their best across the company.

The immediate focus for this role is establishing and embedding clear leadership expectations, meaningful performance practices, stronger manager capability, and shared learning experiences rooted in The Patagonia Way. From that foundation, this leader and their team will use feedback, data, and experimentation to continuously improve and scale what works. This role reports to the Chief People & Culture Officer and Global Head of Justice & Belonging.

What You’ll Do

Define Strategy and Direction

• Establish and evolve Patagonia's approach to leadership development, performance development, and core learning experiences.

• Translate company priorities, workforce needs, and leadership expectations into practical, high-impact development priorities.

• Build strong foundations, learn through experimentation, and use insights to guide what evolves next.

• Set priorities, make tradeoffs, and focus team resources on the work that will have the greatest impact.

Lead Leadership Development

• Define and embed Patagonia's leadership expectations across the moments that shape culture, performance, and employee growth.

• Build leader and manager capability in coaching, feedback, accountability, decision-making, and leading through change.

• Partner with senior leaders and PCBPs to identify critical leadership needs and create practical solutions to address them.

• Strengthen leadership pipelines through leader transitions, peer learning, communities, and development experiences.

Lead Performance Development

• Own and evolve Patagonia's approach to performance development.

• Build performance practices that create clarity, accountability, growth, and meaningful contribution.

• Equip managers to lead effective coaching, feedback, development, and recognition conversations.

• Integrate leadership expectations into goal setting, performance conversations, calibration, and talent review processes.

• Build performance practices that are fair, practical, and embedded in the flow of work, reinforcing the behaviors and outcomes most critical to Patagonia's success.

Shape Core Learning Experiences

• Define the core learning experiences every Patagonia employee should have throughout their career journey, ensuring learning experiences reinforce Patagonia’s purpose, values, culture, leadership expectations, and performance foundations.

• Establish a practical learning-in-the-flow-of-work approach so development is not experienced as separate from the real work leaders and employees are doing every day.

• Oversee onboarding, foundational employee learning, leadership capability experiences, communications capability, AI readiness, and future enterprise learning initiatives.

• Use technology, AI, learning platforms, internal expertise, leader-led learning, communities of practice, curated content, and feedback loops to create scalable learning experiences that are accessible, useful, and continuously improving.

Build Practical, Scalable Solutions

• Create practical tools, resources, and experiences that leaders and employees can apply in the flow of work.

• Bring a creative, solutions-oriented approach to leadership, performance, and learning challenges.

• Leverage technology, AI, data, and feedback to improve effectiveness, adoption, and scale.

• Use experimentation and continuous improvement to determine what should be expanded, evolved, simplified, or retired.

Lead and Develop the Team

• Lead and develop a high-performing team responsible for leadership development, performance development, and core learning experiences.

• Achieve results through others by setting direction, clarifying priorities, coaching team members, and creating accountability for outcomes.

• Operate as a player-coach, staying close enough to the work to solve problems, support critical initiatives, and maintain quality.

• Foster a culture of learning, experimentation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

• Conduct your work in alignment with Patagonia’s Leadership Expectations – Leading Teams principles: Build People + Teams, Drive Results, Demonstrate Good Judgement, Champion Vision + Purpose

Who You Are

• Curious, adaptable, and comfortable operating in ambiguity.

• Pragmatic builder who balances strategic thinking with execution.

• Strong learner who embraces experimentation and continuous improvement.

• Strong product mindset: able to understand user needs, test solutions, gather feedback, simplify complexity, and improve experiences over time.

• Highly collaborative, influential, and people-centered.

• Passionate about helping leaders and employees grow through meaningful work.

• Deep alignment with Patagonia’s values, purpose, and culture.

Experience You Bring

Required Experience

• 8+ years of progressive experience in leadership development, talent development, organizational effectiveness, learning strategy, performance management, or related disciplines.

• Experience leading through a lean team, balancing strategic direction, coaching, prioritization, and hands-on contribution.

• Experience designing and scaling practical, technology-enabled learning, leadership, or performance solutions that are embedded in the flow of work.

• Experience using experimentation, feedback, data, and iteration to improve programs, practices, tools, or employee experiences over time.

• Experience influencing and partnering with senior leaders and cross-functional stakeholders to translate business strategy into leadership, performance, and capability-building priorities.

Knowledge & Skills

• Expertise in leadership development, manager effectiveness, and adult learning principles.

• Strong understanding of performance development, behavior change, and organizational effectiveness.

• Ability to connect business strategy, culture, employee experience, and capability development.

• Systems-thinking mindset with the ability to simplify complexity and create integrated solutions.

• Exceptional facilitation, communication, and stakeholder management skills.

• Strong strategic planning, prioritization, and execution capabilities.

• Technology-forward mindset and demonstrated ability to use technology, AI, data, learning platforms, and analytics to improve access, adoption, learning effectiveness, and scale.

Success in This Role

The successful leader will help Patagonia create:

• Stronger leaders and more effective managers.

• Better coaching, feedback, and accountability practices.

• More consistent and meaningful performance conversations.

• Shared learning experiences rooted in The Patagonia Way.

• Clearer expectations for leadership, growth, and contribution.

• Scalable systems that support continuous employee development.

• Greater organizational capability, readiness, and business impact.

Hiring Range

Ventura, CA: $163,170 - $185,000 USD Annual

Reno, NV: $155,340 - $181,230 USD Annual

At Patagonia, pay ranges are assigned to a job based on the location specific market median of similar jobs according to 3rd party salary benchmark surveys. Individual pay within that range can vary for several reasons including skills/capabilities, experience, and available budget.

Benefits

Patagonia offers a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, vision, retirement and leave of absence plans. Benefit plans may vary slightly depending on the nature of your employment.

Workplace Location Overview

This position is Hybrid, with a standard schedule of Tuesday - Thursday on-site and remote work on other days. Occasional travel and additional office visits may be required for team events or critical meetings.

Employee Conduct

It is the responsibility of every employee to contribute to a positive, inclusive work environment through cooperative and professional interactions with co-workers, customers and vendors.

Equal Employment Opportunity

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other factors prohibited by law.