Category Manager Fiber - Northern/Southern Bleached Softwood Kraft - Alternative Fiber

Kimberly-Clark•Atlanta, GA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Join the team behind iconic brands like Huggies®, Kleenex®, Cottonelle®, Scott®, Kotex®, Poise®, Depend®, and Kimberly-Clark Professional®. At Kimberly-Clark, it’s all here for you—innovation, growth, and the chance to make a real impact. You were made to create Better Care for a Better World. As a person, you’re a problem-solver – a connector – someone who thrives on creating order from complexity and driving continuous improvement. You see the big picture while mastering the details, ensuring that every product, process, and partnership flows with precision and purpose. You live your life in alignment with the highest values of integrity, efficiency, and collaboration, always working to turn today’s challenges into tomorrow’s success stories. In this role, you’ll help us deliver better care for billions of people around the world. It starts with YOU. About You In one of our Supply Chain roles, you’ll focus on winning with consumers and the market, while putting safety, mutual respect, and human dignity at the center.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree or higher in business, supply chain or related discipline
5+ years’ experience in Procurement or other supply chain related function
Excellent communication skills (both written and oral) with ability to communicate up and across the organization
Cross functional collaboration and influencing, project management, analytical and problem-solving skills
Ability to work independently in heavily matrixed organization
Ability to travel up to 25% of the time

Responsibilities

Lead development and execution of K-C’s NBSK/SBSK sourcing category strategy aligned to business needs; Manage a spend portfolio of ~$250MM.
Communicate on a regular basis to key internal stakeholders; Provide on-going, expert level, supply category knowledge and market intelligence insights into each business Segment; Create a strategic plan for the category and focusing on strategic intent and intervention actions to achieve long-term objectives; Lead global RFx events across all Personal Care business Segments
Create and maintain category knowledge, playbooks, and processes to ensure strategies remain informed, relevant, and up to date; Lead the commercial negotiation of supply contracts on behalf of K-C including the development of pre-negotiation strategy and tactics; Construct value stream industry maps and build market comparable cost analysis; Set annual targets for total value creation including safety, quality, service, capacity, sustainability, social responsibility, and cost objectives for key suppliers.
Create and maintain a 3 year global productivity pipeline for the category; Maintain an understanding of global benchmarks for key operating performance measures and best practices; Lead initiatives that enable revenue growth, margin improvement, supply security, product innovation, risk management and supply chain optimization
Support execution of Project ALF by partnering with Global R&D, Enterprise Value Stream and segments to scale adoption and identify suppliers to support the project; Establish trust and accountability with stakeholders; communicate clearly and succinctly on platform goals, risks, and changes.
Maintain strong connectivity with CoE and amplified commodities teams to exchange/build market intelligence and support ABU reviews and sourcing analytics; Lead through hands-on engagement with decision makers to drive alignment and change adoption
Ensure compliance with applicable procurement rules and Code of Conduct; promote best-practice development and sharing; Own key global supplier relationships; plan quarterly SRM reviews and value/innovation discussions; escalate and resolve supplier continuity issues; Manage, track and report category costs, sourcing initiatives, savings, and results.
Lead and monitor supplier performance to improve service, quality, and cost; reduce enterprise risk; Identify and evaluate new suppliers and supplier innovations with R&D; help structure term sheets and commercial frameworks that provide advantaged pricing and access to novel technology; Track fiber sustainability supplier roadmap (e.g., FSC certificates, Scope 3 programs).