Sr. Manager, Ingredients – Poultry

Job Description

Job Purpose

As the Senior Procurement Manager for Poultry, you will be responsible for all planning and sourcing activities for poultry and related subcategories (e.g., chicken, eggs, turkey) across the Kraft Heinz North American Zone (U.S. and Canada). You will use your experience and knowledge to build comprehensive strategies and implement the strategy through the sourcing process. The role drives value for Kraft Heinz by supporting program compliance through supplier and contract management. You will drive a sustainable strategy that actively seeks to reduce and control costs for ingredients while growing efficiencies for the business. You will also collaborate closely with partners in the various Business Units, Operations, Finance, and other corporate functions to provide innovative new solutions to meet business objectives. The role requires a professional who can focus on balancing outstanding service to internal business clients while improving value for the company for the materials purchased.

Essential Functions & Responsibilities

• Lead mid to executive-level clients and supplier relationships on an ongoing basis to ensure customer satisfaction.

• Lead Sourcing and Category Management for a wide portfolio of sophisticated and/or critical categories to Kraft Heinz.

• Establish and deliver performance goals for a portfolio of categories representing a significant amount of spend.

• Lead strategic sourcing projects for supplier selection/optimization to implement Category Management vision and strategies.

• Handle Supplier Relationships and conducts Supplier Business Reviews, including being the primary point of contact for performance and risk issues.

• Develop and handle supplier base for specific categories.

• Lead discussions with critical suppliers around long-term objectives and strategies, ongoing market trends, innovation and technology advances, and potential investment decisions.

• Support major supplier issues and work with team members to identify and drive resolutions.

• Identify business needs at project level in the following areas: Assurance of Supply, Quality, Service, Cost, and Innovation (AQSCI).

• Develop a multi-year category vision and strategy based on the data, insights, and business requirements.

• Build and maintain strong business relationships to increase influence over total category spend.

• Identify and evaluate potential value-generating projects based on complexity, resources, risk, implementation time, and estimated financial impact.

• Manage a prioritized portfolio of projects for the category in the near and long term.

• Lead the supplier selection and RFx award process and subsequent negotiations in partnership with department leadership.  

• Perform highly sophisticated contracts following Kraft Heinz’s Procurement policies and processes.

• Actively understand category dynamics (current market, pricing, cost drivers, industry, and supplier variables) through trade groups, publications, etc., and communicate changes to applicable business partners.

• Manage Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) at the category level through collaboration with Data Analytics, accountable for measuring and reporting value delivery.

• Enable continuous process improvement and cost reduction.

• Ensure the strategic sourcing process is robustly applied to all sourcing projects.

• Drive productivity projects – both initial scoping and implementation throughout the network while working with a cross-functional team through execution.

Expected Experience & Required Skills

• Bachelor's degree in supply chain management, finance, business, or related field. Candidates with extensive meaningful experience will be considered instead of a degree.

• Possess at least 5 to 7 years of experience in Procurement, preferably in ingredient meat and commodities Procurement, with relevant category expertise.  

• Strong written, verbal, and analytical skills and interpersonal and presentation skills.

• Effective negotiator and influencer with demonstrated examples with internal customers and external suppliers/partners.

• Strong eye for business with the ability to understand and explain Procurement results and variances to non-Procurement audiences.

• Proven project management and solid analytical and consultative skills; able to make sound, data-driven business decisions. Prior experience with business case development and multi-workstream project management is critical to success in this role.

• Experience in developing long-term business strategies and confidence when doing so.