Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization:

• Ensure a best-in-class and balanced supplier portfolio and actively manage the material category
• Define data-driven sourcing best-practices and own advanced materials costing approaches

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop and build deep category knowledge, including supply market developments, manufacturing & costing processes to ensure best-in-class category management
• Build-up and manage a balanced and competitive supplier portfolio for the material category, taking into account internal and external factors (e.g., cost competitiveness, innovativeness, quality and speed)
• Identify and evaluate new suppliers for material category and manage their onboarding in alignment with Materials Operations
• Define sourcing strategies for the material category jointly with the Director of Portfolio Management and Costing
• Execute the portfolio strategy for the material category and give input to local Materials Operations teams to derive and execute local sourcing strategy across categories
• Own & drive commercial relationship to all material category suppliers across countries
• Prepare, align internally and conduct seasonal price negotiations, this includes but is not limited to the negotiation strategy, monitoring of raw material markets and the break-down of negotiation targets to supplier level

• Propose seasonal supplier reactions in alignment with Materials Operations and other stakeholders, as a result of the seasonal negotiations and the tracking of, e.g., the supplier’s performance
• Re-allocate optimized materials towards the best performing suppliers and ensure the required system implementation
• Consult HQ teams as well as LO Development and Production on the allocation of new developments
• Track the implementation of the defined portfolio strategy, e.g., no new developments with suppliers that will be phased-out
• Develop, maintain and apply advanced materials costing approaches, e.g., should-be costing or comprehensive cost breakdowns for the material category
• Share cost indications for new developments to stakeholders where appropriate
• Develop and apply advanced procurement techniques, e.g., tendering of materials
• Track, monitor & create reporting on category KPI’s, including spend, savings, volume, etc.

Key Relationships:

• T1 & T2 suppliers
• Materials operations
• Materials technology incubation
• LO Operations
• LO Costing
• Finance
• BUs
• Horizontal teams

Knowledge, Transferrable Skills and Abilities:

• Strong business sense and analytical skills
• Strong interpersonal relationship building skills with different cultures
• Strong negotiation and costing skills
• Excellent presentation and communications skills (written and verbal)
• Ability to drive initiatives and change
• Knowledge of footwear manufacturing industry preferred
• Ability to work independently under pressure and to deadlines
• Fluent in English both written and spoken

Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Finance or Procurement preferred. Or technical degree with major focus in Manufacturing & Project Management, Textile Engineering, Polymer Chemistry or other material related field
• Knowledge of project management methodology preferred
• Minimum 6 years professional experience, preferably in an analytical position in a manufacturing or procurement environment (or materials)
• Knowledge of athletic footwear industry preferred but not required
• Great skills in MS office applications

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