Director of Procurement

Job Description

Job Description:\n\nPOSITION SUMMARY\nThe Director of Procurement is responsible for leading the Company’s procurement and strategic sourcing function across a diverse manufacturing operation. This position will develop and execute procurement strategies that ensure the reliable, timely, and cost-effective supply of high-quality materials, ingredients, packaging, equipment, supplies, and services required to support the Company’s operations, production requirements, and continued growth.\nThe Director will oversee procurement across the Company’s nutraceutical, food, and consumer product manufacturing operations. Areas of responsibility include nutritional and food-grade raw materials and ingredients, packaging components, indirect materials and services, manufacturing supplies, capital equipment, maintenance and operational requirements, and other purchased goods and services necessary to support the business.\n This role is responsible for balancing quality, availability, cost, lead time, inventory, supplier performance, and supply-chain risk while ensuring material availability supports demand across the Company’s multiple sales and distribution channels.\nThe Director will work closely with Planning, Manufacturing, Finance, Quality, Product Development, Inventory, Warehousing, Engineering, and other business functions to translate forecasts, production requirements, new-product launches, promotions, and channel demand into effective procurement and inventory strategies.\n This role will be expected to bring strong ERP/MRP knowledge and be comfortable working within an evolving systems environment, with the ability to use planning and purchasing data to support effective procurement decisions.\nRequirementsWHAT YOU BRING \nMINIMUM JOB QUALIFICATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS\n\n Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain Management, Procurement, Business Administration, Operations Management, Finance, Engineering, or a related field preferred. Relevant certifications, specialized training, and significant applicable experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.\n Minimum of 10 years of progressive procurement, purchasing, strategic sourcing, or supply-chain experience within a manufacturing environment.\n Minimum of 5 years of demonstrated leadership experience managing procurement, purchasing, sourcing, or supply-chain professionals.\n Significant experience sourcing raw materials and ingredients within the nutraceutical, dietary supplement, food, beverage, pharmaceutical, consumer packaged goods, or related regulated manufacturing industries strongly preferred.\n Demonstrated experience sourcing and managing multiple spend categories, including raw materials, ingredients, packaging, indirect materials, services, and capital equipment.\n Demonstrated experience partnering with Planning or Supply Planning teams to convert demand forecasts and production requirements into procurement strategies.\n Experience supporting complex or multi-channel businesses where demand originates from multiple customers, channels, promotions, or distribution models.\n Strong experience working within an ERP/MRP-driven manufacturing environment, preferably Microsoft Dynamics 365 or another major manufacturing ERP platform\n Strong knowledge of supplier markets, manufacturing capabilities, commodity dynamics, supply-chain risk, and strategic sourcing practices.\n Demonstrated experience negotiating complex supplier agreements and commercial terms.\n\n \nKNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES\n\n \n Strong understanding of the relationship between Demand Planning, Supply Planning, MRP, Procurement, Inventory, and Manufacturing.\n Strong ERP and systems aptitude, with the ability to effectively use purchasing, inventory, planning, and supplier data to support decision-making.\n Ability to interpret forecasts and translate changing business demand into practical sourcing, inventory, and supplier strategies.\n Ability to identify whether a supply issue is driven by sourcing, supplier performance, planning assumptions, master data, forecasting, inventory accuracy, or internal process execution.\n Exceptional negotiation, influencing, contracting, and supplier-management skills.\n Strong commercial and financial acumen.\n Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.\n Strong leadership and people-development capabilities.\n Ability to hold employees and suppliers accountable through clear expectations and measurable performance standards.\n Strong organizational and project-management skills.\n Ability to manage multiple priorities and rapidly reprioritize based on changing business requirements.\n Strong change-management skills and the ability to lead a team successfully through systems and process changes while maintaining continuity of day-to-day purchasing operations.\n High sense of urgency, persistence, accountability, and follow-through.\n Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to collaborate effectively at all levels of the organization.