Senior Category Manager

Elkay Manufacturing•Milwaukee, WI

About The Position

This positon reports to the Category Manager and provides global strategic leadership to find and qualify suppliers for direct material related to New Product Development and other sourcing projects. Lead the cross-functional teams for activities related to sourcing while collaborating with Engineering, Finance, Quality, Procurement, Manufacturing, China Sourcing Team and Customer Service to execute all tasks within the project timeline. Responsible for ideation, planning and implementing multiple sourcing and re-sourcing projects, for both domestic and international suppliers. This position will also manage supplier relationships, spend and performance analytics and drive cost savings initiatives.

Requirements

BA/BS degree in business, supply chain, operations management, engineering or finance
5+ years of experience in a sourcing role with low cost country sourcing experience
Experience building Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and creating tools to analyze responses
Proven success in a change management and “stretch” environment
Proficient in the use of Microsoft Office Suite software, including Excel, Word, PowerPoint
Must have strong problem solving, strategic thinking, oral, written, interpersonal communication and presentation skills
Ability to understand the goals of the company, focus resources to meet or exceed these goals; lead change and drive projects to completion
Expert negotiator, including the ability to lead in contract negotiations and build strong supplier relationships
Willingness to travel up to 25%, both domestically and internationally required.

Nice To Haves

Master’s Degree & CPSM preferred

Responsibilities

Maintains the highest-level code of conduct and ethics.
Lead the sourcing channels and internal cross-functional teams to execute timeline and action adherence.
Identify and provide justification utilizing total cost of ownership principles for sourcing and re-sourcing projects.
Source assigned commodities, as well as develop global implementation plans to source new items and re-source existing items to optimize total cost suppliers.
Lead sourcing initiatives to ensure on-time delivery of project components, assemblies and/or finished goods by trouble-shooting outstanding issues.
Influence and collaborate on new product development projects guaranteeing on-time product availability.
Collaborates with global business units on the preparation of Request for Proposals (RFPs), Request for Quotations (RFQ’s) and leads the screening and supplier selection process.
Evaluate bids, analyze alternatives, develop negotiation strategy and make recommendations for contract awards
Negotiate and drafts supply agreements for domestic and international suppliers, including payment terms, deliveries, price, freight terms, currency exchange, raw material commodity fluctuation, inventory levels.
Manage relationships between internal and external parties to evaluate and execute recommendations of changes in supply base.
Publish monthly commodity metrics and provide recommended action plans to the Global Supply Chain that promote continuous process improvement.