VP of Global Sourcing - Direct Materials

Sandisk•Milpitas, CA

About The Position

The mission of the VP of Global Sourcing - Direct Materials is to create enterprise-wide value by driving procurement excellence, achieving best cost, enabling business continuity, providing market intelligence, and acting as a trusted advisor to secure long-term growth. This role will elevate procurement maturity, embed advanced technologies including AI into solutioning and position Sandisk as an industry leader in strategic sourcing and supplier partnerships. With direct responsibility for Sandisk's global direct material procurement organization, this executive will strengthen capabilities to become an indispensable business partner—not only on cost initiatives but also on innovation, risk mitigation, and strategic growth. The VP will develop long-term sourcing strategies, ensure resilience in the supply chain, and deliver actionable insights that support Sandisk's competitive advantage worldwide.

Requirements

15+ years of progressive leadership experience spanning Procurement, Strategic Sourcing, Purchasing, BPO, and Supply Chain Management within complex global organizations.
Served as the senior-most Procurement executive for a global semiconductor or technology company with oversight of approximately $2.5 billion in annual spend.
Successfully led large, multi-layered organizations through periods of growth, transformation, and operational change.
Demonstrated success leading global teams of 40+ professionals through multiple levels of leadership, including direct management of Senior Directors and other senior executives.
Recognized for building high-performing organizations, developing leadership talent, and fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Serves as a trusted advisor to executive leadership, combining strong executive presence, commercial acumen, and financial literacy with the ability to influence enterprise-wide decisions.
Deep understanding of P&L drivers and a proven ability to communicate effectively with boards, executive teams, and cross-functional stakeholders.
Known for building strategic, mutually beneficial supplier partnerships while balancing long-term relationship management with commercial rigor.
Proven track record of procurement transformation, organizational change leadership, and delivering measurable business impact through both strategic vision and hands-on execution.
Typically brings VP-level experience or equivalent enterprise leadership responsibility, with scope assessed based on organizational scale, team complexity, spend accountability, business influence, and demonstrated impact on company performance.
Globally-minded leader, that has done business across Europe, the Americas and Asia.
Comfortable with diverse teams of people and culturally attuned to succeeding in a complex global environment.
Proven experience leading global, culturally diverse teams — actively encouraging dissenting opinions and ensuring all voices are heard across the organization.
Demonstrated experience managing multiple commodity categories and broad procurement organizations, rather than a single narrow procurement area.
Prior experience as a strategic category manager strongly preferred; this is viewed as foundational experience for this role.
Ability to develop and execute both short- and long-term procurement and supply chain strategies that support enterprise objectives, balancing strategic vision with operational excellence and disciplined execution.
Strong commercial and financial acumen, with a deep understanding of business drivers, value creation, risk management, and capital allocation.
Able to evaluate complex trade-offs and make decisions that optimize cost, supply continuity, supplier performance, and long-term business outcomes.
Serves as a key member of the senior leadership team, providing strategic counsel on growth initiatives, operational transformation, supply chain resilience, market dynamics, and enterprise risk.
Strong understanding of P&L management and the ability to influence high-impact business decisions across the organization.
Highly analytical, data-driven, and results-oriented, with a bias for action and a demonstrated ability to translate insights into measurable business outcomes.
Proven track record of leading large-scale transformation initiatives that improve efficiency, scalability, organizational effectiveness, and financial performance.
Recognized for building collaborative, value-driven partnerships with suppliers and internal stakeholders, leveraging negotiation expertise, market intelligence, and strategic influence to create sustainable competitive advantage.

Nice To Haves

Ideally, this individual has served as the senior-most Procurement executive for a global semiconductor or technology company with oversight of approximately $2.5 billion in annual spend
Prior experience as a strategic category manager strongly preferred; this is viewed as foundational experience for this role.

Responsibilities

Lead all direct material categories globally for Sandisk.
Oversee material planning and purchasing execution, coordinating closely with Sales, Planning organizations, Factories/CMs, and Supply Chain teams.
Ensure continuous delivery of annual productivity through aggressive cost innovation
Drive spend leverage for select direct material to significantly higher savings
Responsible for global talent management
Build and develop a leadership team, including coaching and developing Senior Directors and other senior leaders.
Provide thought leadership and vision to support the organizational objectives
Seen as a key strategic partner across all functions within the business
Drive procurement maturity by implementing advanced processes, analytics, and AI-enabled solutions.
Act as a trusted advisor to senior leadership on supply market trends, risk management, and growth strategies.
Champion business continuity planning and supplier risk mitigation.
Build and prepare executive-level presentations, business cases, and strategic recommendations for senior leadership.
Skilled at building supplier relationships and creating “customer of choice” positioning — able to influence suppliers and drive value even when not the supplier's largest customer.
Act as the senior executive supplier contact point
Responsible for the E2E Purchasing processes (systems, policies and processes, P2P)
Responsible for cross business commodity coordination as required
Align Business Groups around the supplier strategy and supply base consolidation
Ensure the optimum Purchasing performance to achieve quality, cost, timing, environmental, safety, sustainability and technology requirements in line with business objectives
Deliver committed Key Performance Indicators
Roll out global materials forecasts and drive material lead-time reduction programs
Rationalize the supply base
Implement stringent procedures on supplier quality assurance and track progress
Drive a transition to a new organizational model
Drive the implementation of Purchasing Contract Management, aligning processes, master data management and negotiation time schedules
Improve knowledge management and contract templates
Continue enhancing the skill sets of the Purchasing organization
Coach and develop key individuals
Lead the cross sector Purchasing talent process
Foster an empowering, coaching-based leadership culture that encourages dissenting opinions, ensures all voices are heard, and drives accountability without command-and-control management.

Benefits

paid vacation time
paid sick leave
medical/dental/vision insurance
life, accident and disability insurance
tax-advantaged flexible spending and health savings accounts
employee assistance program
other voluntary benefit programs such as supplemental life and AD&D, legal plan, pet insurance, critical illness, accident and hospital indemnity
tuition reimbursement
transit
the Applause Program
employee stock purchase plan
the Sandisk's Savings 401(k) Plan