Director, Strategic Sourcing

Description

 Ready for more than just a job? Build a career with purpose.

 At Lactalis in the USA, we’re committed to providing meaningful opportunities for our people to learn, grow, and thrive—whether you’re just starting your journey with us or looking to take the next step in your career. From day one, we offer the tools and support to help you succeed.

 As the world leader in dairy, Lactalis is a family-owned company with over 85,000 pragmatic and ambitious professionals across the globe. Each day, we’re proud to produce award-winning dairy products that bring people together.

 In the US, we proudly offer an unrivaled house of beloved brands, including Galbani® Italian cheeses and ricotta, Président® specialty cheeses and butters, Kraft® natural and grated cheeses, Breakstone’s® cottage cheese, Cracker Barrel®, Black Diamond® cheddar, and Parmalat® milk. Our yogurt portfolio includes siggi’s®, Stonyfield Organic®, Brown Cow™, Oui®, Yoplait®, Go-Gurt®, :ratio®, Green Mountain Creamery®, and Mountain High®, along with a growing family of ethnic favorites like Karoun®, Gopi®, and Arz®.

 At Lactalis, we live by our core values—Ambition, Engagement, and Simplicity. We foster a workplace where innovation thrives, diverse perspectives are celebrated, and everyone’s unique background and ideas are valued.

 Even if you don’t meet every qualification, we encourage you to apply. We want to hear about your PASSION, your STORY, and how your EXPERTISE can help us shape the future of dairy. 

 From your PASSION to ours

 Lactalis USA is seeking a Director, Strategic Sourcing to join our North American Purchasing Team. To best support our collaborative environment, this leader can be based in any of our U.S. Headquarters: Bedford, NH; Buffalo, NY; Chicago, IL; or Minneapolis, MN.

The Director, Strategic Sourcing, is a key member of the Purchasing Team North America (NA), responsible for developing long-term purchasing strategies and implementing short and medium-term purchasing strategies, policies, practices, and systems. The incumbent will have a strong collaborative working relationship with the Company’s global procurement team, local (Canadian and US) internal stakeholders throughout the organization and will lead a team comprising of managers and professionals to ensure that the overall goals of the organization are being met, including total cost and supply objectives.

 From your EXPERTISE to ours 

• Oversee the development and execution of sourcing strategies across multiple categories within span of control including targets, timelines and resource plans. 
• Manage global strategy & negotiation initiatives led by the global procurement team by providing information such as pricing specifications and vendor listings, market intelligence and negotiating at local level for finalization. Ensure set strategies and initiatives at a North American level are implemented by team. 
• Develop long term strategies and ensure local short- and medium-term sourcing strategies are implemented by team members using in-depth knowledge and analysis of key cost drivers.
• Full ownership of budget portfolio of multiple categories with input on the budget assumptions from the Senior director Procurement and the global Strategic procurement team
• Accountable for the management of all contracts for various category portfolios at the zone level, including qualify vendors, tender, negotiate, and implement all contracts. 
• Lead cost and supply risks for key material supplies within categories by ensuring team is maintaining up to date knowledge of market changes to alert on the risk, contracting in advance of the concern or contracting low and long if it is a price risk, and finding and qualifying alternate vendors or alternate materials.
• Act as intermediary for escalated issues with senior local leadership to ensure all manufacturing plants are following proper purchasing procedures and communicate changes in purchasing policies and procedures as required. 
• For the categories the incumbent directly manages, identify and execute value analysis and vendor transfer savings opportunities as a cross-functional effort to deliver cost reduction targets and optimize other performance measures such as on-time delivery & lead time on purchased goods and services, without jeopardizing quality, flexibility, and supply continuity.
• Participate as an active cross-functional liaison by providing insight to the Senior leadership within Supply Chain, Operations, Finance, Quality, R&D, Sales and Marketing and other key functional areas of the business for effective project execution such as new launches, l