Vice President, Procurement

C.H. Guenther•San Antonio, TX

1d•$1 - $1,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Vice President, Procurement leads enterprise-wide sourcing and procurement strategy for a $2B food manufacturing company. This role is accountable for building a world-class procurement capability that creates value through strategic sourcing, category management, commodity risk management, supplier partnerships, cost optimization, supply continuity, and procurement digital transformation. The role supports 30+ manufacturing sites and a diverse spending portfolio including commodity-based ingredients, packaging, external contract manufacturing, indirect spend, MRO, logistics, professional services, facilities, IT, capital, and corporate services. The Vice President, Procurement serves as a strategic advisor to the executive leadership team and partners closely with Operations, Commercial, Finance, R&D, Quality, and Supply Chain leadership to protect margins, improve resilience, accelerate supplier innovation, and support enterprise growth.

Requirements

15+ years of progressive procurement, strategic sourcing, supply chain, or related experience, including senior leadership responsibility for a complex procurement function.
Significant executive leadership experience in food manufacturing, ingredient manufacturing, or baking organizations with substantial exposure to commodity-based supply chains.
Demonstrated expertise managing agricultural and commodity-based supply chains; experience in all listed commodities is not required, but candidates should have experience in several of the following areas: grain/flour/wheat, sugar, edible oils, dairy, cocoa, or related inputs.
Proven track record of delivering measurable cost savings, EBITDA improvement, working capital optimization, supplier performance improvement, and supply chain resilience.
Experience leading procurement for a multi-site, multi-category organization; experience with more than $500M in managed spend preferred.
Demonstrated success leading procurement transformation, building indirect procurement capabilities, implementing category management, and advancing procurement analytics and technology.
Ability to influence at the executive level and partner effectively across Operations, Commercial, Finance, R&D, Quality, Legal, and Supply Chain.
Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Business, Engineering, Economics, Finance, or a related field required.
Strong strategic thinking, business acumen, financial acumen, and ability to connect procurement strategy to enterprise value creation.
Deep knowledge of commodity markets, agricultural inputs, hedging concepts, forward buying, supplier economics, and risk management practices.
Executive presence with the ability to communicate complex market, risk, and sourcing strategies clearly to senior leaders and cross-functional stakeholders.
Advanced negotiation, contracting, supplier relationship management, category management, and total cost of ownership capabilities.
Data-driven mindset with experience using analytics, spend visibility, scenario planning, AI-enabled tools, and procurement technologies to improve decision-making.
Strong leadership, talent development, change management, and organizational design skills.
Ability to operate with urgency and discipline in a fast-paced, dynamic, manufacturing-oriented environment.
Manage and develop direct reports in accordance with organizational needs.
Work requires supervising and monitoring work performance of direct reports, including making final decisions on hiring and disciplinary actions, evaluating program/work objectives and effectiveness, and realigning work and staffing assignments as needed.
Develop functional responsibilities of individuals that report to this position and ensure that best-in-class output is created.

Nice To Haves

MBA, advanced degree, or relevant professional certification preferred.

Responsibilities

Develop and execute a multi-year enterprise procurement strategy aligned with company growth, margin expansion, supply chain resilience, working capital, and shareholder value objectives.
Serve as a key member of the Supply Chain leadership team, influencing enterprise strategy, operating model decisions, and cross-functional priorities.
Build and lead a best-in-class procurement organization across raw materials, ingredients, materials planning, packaging, external contract manufacturing, indirect procurement, and strategic sourcing.
Partner with Operations, R&D, Finance, Sales, Quality, and Commercial teams to align procurement strategy with product innovation, customer needs, commercial strategy, and manufacturing requirements.
Provide external market intelligence, commodity forecasts, supplier innovation insights, and risk perspectives that support pricing, product formulation, customer negotiations, and capital allocation decisions.
Lead the digital transformation of procurement through advanced analytics, AI-enabled decision support, predictive commodity intelligence, scenario planning, spend analytics and automation. Leverage data as a strategic asset to improve forecasting, sourcing decisions and supplier performance.
Develop and govern enterprise category strategies across raw materials and ingredients, packaging, external contract manufacturing, indirect spend, MRO, logistics, services, capital, IT, facilities, and corporate services.
Lead competitive bidding, supplier selection, contract negotiation, sourcing governance, and total cost of ownership decisions across major spend categories.
Build an enterprise-wide indirect procurement function that establishes governance, category management, spend visibility, sourcing discipline, contract coverage, and measurable productivity across corporate functions.
Balance cost, quality, innovation, service, food safety, regulatory compliance, and supply assurance in all category strategies and supplier decisions.
Develop and lead a sophisticated commodity risk management capability across grains, flour/wheat, edible oils, sweeteners, dairy, cocoa, and other key agricultural inputs.
Partner closely with Finance and Commercial teams to optimize hedging strategies, forward buying, supplier diversification, pricing mechanisms, customer pass-through strategies, and market intelligence.
Monitor commodity exposure versus policy and develop actionable recommendations to protect margins through volatile commodity cycles.
Lead supplier diversification, dual sourcing, geographic risk mitigation, and business continuity planning for critical materials and supply markets.
Deliver annual cost savings, cost avoidance, productivity, and EBITDA improvement targets through strategic sourcing, contract optimization, value engineering, should-cost modeling, benchmarking, and demand management.
Drive total cost of ownership optimization across procurement categories, including price, yield, quality, freight, inventory, service levels, payment terms, risk, and supplier performance.
Provide actionable market intelligence on commodity trends, supplier economics, cost drivers, capacity constraints, inflation/deflation, and category risks.
Partner with Finance to quantify procurement value, working capital improvements, procurement ROI, and operating efficiency.
Develop strategic supplier partnerships that improve reliability, accelerate product innovation, improve speed-to-market, unlock new ingredient and packaging technologies, and create competitive advantage for customers.
Implement robust supplier performance management, including KPIs, scorecards, service levels, audits, corrective action processes, and supplier business reviews.
Ensure business continuity planning and supply risk mitigation through dual sourcing, geographic diversification, supplier financial risk monitoring, and contingency planning.
Lead supplier diversity and sustainability initiatives in alignment with company strategy and customer expectations.
Ensure suppliers meet company standards for food safety, quality, traceability, transparency, regulatory compliance, and responsible sourcing.
Partner with Quality Assurance, Regulatory, and Operations teams on supplier approval, audit readiness, issue resolution, continuous improvement, and compliance with applicable food safety requirements.
Maintain procurement practices that support the highest standards of quality, safety, ethics, and regulatory compliance across the supply base.
Lead the digital transformation of procurement through advanced analytics, AI-enabled decision support, predictive commodity intelligence, scenario planning, spend analytics, e-sourcing, ERP optimization, and automation.
Standardize procurement processes, policies, controls, governance, tools, and reporting across locations and categories.
Leverage data as a strategic asset to improve forecasting, sourcing decisions, supplier performance, scenario planning, and risk management.
Champion continuous improvement initiatives, including Lean, Six Sigma, process simplification, and cross-functional operational excellence.
Collaborate with Engineering and Operations on strategic capital sourcing, equipment supplier strategy, and efficiency initiatives.
Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing procurement team across multiple categories, regions, and business priorities.
Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, business partnership, ethical sourcing, continuous improvement, and data-driven decision-making.
Build succession plans, talent pipelines, capability roadmaps, and functional responsibilities that support current and future organizational needs.