Product Manager, Finishes

Quanex•New Brighton, MN

10d•$95,000 - $115,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Product Manager, Finishes is the enterprise product and market expert for colors, coatings, plating, and decorative and protective finishes across the Quanex Hardware Solutions portfolio. This role owns the finishes strategy and lifecycle, with a primary focus on harmonizing color offerings, naming conventions, specifications, master standards, and customer-facing tools across product lines. The Product Manager translates customer and market needs into differentiated finish solutions; partners with engineering, operations, sourcing, quality, sales, and marketing to ensure consistent appearance and performance; and leads commercialization of new or improved finishes. The role is accountable for the finishes roadmap, portfolio simplification, growth, profitability, quality, and customer adoption.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in business, engineering, materials science, chemistry, industrial design, marketing, or a related field
5-7 years of professional experience, preferably in B2B product management, finishes, coatings, building products, hardware, or a manufacturing environment.
Experience partnering with customers, engineering, operations, quality, sourcing, suppliers, sales, and marketing in the development and lifecycle management of products or finishes.
Demonstrated success in problem solving, idea generation, business-case development, and cross-functional project execution.
Willingness to travel domestically and internationally up to 25% of the time.

Nice To Haves

MBA or advanced technical degree is preferred.
Working knowledge of coating, plating, painting, anodizing, powder coating, or related finishing technologies is strongly preferred.
Experience leading portfolio harmonization, standardization, SKU rationalization, specification governance, or multi-site change initiatives is preferred.

Responsibilities

Develops and executes an enterprise finishes strategy that aligns customer needs, market trends, operational capabilities, and profitability goals.
Drives harmonization of colors, finish standards, naming conventions, specifications, and customer communications across the Quanex Hardware Solutions portfolio.
Launches innovative finishes and surface technologies that increase revenue, customer adoption, and competitive differentiation.
Establishes effective governance processes that ensure consistent decision-making for finish introductions, modifications, approvals, and discontinuations.
Improves finish consistency, durability, quality, and operational efficiency while reducing complexity, variation, obsolete inventory, and costs.
Delivers actionable market insights from customer feedback, competitive analysis, and industry trends to guide strategic decisions.
Creates strong partnerships across engineering, operations, sourcing, quality, sales, marketing, suppliers, and customers to execute initiatives successfully.
Provides effective training and support that enables sales teams, distributors, and customers to confidently recommend and specify Quanex finish solutions.
Uses portfolio analytics to optimize product mix, pricing, profitability, inventory, and lifecycle management decisions.
Achieves measurable improvements in revenue growth, margin performance, customer satisfaction, service levels, and portfolio simplification.