Vice President, Category Management

Cushman & Wakefield • Chicago, IL

20h

About The Position

The Vice President, Category Management is a senior enterprise leadership role within Cushman & Wakefield’s global Procurement organization, reporting directly to the Chief Procurement Officer. This role provides leadership to the global Category Management function and ensures strong visibility and engagement with executives across the organization to advocate for procurement objectives and critical procurement-related initiatives. The role leads and develops a global category management organization of 30+ professionals and is responsible for the development and execution of category strategies across major spend areas, including Integrated Facilities Management (IFM), corporate services, Information Technology, professional services, staff augmentation, fleet, and other indirect categories. The Vice President partners closely with business unit leaders, functional stakeholders, and regional Procurement leadership to drive operating margin improvement, service quality and consistency, risk mitigation, and value creation for both Cushman & Wakefield and its clients.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree required; MBA or advanced degree a plus
• have at least 15+ years of relevant, strategic sourcing & category management experience

Nice To Haves

• In-depth knowledge of strategic sourcing and category management in the Procurement context, including category expertise across C&W spend clusters.
• Strong interpersonal and analytical skills; ability to work across cultures effectively.
• Ability to build relationships with key business stakeholders and 3rd party vendors.
• Inner drive to accomplish goals and not deterred by obstacles.
• Strong sense of ownership of success of the procurement function.
• Capacity to develop innovative strategies and solutions, creative problem solver.
• Contract negotiation and ongoing management skills.
• An understanding of the commercial real estate industry.
• Analytics, ability to mine data to drive in depth analysis; AI/GenAI application for category management excellence a plus.
• Building and managing diverse supplier relationships.
• Interface with all levels in the organization.
• Effective Communication & presentation skills
• Professional certifications preferred e.g., CPSM, CIPS, C.P.M., or evidence of continued professional growth

Responsibilities

• Lead category management teams by establishing and communicating the vision and strategic direction of the category management function within the enterprise-wide procurement strategy; provide coaching and direction to drive performance and staff development.
• Foster a working environment that promotes high performance, accountability, and innovation.
• Remove roadblocks to enable delivery of procurement objectives and client account goals.
• Promote compliance with Cushman & Wakefield’s Code of Conduct.
• Lead and inspire Category Management teams to develop and execute global and regional category strategies across IFM (mechanical, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, janitorial, security, landscaping, MRO), corporate services, IT, staff augmentation, fleet, and professional services, utilizing advanced category management methodologies including spend analytics, supply market intelligence, benchmarking, and should-cost analysis, as applicable.
• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing global category management organization by defining operating rhythms, decision frameworks, and capability development for category leaders.
• Promote a culture of collaboration, accountability, and commercial rigor, serving as a visible and credible advisor across corporate and field organizations to drive portfolio-level cost optimization.
• Partner across Procurement to advance category analytics, Agentic AI initiatives, sustainability, and other enterprise priorities.
• Align category management strategy with service line and procurement priorities in partnership with procurement business partners and service line leadership, balancing margin targets, client commitments, and category excellence outcomes, and collaborating with account-facing procurement to realize client value.
• Own and evolve the enterprise Preferred Supplier Program to meet business and client needs; monitor utilization and performance, strengthen supplier rosters, and collaborate with suppliers to drive performance consistency, cost predictability, process efficiency, and innovation.
• Establish governance, compliance, and performance management models across categories and suppliers, partnering with Legal to develop scalable and enforceable contracting frameworks that protect Cushman & Wakefield and client interests.
• Implement and track KPIs related to savings realization, service levels, safety, and stakeholder satisfaction.
• Engage externally to exchange industry insights, best practices, and emerging trends.
• Develops and maintains strong relationships with business units and on account procurement teams; infuses preferred supplier relationships into account delivery.
• Creates a unified team environment and team goals and ensures all business units and vendor stakeholders understand the connection between account goals objectives and preferred supplier program.
• Drives for results by consistently achieving goals in a timely manner.
• Develops and delivers communications with clarity and impact, ensuring consistent messaging at multiple levels.
• Leads a team that reinforces and maintains standards, processes and templates that enable sourcing delivery.
• Encourages creation and brings new best in class ideas and approaches to the table for developing and executing category strategies and working within the supply market to ensure Cushman & Wakefield meets or exceeds their objectives.
• Working cross-functionally with other departments including Finance, Operations, TDS, HR, Project Management, etc. for delivery of category strategies.

Benefits

• Cushman & Wakefield also provides eligible employees with an opportunity to enroll in a variety of benefit programs, generally including health, vision, and dental insurance, flexible spending accounts, health savings accounts, retirement savings plans, life, and disability insurance programs, and paid and unpaid time away from work.
• In addition to a comprehensive benefits package, Cushman and Wakefield provide eligible employees with competitive pay, which may vary depending on eligibility factors such as geographic location, date of hire, total hours worked, job type, business line, and applicability of collective bargaining agreements.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees