Category Manager, Direct Materials (Onsite - Acton, MA)

Job Title:                              Category Manager, Direct Materials

Department:                     Manufacturing 

FLSA Status:                      Exempt 

Position Overview: 
The Category Manager develops and executes sourcing strategies and procurement processes for packaging purchasing. This role delivers value to the business by improving supplier performance, ensuring packaging material availability and capacity, reducing total cost of ownership, mitigating supply risk, supporting operational continuity, and driving continuous improvement across packaging materials, packaging suppliers, and related supply chain partners. 
 
Responsibilities: 
• Collaborate with key stakeholders to develop, implement, and execute global sourcing strategies for packaging materials and related supplier categories. 
• Develop and execute supplier agreements that support business growth, improve supplier performance, mitigate risk, and reduce total cost of ownership. 
• Lead sourcing events, supplier evaluations, competitive bids, benchmarking, and negotiations for packaging materials, components, tooling, specifications, and related supplier services. 
• Partner with Packaging Engineering, Quality, Operations, Supply Planning, and Manufacturing teams to ensure packaging solutions meet quality, regulatory, capacity, service, and cost requirements. 
• Establish collaborative relationships with packaging suppliers and their senior management teams. 
• Hold suppliers accountable for performance through formal processes such as business reviews, action tracking, scorecards, quality reviews, and corrective action plans. 
• Collaborate with supply planning, manufacturing sites, and external partners to ensure packaging material availability, continuity of supply, and reliable support for production schedules. 
• Serve as an escalation point for packaging supplier, capacity, service, quality, and shortage-related issues impacting business continuity or customer service. 
• Maintain a pipeline of cost reduction, productivity, packaging improvement, supplier consolidation, and specification optimization opportunities that deliver measurable year-over-year value. 
• Drive projects that improve gross margin, working capital, service reliability, lead times, packaging utilization, and operational resilience. 
• Provide detailed cost/benefit analysis, should-cost modeling, supplier performance reporting, and packaging cost analysis to support business decisions. 
• Collaborate with Sustainability, Packaging Engineering, Operations, and Quality teams to identify packaging solutions that reduce waste, improve material efficiency, and support company sustainability goals. 
• Perform other duties and lead projects as required. 
 
Education and Experience: 
• Minimum Requirements: 
• Bachelor's degr