Associate Director, Supply Chain Planning & Procurement

Orca Bio•Sacramento, CA

4d•$145,000 - $175,000

About The Position

More than one million people in the United States today are fighting blood cancer. While a traditional allogeneic stem cell transplant has been the best hope for many, the transplant itself can prove fatal or lead to serious conditions, such as graft vs. host disease. Orca Bio is a late-stage biotechnology company redefining the transplant process by developing next-generation cell therapies with the goal of providing significantly better survival rates with dramatically fewer risks. With our purified, high-precision investigational cell therapies we hope to not only replace patients' blood and immune systems with healthy ones, but also restore their lives. We have built a state-of-the-art, 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Sacramento, CA (7910 Metro Air Pkwy) to ensure the consistent and reliable delivery of our high-precision cell therapy products. This site is essential to advancing our clinical pipeline and supporting future commercial availability of our life-saving therapies. The Associate Director, Supply Chain Planning leads planning and procurement functions while driving the design, implementation and optimization of manufacturing execution systems (MES) and enterprise resource planning connections across cell therapy manufacturing sites. This role ensures robust, compliant and scalable planning and procurement processes with digital systems to enable accurate, real-time visibility and uninterrupted production of clinical and commercial cell therapy products. The associate Director will partner with Manufacturing, Finance IT, Facilities and Quality to deliver a reliable planning foundation that supports operations and data-drive decision-making.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Life Sciences, or related fields.
5-7 years of progressive supply chain experience in biomanufacturing, cell therapies or advanced therapies.
Leadership of digital transformation initiatives including MES and ERP systems .
Strong knowledge of production planning, material requirements planning (MRP), and capacity planning within manufacturing.
Proven success leading cross-functional teams and driving operational results.
Excellent interpersonal, leadership, and communication skills.

Nice To Haves

Experience with autologous or allogeneic cell therapy supply chains.
Familiarity with both clinical and commercial supply chain models.
Knowledge of manufacturing, chain of identity/custody requirements, and vein-to-vein workflows.

Responsibilities

Supply Planning Lead site supply planning, production scheduling, and material planning to meet customer service and operational targets
Manage production and material capacity planning aligned with clinical and commercial demand forecasts developing and analyzing operational scenarios to support capacity and demand needs.
Ensure effective inventory strategies to maintain optimal raw material, consumable, and finished product levels.
Develop Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) processes for cell therapy programs across internal manufacturing sites.
Facilitate relationships with internal commercial stakeholders and suppliers and vendors, where appropriate
Serve as site business lead for MES and ERP system deployment, configuration, and optimization.
Partner with IT, Engineering, and other functions to define requirements, ensure seamless integration, and enable end-to-end planning functionality.
Translate planning processes into digital workflows, ensuring master data accuracy, transactional discipline, and real-time visibility.
Drive user adoption, training, and change management for MES/ERP solutions at the site.
Implement best practices in supply chain planning, leveraging system capabilities to improve forecast accuracy, scheduling efficiency, material availability, and cost competitiveness.
Establish KPIs and dashboards for planning performance, leveraging ERP/MES data for decision-making.
Identify and resolve systemic bottlenecks in planning processes through digital solutions
Lead, coach and develop a team of planners and system users.
Build a culture of digital fluency, continuous improvement and data-driven decision-making within the planning function.
Effectively lead, mentor, and coach a direct team including Production Planner Schedulers and Procurement Manager and Procurement Specialist(s)
Oversees the daily workflow of the department and performance to goals and deliverables
Recruits, interviews, hires, and trains new staff
Provides constructive and timely performance feedback and evaluations