Job Description

Job Purpose & Overview

This role is part of the MGS Commercial Indirects Regional Management Team for Americas and is accountable to develop category vision and strategic procurement of Supply categories, such as Logistics, Facility Services and Energy across all business segments at Mars including Mars Snacking, Petcare (incl. Royal Canin), Food & Nutrition, MGS and Corporate.

The Senior Category Director will oversee strategic category management (partnering with global colleagues) building a talented and effective organization that will deliver competitive advantage to Mars Incorporated. They will develop cross-segment and cross-market partnerships with stakeholders; maximize value creation; improve service, quality, and protect the supply chain, ensuring continuous and responsible supply and leveraging external capability.

The successful candidate will be seen as a potential successor for the VP Commercial Americas role.

Key Responsibilities

Demonstrate visible and inspiring leadership, create a sense of motivation, belonging and engagement for the associates. Create a results-oriented, high performing and energizing culture. Attract, retain, and develop associates and deliver succession plans that enable Commercial value delivery.
Develop deep category expertise that will deliver and continuously improve organization efficiencies, maximize value creation and create competitive advantage opportunities.
Accountable for business impact through leading development, business alignment and subsequent execution of sub multi-year category strategies reducing total cost of ownership by 6%+ annually and delivering cash benefits.
Establish and maintain business partnership relationships with key regional stakeholders to ensure deep understanding of segment needs and strategies in order to generate maximum business value from commercial strategies as well as influence the improvement of internal practices including the challenge of demand and specifications.
Leads development and enhancement of industry best practices across assigned categories including improvement of processes, systems, tools, specifications, forecasts.
Accountable for development of knowledge management, insights and analytics: understanding of industry trends, total value chain, cost/ price drivers, suppliers and competitors to ensure generation of TCO and Value advantages to Mars.
Builds commercial ownership for relationship development with strategic suppliers: keeps optimum number of suppliers, negotiate competitive terms and contracts, secure competitive advantage, and enables access to innovative and value creation solutions from suppliers capabilities ahead of competitors.
Leads supplier performance and contract compliance – provides regular financial, service and quality forecasts and updates to appropriate functional executives.
Accountable for compliance and enhancement of proper procedures, policies, systems and controls, manages approvals and governance.
Accountable to mobilize the team to look for new opportunities to achieve Mars sustainability goals, develop required plans, align internally and execute with suppliers.
Effective member of the Commercial Regional Leadership team, providing valuable contributions beyond Supply.

Qualifications

Master's Degree: Business, Economics, MBA is a plus
10+ years in Procurement in multi-national environment
5-10 years experience in Logistics procurement
Very high level of business acumen / can-do mindset – must have strong analytical skills, understanding and anticipating consequences of macro-economic changes on the business environment
Proven track record in successful procurement leadership in a complex environment
Demonstrated ability to establish a vision for change and lead complex transformation programs
Excellent knowledge of Logistics and Supply and demonstrated ability to develop and effectively implement category strategies leveraging or developing best practices
Strong cultural agility and capacity to navigate efficiently through ambiguity, changes, multiple stakeholders and complex matrix organization
Highly effective interpersonal skills – excellent negotiator, storytelling, strong communication and influencing skills to all organizational levels. Demonstrated ability to develop credible business relationships with senior executives internally and externally
Proven ability to lead a high performing, multi-cultural team based in different locations and comfortable working within a complex matrix organization
Results orientated – comfortable setting and delivering against bold, stretch targets

What can you expect from Mars?

Work with diverse and talented Associates, all guided by the Five Principles.
Join a purpose driven company, where we’re striving to build the world we want tomorrow, today.
A strong focus on learning and development support from day one, including access to our in-house Mars University.
An industry competitive salary and benefits package, including company bonus.

The base pay range for this position at commencement of employment is between the range listed below, however, base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including but not limited to job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total compensation package for this position will include variable pay, medical and dental benefits, participation in 401k plan, and paid time off benefits. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an applicant receives an offer of employment.

The pay range shown is applicable to all locations listed within the job posting:USD 190,613.00 - USD 262,086.00

Senior Director, Strategic Sourcing - Americas Supply

Job Type