Category Lead - Pre- & clinical Supply

CSL

About The Position

The Global Sourcing Lead for Clinical and Pre Clinicals Supply is a strategic category leader responsible for executing CSL’s sourcing strategy across a highly regulated, new product development portfolio supporting the CSL R&D pipeline and new product introduction. The role directly clinical development and supply requirements, including critical vendors for quality testing, validation, and development studies, ensuring compliant, efficient, and scalable procurement strategies aligned with enterprise priorities and operational objectives. The Global Sourcing Lead develops category strategies and supplier governance frameworks to drive financial performance, simplify the portfolio, and strengthen supply continuity. The role ensures consistent use of approved suppliers, catalogs, and contracts, minimizing off-channel spend and maximizing network-wide sourcing leverage. By standardizing and simplifying buying processes, the role enhances supply reliability, mitigates operational and regulatory risk, and improves the procurement experience. This role leads market screening and partnership development, supplier consolidation and standardization initiatives to reduce complexity and validation burden for critical materials and services. In partnership with Tech Operations, Supply Chain and Operations, the role optimizes support and supply models. The Sourcing Lead ensures sourcing strategies comply with GMP, regulatory, and technical requirements through close collaboration with R&D, Tech Ops, Quality, Operations and Supply Chain. The role also drives the ongoing alignment of the strategic roadmap with long-term enterprise objectives. In addition, the Associate Director builds team capability, provides mentorship, and develops future procurement leaders to sustain performance and resilience across the network.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in business, Supply Chain, or related discipline; MBA or advanced degree preferred.
Minimum 8+ years’ experience in strategic sourcing, category management, or procurement leadership roles.
Preferable 3+ years demonstrated clinical trial supply sourcing experience
Proven experience in leading cross-functional teams and managing complex supplier relationships.
Demonstrated success in developing and executing category strategies and delivering measurable value.
Understanding of pharma and biotech clinical pipeline management / Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls (CMC)
Experience in change management, stakeholder engagement, and innovation facilitation.
Strategic Thinking: Ability to develop and implement long-term category strategies that align with organisational objectives and drive measurable value.
Leadership and Team Management: Demonstrates strong leadership to effectively manage, mentor, and inspire a team of Category Managers, fostering a collaborative and high-performance culture
Supplier Relationship Management: Builds and maintains strategic relationships with suppliers to enhance collaboration, drive innovation, and deliver sustained value.
Negotiation Skills: Applies exceptional negotiation techniques to secure favourable terms while preserving strong supplier partnerships.
Continuous Improvement: Proactively identifies opportunities to improve procurement processes, tools, and outcomes to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
Project Management Skills: Plans tasks, assigns resources, manages progress, removes barriers, manages change, resolves conflict, builds consensus, and motivates team members across multiple projects concurrently.

Responsibilities

Sourcing strategy development Lead the development and execution of long-term category strategies aligned with enterprise objectives.
Collaborate globally across business units to influence senior leaders and advocate for key business improvement programs.
Develop business cases to gain endorsement for value-driving initiatives.
Lead annual opportunity analysis forums with cross-functional stakeholders and supplier partners to replenish initiative pipelines.
Act as a conduit for external innovation, facilitating workshops to solve complex business challenges through supplier partnerships.
Team leadership Manage and mentor a team of Category Managers, fostering a high-performance and collaborative culture.
Develop workforce plans and succession strategies to ensure team capability and continuity.
Provide coaching and support for professional development and performance improvement.
Lead initiatives to enhance procurement capabilities and deliver sustained value.
Category management strategy Drive continuous improvement in sourcing processes, tools, and methodologies.
Build strategic relationships with key suppliers to enhance collaboration, performance, and innovation.
Lead negotiations to secure favourable terms while maintaining strong partnerships.
Monitor supplier performance and ensure alignment with contractual obligations and business expectations
Policy and governance management Ensure adherence to procurement policies, governance frameworks, and compliance standards.
Manage procurement-related risks and implement mitigation strategies.
Oversee budget planning and financial management within assigned categories.
Performance monitoring Monitor performance of category strategies in achieving value creation and delivery KPIs
Provide regular reporting and insights to executive leadership on category performance and strategic initiatives.
Cross-functional collaboration Partner with Finance BPs, Operational Excellence, and Procurement Business Partners to align category strategies with business needs.
Develop tailored communications for diverse audiences to manage change, resolve conflict, and build consensus.
Other responsibilities Market analysis.
Budget management.
Continuous improvement.
Reporting and communication.
Risk management.
Training and development.