Tibebe Solomon
Addis Ababa
Summary
Highly motivated and results-driven Industrial Engineer with 10+ years of progressive experience in multinational manufacturing, including key tenure at Decathlon. Proven record of leading a $15 million annual business, specializing in Strategic Planning, End-to-End Supply Chain Management, and Industrial Pricing. Expertise includes hands-on Process Optimization, Project Management, Recruitment and driving supplier-level business allocation from the conception stage.
Overview
11
11
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Production Team Manager ( Merchandisr Manager )
Decathlon Ethiopia
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
04.2022 - Current
- I lead a team of six members managing a turnover of 16 million euros, focusing on operational excellence, cost efficiency, and continuous improvement.
- I am responsible for leading and coordinating a team to ensure smooth, efficient, and high-quality production operations.
- I manage daily activities on the shop floor, optimise processes, ensure safety and quality standards, and support team development.
- The role focuses on delivering results while fostering a strong team spirit, a culture of continuous improvement, and managing FG vendors as part of business management, ensuring harmony in product development, quality assurance, supply chain, pricing, and compliance.
- Leading a direct team: recruitment, empowerment, preparing, and promoting talents.
- Building and leading a long-term project, co-aligned with the local and global context of the company.
- Focusing on operational excellence, continuous improvement, and green energy programmes to ensure process improvement and responsible production.
- Local Project: Ensuring business growth within a specific perimeter, contributing to the cumulative growth of Decathlon Ethiopia's business.
- Manage quotations for 25+ models from multiple FG vendors each year, ensuring transparency and reliability to deliver the target contract price.
- Strategic Planning & Financial Management: Align sourcing, procurement, and costing strategies, while managing pricing negotiations to drive profitability.
- Order & Capacity Planning: Ensured right supplier mapping through capacity planning and placed orders based on technical capabilities
- Collaborated with human resources to manage staffing needs, including recruitment, training, and retention strategies.
- Quality, Efficiency, and Process Optimisation: Lead initiatives to reduce defects, waste, and improve workflow efficiency.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration & Culture: Strengthen internal and supplier relationships, align production with goals, and foster a culture of professionalism, innovation, and creativity.
- Coordinated daily workflow, assigned tasks, and monitored performance to maximise efficiency.
- Planned and communicated daily manufacturing tasks and targets.
- Sourcing, Supplier and Production Management: Optimise supplier relationships, streamline production, and ensure cost, quality, and timely delivery.
Indus, Quality and Production leader
Decathlon
Addis Ababa
03.2018 - 04.2022
- Managing product cost breakdowns, ensuring financial viability, and developing vendor technical feasibility.
- Oversees the entire product development cycle from prototyping to final approval, leading product industrialisation for efficient large-scale manufacturing.
- Conducts process and compliance assessments, continuously optimising manufacturing for efficiency, waste reduction, and using data and ERP tools.
- Master cost breakdown: I meticulously analyse and manage a comprehensive cost breakdown for each product to ensure competitive pricing.
- Ensure and develop the vendor's technical feasibility: I assess and enhance our vendors' technical capabilities to guarantee that they can meet our product specifications and quality requirements.
- Product development: I oversee the entire product development cycle, from prototyping to final sample approval.
- Product Industrialisation: I lead the strategic transition of products from the development phase to efficient, large-scale manufacturing.
- Process and compliance assessment: I participated in conducting thorough assessments of production processes to verify compliance with industry standards, and successfully passed the process assessments.
- Process optimisation: I continuously refine manufacturing processes to increase efficiency, reduce waste, and improve overall productivity through data analysis and ERP tools.
- Control plan; follow up on quality in the field and help factories to improve production with the least defect rate.
- AQL: Performing final controls of the goods to ensure good quality of the product for the ultimate customer.
- Trained and motivated the suppliers to ensure the quality standards were met.
Customer Service Executive
Tal Apparel
Hawassa, Ethiopia
03.2017 - 02.2018
- Customer order serving.
- Customer-driven mindset.
- Fabric development and samples.
- Pre-production preparation.
- Garment ex-factory arrangement.
- Internal customer arrangements.
Merchandiser
SHINTS
A.A
08.2015 - 03.2017
- Manage the entire lifecycle of a clothing order, acting as a crucial link between buyers and internal teams (design, production, quality) to ensure garments are developed, produced, and shipped correctly, on time, and to specification, focusing on quality, cost, and timely delivery.
- Follow up on sample status and validation.
- Internal and external communication with different buyers.
- Preparing purchasing order & internal order sheet to follow up
- Follow up Accessories & trims in housing for smooth production
- Advising and assisting the production, sample, and quality department.
- Taking responsibility for inspection; checking the quality of the products online to ensure they meet the buyer's requirements.
- Follow up on ex-factory and production efficiency for on-time delivery.
- Answered customers' questions about products, prices and availability to enhance customer satisfaction.
Education
BSC - Industrial Engineering
Mekelle university
01.2015
Skills
- Process Improvement
- Recruitment
- Continuous improvement
- Project management
- Quality Auditing and Assurance
- Sustainable Sourcing and Procurement
- Decision-making
- Vendor management
- Team leadership
- Supply & capacity Planning
- Costing Mastering
- Attention to Detail
Languages
Amharic
English
Key Achivments
- Business increased from 6 millions $ to 16 millions $ from 2023 compare to 2024.
- Introduce New Supply Method; MTS (Make to Stock) planning
- Business increase - from 6 millions $ to 14 millions $ from 2023 to 2024.
- Improving efficiency from 52% to 80% compare to 2023 to 2024.
- Achieved 98% handover on-time performance in 2024, sustained 95.6 %+ YTD in 2025.
- Offering the best FOB price, 1.34% lower than other countries competitors (India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and China).
- Led the DTMB project as a Strategic Axis Leader, significantly enhancing organizational team engagement, ownership, and performance, resulting in a 96.5% team happiness score by 2024 (an 11.3% increase from 2023).
- Recruit 5 team members for my direct team.
- Bringing 4 New sign sports to DP Ethiopia collaborate with the team.
References
- Arif Islam, Country Project Leader at Decathlon Ethiopia, +251 944335530
- Abdullah Al Mamun, Africa Project Leader at Kiabi , +880 1709-648278
Certification
- I am certified for Time and Priority management
- I am certified for Communication Skill
- I am certified for how to give & receive feedback
- I am autonomous Lead to negotiation
- I am autonomous for crisis management.
- I am Quality assemsent Auditor
- I am Automous for MS
- I am automous on continuoes improvent
- I am ceritifcated for order Mangagment
Timeline
Production Team Manager ( Merchandisr Manager )
Decathlon Ethiopia
04.2022 - Current
Indus, Quality and Production leader
Decathlon
03.2018 - 04.2022
Customer Service Executive
Tal Apparel
03.2017 - 02.2018
Merchandiser
SHINTS
08.2015 - 03.2017
BSC - Industrial Engineering
Mekelle university