\n Executive-level written and verbal communication skills.\n Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Office, particularly Excel.\n \n\n \n LEADERSHIP EXPECTATIONS\nThe Director of Procurement is expected to:\n\n \n Operate with a high level of ownership and accountability.\n Build a strong, responsive, service-oriented procurement organization.\n Develop employees and delegate effectively while maintaining appropriate oversight.\n Bring forward solutions and recommendations, not simply identify problems.\n Maintain strong visibility into critical materials, supplier risks, purchasing commitments, and inventory exposure.\n Communicate issues early, clearly, and accurately.\n Challenge suppliers appropriately while maintaining productive long-term relationships.\n Demonstrate sound business judgment and responsible stewardship of Company resources.\n Embrace technology, data, and standardized processes as tools to improve Procurement performance.\n Maintain the highest standards of integrity and ethical business conduct.\n Create an environment that supports employee development, collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.\n \n\nESSENTIAL JOB DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES\n Procurement Strategy & Leadership\n\n \n Develop and execute the Company’s overall procurement and strategic sourcing strategy in alignment with operational, financial, quality, and growth objectives.\n Lead, coach, and develop Purchasing Managers and procurement team members while establishing clear goals, responsibilities, performance expectations, and accountability.\n Build a responsive, scalable procurement organization capable of supporting current manufacturing requirements and future business growth.\n Establish sourcing strategies by commodity, material category, supplier, manufacturing requirement, and business need.\n Develop and maintain procurement policies, purchasing controls, processes, approval structures, and operating standards.\n Establish meaningful procurement KPIs and regularly report performance, risks, supplier issues, savings opportunities, inventory concerns, and sourcing priorities to Executive Leadership.\n Develop and manage the department budget and resource requirements.\n Drive continuous improvement within the Procurement function and across supplier relationships.\n \n\n Strategic Sourcing & Purchasing\n\n \n Direct the sourcing and procurement of goods and services required to support Company operations, including:\n \n Nutritional, functional, and food-grade raw materials and ingredients\n \n \n \n \n Vitamins, minerals, botanicals, specialty ingredients, excipients, sweeteners, flavors, fats, and other formulation components\n \n \n \n \n Primary and secondary packaging materials\n \n \n \n \n Labels, films, cartons, containers, printed materials, and other packaging components\n \n \n \n \n Manufacturing and production equipment\n \n \n \n \n Capital equipment\n \n \n \n \n Maintenance, repair, and operating supplies\n \n \n \n \n Indirect materials and services\n \n \n \n \n Professional and contracted services\n \n \n \n \n Other operational and business requirements\n \n \n\n \n Identify, evaluate, qualify, and develop domestic and international suppliers capable of meeting Company quality, cost, capacity, lead-time, service, and regulatory requirements.\n Maintain appropriate sourcing alternatives and contingency plans for critical materials and suppliers.\n Partner with internal stakeholders to establish sourcing requirements, specifications, purchasing strategies, and supplier-selection criteria.\n Ensure procurement activities support production schedules, new-product launches, promotions, customer commitments, and strategic growth initiatives.\n \n\n Procurement Planning & Multi-Channel Demand Management\n\n \n Partner closely with Planning to translate demand forecasts into short-, mid-, and long-range procurement requirements across the Company’s multiple sales and distribution channels.\n Ensure procurement strategies appropriately support varying demand patterns across direct-to-consumer, retail, e-commerce, marketplace, promotional, wholesale, and other channels as applicable.\n Understand that channel demand, promotions, launches, customer commitments, and changes in forecast may create different inventory, lead-time, and material requirements and incorporate these variables into procurement planning.\n Work with Planning and Manufacturing to ensure raw materials, ingredients, packaging components, and other critical materials are available in alignment with production schedules and business demand.\n Develop procurement plans that account for long lead times, supplier minimum order quantities, production capacity, shelf life, expiration dating, inventory turns, safety stock, and demand variability.\n Look beyond immediate MRP recommendations to identify future supply requirements and potential constraints before they impact production.