Category Manager, Industrial Chemicals & Minerals

Nippon Paint Automotive Americas, Inc. • Lansing, IL

5d

About The Position

The Category Manager is a key contributor to the Strategic Procurement team, responsible for developing and executing category strategies that drive cost savings, value creation, operational efficiency, and profitability. This role thrives in a complex, fast-paced environment and serves as both a strategic thought leader and project manager, partnering closely with technical, operations, finance, and global teams. The Category Manager will leverage a strong understanding of industrial chemicals and raw materials to manage assigned categories, identify market opportunities, strengthen supplier relationships, and support the organization’s overall procurement strategy.

Requirements

• Ability to travel up to 30% domestically & globally.
• More than 5 years’ experience in Procurement and Category Management.
• More than 2 years’ experience with cross functional project management.
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience with assigned categories.
• Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Environmental Science, or a related field (required).
• English (required)

Nice To Haves

• MBA or MS degree in Chemistry, Chemical Engineering or related field (desired).
• SAP Purchasing experience, ISO/IATF Quality Management System experience (desired).
• Chemical industry background, especially as relates to automotive OEM (desired).
• bi-lingual English/Spanish (preferred)

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute strategies for assigned category areas in alignment with regional and global organizational objectives.
• Leverage market intelligence to improve purchasing decisions both proactively and reactively.
• Manages direct raw material categories including solvents, acids, bases, chloral alkali compounds, and minerals.
• Oversees a $50-$80MM USD in annual spend.
• Seek out new supplier relationships, positioning the organization for improved costs, continuity of supply, and/or production efficiency.
• Lead supplier performance reviews, development activities, and supplier non-conformance inquiries.
• Develop toll manufacturing relationships to improve organizational capacity, optimize conversion costs, and reduce on-hand inventory.
• Manage assigned categories in the North American region (USA, MX, BR) and collaborate with global teams to support international group objectives.
• Identify and drive cost reduction opportunities at various levels of complexity.
• Enable tactical procurement personnel to focus on day-to-day activities by owning all strategic procurement functions.
• Mitigate inflationary costs due to tariffs, geopolitical conflicts, force majeure, and other market disruptors.
• Evaluate assigned categories for areas of high risk and establish mitigation strategies therein.
• Manage supply disruption projects and lead cross functional teams in disruption resolution and root cause analysis.
• Coordinate cost savings opportunities with technical stakeholders and manage savings projects from beginning to end.
• Target suppliers for quality audits and collaborate with quality teams to execute the audit process.
• Develop raw material price trend forecasts and communicate relevant findings to commercial leaders to inform customer pricing decisions.
• Negotiate supply contracts and shop for contract terms that create significant value for the organization (lower price, price stability measures, improved net terms, discounted terms, rebate structure, guaranteed volumes/priority allocation, enhanced technical support, etc).
• Create new processes to streamline complex workflows such as new raw material introduction, contract review, supply disruption tracking, supplier non-conformance corrective actions, etc.
• Implement emissions accounting models such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (Scope 3) to shape the organizational response to internal and external sustainability initiatives.
• Support regulatory and EHS teams during the introduction of new raw materials to ensure compliance with Chemical Control Laws (TSCA, DSL, etc.) and to navigate chemical registration processes such as Polymer Exemptions and Pre-Manufacture Notices.
• Collaborate with other strategic procurement team members to develop enhanced analytics for spend risk, vendor performance, market indices, savings, and quality.
• Leverage analytics to drive successful outcomes for the other seven pillars of responsibility.

Benefits

• Earned Bonus Structure – annual merit increases, and an annual incentive bonus plan.
• 11 paid holidays each year, plus paid time off to support work-life balance.
• comprehensive health and welfare plans, along with a 401(k)program featuring an exceptional company match.
• tuition reimbursement, employee recognition programs, and opportunities to grow within the organization.
• company events throughout the year celebrating and appreciating our employees’ hard work and dedication.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level