Category Director
5 months
London - hybrid - 3 days per week

Sustainable places. Connecting communities. Realising potential. We live by these principles to create great experiences for people, now and in the future.

We create places that make a lasting positive contribution to our communities and our planet. We bring people together, forming connections with each other and the spaces we create. And we provide our customers, partners and people with a platform to realise their full potential.

The Opportunity:
You will join a new Group Procurement function at the start of its transformation journey and play a key role in ensuring we deliver costs savings, maximum value and a quality service across the organisation. As Category Director, you will be act as deputy to the Group Procurement Director and be the key lead on sustainability, technology, policy, process and governance across the organisation. The role would see you lead the IT and marketing category in driving cost, quality, supply and sustainability improvements through strategic sourcing activities, including supplier relationship management, vendor consolidation and purchase compliance across the group

You will be a key player in the Team and support the Group Procurement Director in delivering on the strategic objectives to the business. You will be responsible for building and delighting your own stakeholder community, professionalising your category of spend and our dealings with the supply chain.

You will assist in the creation of the SRM framework and playbook and be instrumental in the development of the SRM Centre of Excellence.

Role Purpose:

• Being the primary point of contact within the Group Procurement Team for the IT and marketing and spend category
• Being a trusted advisor to the business on all matters related to this category of spend
• Supporting strategic change programmes across the business
• Supporting the category management change program
• Upskilling the Procurement team and the wider business on Category Management
• Leading the sustainability work for the procurement team and being the key interface with the sustainability team

Key Responsibilities:

• Be part of developing, implementing, advocating and embedding the procurement strategy for the Group
• Driving continuous improvement, best value and quality partnerships with suppliers, contributing to spend targets and KPIs.
• Building the long term category strategy for IT and marketing
• Building and maintaining a portfolio of market/supplier contacts for IT and marketing for strategic procurement exercise
• Assist the Group Procurement Director in the creation of the SRM framework and playbook in order to create the SRM Centre of Excellence
• Managing a small team of category managers and commercial analysts
• Working collaboratively with Enabling functions and other business areas across the group.
• Oversee the development of key, strategic relationships and our most valuable negotiations with these suppliers
• Influencing and building relationships across the category and thus becoming a trusted advisor to the business
• Delivering against a personal savings target and enabling the team to achieve it's team target.
• Maintain our strategic supplier list and perform annual risk assessments
• Author required reporting on the sustainability of our Supply Chain and how we're addressing it
• Lead collaboration activities with our strategic suppliers
• Assist the Group Procurement Director with regular procurement updates to various ELT, Board and Exco sessions.
• Bridge the link between Strategic Procurement and our counter parts within P2P

Key Skills & Experiences:

• A minimum of 10 years of procurement experience, which includes at least three years of building and managing teams
• Can demonstrate successful results in managing IT and marketing procurement activity including sourcing, supplier management and building value driving category plans.
• Experienced at working at pace with significant procurement exposure
• Proven negotiation ability and be able to lean on this both externally and internally to find creative solutions to driving value with also building quality partnerships
• Flexible, adaptable and comfortable working with ambiguity
• Excellent communication skills- ability to collaborate effectively to maintain strong stakeholder relations and have a positive influence
• Extremely strong relationship building both with key suppliers and stakeholders
• Be willing to "get your hands dirty"
• Be able to manage risk and prioritise appropriately
• MCIPS

This is a unique opportunity to maintain strong stakeholder relationships whilst working on a best in -class framework and make a real impact, don't hesitate to apply!

Our Recruitment Delivery Team are committed to offering an inclusive recruitment experience to all candidates. If you require any accommodations or adjustments as a result of disability, impairment, or health condition, please do not hesitate to let me know by emailing gscemeaedi @ resourcesolutions .com