Global Category Lead - Professional Services

Takeda•Boston, MA

2d•$177,000 - $278,080

About The Position

The Global Category Lead for Professional Services is a member of Takeda’s Indirect Procurement leadership team, providing global leadership for Professional and Financial Services. The portfolio includes consulting, contingent labor, business process outsourcing, legal, insurance, audit, banking, and related financial services. The role leads category strategy and a team of category professionals to shape demand early, strengthen supplier relationships, and deliver measurable outcomes in financial performance, business outcomes, innovation, quality, sustainability, resilience, and risk. The role defines and leads a global category strategy to improve business performance, commercial value, control, resilience, innovation, and service quality. It partners with senior business leaders and program owners to shape demand, service models, supplier choices, and investment priorities before commitments are made. It builds a competitive and resilient supplier ecosystem with appropriate regional and local solutions, clear governance, and measurable performance outcomes, and leads enterprise-wide initiatives for selected subcategories. The Global Category Lead develops and evolves strategies across relevant service categories using spend, demand, process, supplier, risk, and market intelligence. The role partners with Finance, business functions, Operations, Legal, Risk, Compliance, Technology, and regional teams; leads complex commercial initiatives and sourcing decisions; and establishes sourcing, contracting, supplier-governance, and performance frameworks. It owns an end-to-end portfolio view, integrates risk and responsible-sourcing considerations, uses analytics and digital approaches to improve procurement, and leads, coaches, and develops category managers and associates. The position is based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is a full-time, regular employee role. The U.S. base salary range for Boston is $177,000 to $278,080; the actual offer may vary based on qualifications, experience, skills, education, credentials, and location.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Business, Supply Chain, Finance, Economics, or a related field.
10 or more years of experience in procurement, category management, supply chain, supplier management, or a related commercial function within complex global organizations.
Subject-matter expertise across several relevant categories, such as consulting, business process outsourcing, shared services, legal, external audit, tax and assurance services, banking, treasury services, payment services, or other finance-related professional services.
Demonstrated success developing and executing global category strategies and delivering measurable enterprise value.
Strong commercial and financial acumen, including strategic sourcing, negotiation, supplier economics, total cost of ownership, contract strategy, and value realization.
Ability to influence and constructively challenge senior leaders across functions, business units, and geographies.
Experience leading cross-functional transformation in a highly matrixed and regulated environment.
Deep understanding of supplier segmentation, relationship management, performance governance, third-party risk, business continuity, and sustainable procurement.
Strong analytical and executive communication skills, including the ability to turn market, supplier, spend, and performance data into clear decisions and compelling narratives.
Demonstrated people leadership, talent development, and change leadership, with experience leading globally distributed teams.
Experience using digital tools, automation, analytics, and AI-enabled approaches to improve procurement outcomes.
Fluent written and spoken English.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree or MBA.
Experience in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, healthcare, financial services, or another highly regulated global industry.
Experience sourcing complex outsourced services and negotiating outcome-based, transaction-based, fixed-fee, subscription, or risk-sharing commercial models.
Understanding of Finance operating models, shared services, process transformation, automation, and third-party control requirements.
Experience managing supplier concentration, transition, data, key-person, regulatory, and business-continuity risks in critical service categories.

Responsibilities

Define and continuously evolve global category strategies for Professional and Financial Services, including business process outsourcing, insurance, audit, banking, and related financial services.
Manage selected subcategories and lead enterprise-wide initiatives to improve category and external-spend management.
Partner with Finance, business functions, Operations, Legal, Risk, Compliance, Technology, and regional teams to align sourcing choices with operating models, controls, transformation, and business objectives.
Shape demand and service models by challenging scope, role mix, locations, process design, automation potential, service levels, pricing mechanisms, and supplier dependencies.
Lead make-versus-buy, insource-versus-outsource, supplier-consolidation, benchmarking, and competitive-sourcing decisions where appropriate, while protecting critical expertise and continuity.
Own strategic sourcing, negotiation, and contracting frameworks, including master agreements, statements of work, pricing structures, rate cards, service levels, incentives, performance guarantees, audit rights, data protections, and transition provisions.
Establish supplier segmentation and governance for strategic and critical providers, including executive reviews, performance scorecards, continuous improvement, innovation, issue resolution, and remediation.
Lead complex and enterprise-critical commercial initiatives while enabling category managers to execute within approved global strategies and frameworks.
Create transparency into spend, addressable spend, demand drivers, contracts, rate and fee structures, supplier performance, concentration, risk, and value realization.
Integrate third-party risk, regulatory, financial control, data privacy, information security, business continuity, sustainability, and responsible-sourcing requirements into category decisions.
Maintain appropriate independence and governance boundaries for regulated or assurance services while pursuing commercial value and high-quality delivery.
Translate enterprise and functional priorities into a global category strategy, multi-year roadmap, and governed initiative pipeline.
Establish global, regional, and local decision rights and enable execution through common strategies, preferred supplier models, commercial frameworks, and buying channels.
Own the end-to-end portfolio view, including spend visibility, category taxonomy, sourcing pipeline, contracts, supplier performance, risk, tail spend, and value realization.
Use market intelligence, advanced analytics, automation, and responsible AI solutions to improve decision quality, speed, transparency, and Procurement productivity.
Lead, coach, and develop category managers and associates, raising the quality and consistency of category strategies and execution.
Allocate portfolio capacity and priorities, making trade-offs based on enterprise value, business urgency, risk, and available resources.
Foster accountability, curiosity, inclusion, collaboration, continuous improvement, and strong business partnership.