\n Partner with Planning to identify material shortages, excess inventory, changing demand patterns, forecast risks, and potential production constraints.\n Support new-product introductions, major promotions, channel launches, and changes in product demand by proactively securing required materials, packaging, supplier capacity, and related resources.\n Balance material availability and service levels with working-capital objectives to minimize both supply disruptions and unnecessary inventory investment.\n \n\n Supplier Management & Negotiation\n\n \n Develop and maintain strategic relationships with key suppliers, manufacturers, and service providers.\n Lead major supplier negotiations involving pricing, payment terms, lead times, minimum order quantities, capacity commitments, freight, service levels, quality requirements, and other commercial terms.\n Initiate, negotiate, implement, and manage supply agreements, purchasing contracts, confidentiality agreements, and other commercial arrangements as appropriate.\n Establish supplier scorecards, conduct regular business reviews, and lead corrective-action, supplier-development, and escalation activities when performance does not meet quality, cost, delivery, service, or responsiveness expectations.\n Work collaboratively with suppliers to identify cost-saving opportunities, process improvements, alternate materials, capacity solutions, and supply-chain efficiencies.\n Ensure new suppliers and vendor accounts are established in accordance with Finance, Accounting, Quality, and Company requirements.\n \n\n Supply Chain Intelligence & Risk Management\n\n \n Maintain a thorough understanding of global supply conditions for critical raw materials, food ingredients, packaging, equipment, and other strategic categories.\n Monitor commodity markets, supplier capacity, inflationary pressures, geopolitical developments, transportation issues, regulatory changes, agricultural conditions, shortages, and other factors that may impact cost or availability.\n Develop forward-looking supply strategies using ERP data, forecasts, historical consumption, supplier intelligence, and anticipated business growth.\n Proactively communicate significant supply-chain risks, market changes, pricing developments, and material availability concerns to Executive Leadership and appropriate business stakeholders.\n Identify potential supply disruptions before they affect manufacturing or customer commitments whenever reasonably possible.\n Develop mitigation strategies including secondary sourcing, alternate materials, safety stock, advance purchasing, supplier capacity commitments, and contractual protections.\n Evaluate supply-chain risk at the supplier, commodity, geographic, manufacturing-location, transportation, and critical-material levels where appropriate.\n \n\n ERP, Systems & Process Management\n\n \n Partner with Planning, Finance, Manufacturing, Inventory, IT/Business Applications, and other stakeholders to ensure Procurement and MRP processes are effectively supported within the Company’s ERP environment.\n Help define and maintain effective purchasing workflows, approval processes, purchasing controls, supplier-management practices, and procurement reporting.\n Support the accuracy and maintenance of procurement-related master data, including:-\n \n Supplier information | Lead times | Minimum order quantities\n \n \n \n \n Order multiples | Pricing | Payment terms\n Material sourcing information | Approved suppliers | Purchasing units of measure\n Contract and agreement information | Other procurement and planning parameters\n \n \n\n \n Partner with Planning to ensure MRP parameters and procurement-related assumptions accurately reflect supplier capabilities and business requirements.\n \n\n \n Maintain strong discipline around ERP-generated purchasing recommendations while applying appropriate business judgment based on forecasts, supplier constraints, inventory positions, market conditions, and long-range requirements.\n Identify opportunities to improve purchasing visibility, reporting, process consistency, automation, and decision-making through effective use of ERP and related systems.\n Ensure the Procurement team consistently follows established systems, purchasing processes, and data-management practices.\n \n\n Inventory & Working Capital Management\n\n \n Partner with Planning, Finance, Manufacturing, and Inventory teams to balance material availability with inventory and working-capital objectives.\n Review purchasing recommendations, inventory levels, consumption trends, lead times, safety-stock requirements, minimum order quantities, and forecast accuracy.\n Identify slow-moving, obsolete, aging, or excess materials and partner with appropriate stakeholders to develop mitigation strategies.\n Help establish appropriate inventory policies and purchasing parameters for strategic and critical materials.\n \n\n Quality & Regulatory Partnership\n\n \n Work closely with Quality Assurance, Quality Control, Regulatory, Product Development, and other technical teams to ensure suppliers and purchas