Senior Procurement Category Manager

**Contract position**

The Category Manager leads implementation of category procurement strategy, developed in partnership with Category Directors and high-level business stakeholders. This role oversees the execution of the end- to-end procurement process, ensuring excellence in all activities and compliance to policy. The Category Manager is responsible for assisting leadership in identifying workforce planning needs.

This hybrid (2 days in office) position will report to the Agencies and Media Category Lead, based in the Smyrna GA location.

Responsibilities include:

• Partner with business or functional stakeholder leads to develop and align category-specific procurement strategies and contribute to the development of a comprehensive annual strategic plan for the relevant category, incorporating category strategies that align with overall business goals.
• Relay insights and market intelligence from team analysis to Category Lead to inform strategic decision-making, staying abreast of industry trends, emerging technologies, and market dynamics.
• Manage strategic value drivers with key category suppliers to secure collaborative partnerships that challenge the status quo to achieve cost savings, optimize processes, and enhance overall procurement value.
• Manage and monitor supplier performance on sustainability and environmental, social, and governance
• (ESG) measures, working alongside suppliers to enhance sustainable and responsible sourcing practices.
• Enable Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) strategies, driving innovation with key category suppliers and collaborating to enact creative and cutting-edge solutions to deliver on long-term business needs.
• Implement mitigation strategies to proactively manage procurement risk across the relevant category, overseeing process and policy compliance.
• Ensure effective project management from initiation to completion, managing and driving cross-functional teams to deliver strategic category-related projects.
• Implement opportunities for process optimization and efficiency gains, leveraging data analytics to develop long-term continuous improvement programs that achieve strategic objectives.
• Assist with the end-to-end procurement process from sourcing strategy to contract negotiation and execution, enabling negotiations with category suppliers and facilitating decisions by conducting required analysis and preparation.
• Monitor and report progress toward performance targets. Identify capability gaps and assist in developing focused action plans to address workforce requirements and team needs.

Accountabilities

Strategic Guidance

• Drive consistent execution of the Category Strategy throughout internal (UCB) and external (supplier) stakeholder interaction; identify any realignment or revisions as needed
• Provide insights from market trends, competitive landscape and the dynamics within Agency Industry, and interaction with the business, to inform evolution of the Strategy
• Develop and evolve supplier segmentation
• Develop commercial relationship models in line with the business strategy
• Ensure standard frameworks for sustainability assessment within the spend category are populated

Stakeholder Engagement and Process Support

• Independently manage Requests for Information/Proposals/Quotes as needed to support US business needs
• Provide fact-based sourcing recommendation for supplier selection, inclusion or exclusion
• Adept in implementing complex projects with a focus on effective change management.
• Support continuous improvement initiatives and synergies across the eco-system
• Ensure sustainability is included as a criteria for Supplier selection

Supplier Management

• Strong capacity and experience building and managing collaborative supplier relationships, aligning procurement activities with business need and category strategy.
• Safeguards the KPI’s and SLA’s as negotiated in the contracts
• Supports assessment of commercial performance within the spend category
• Acts as an escalation point for selected suppliers
• Ensure sustainability assessment meets Sustainability targets or flag for improvement
• Identify potential suppliers as Preferred Agencies and facilitate contract modifications to achieve this designation, and support existing Preferred Agencies to maintain designation contracting
• Ensure collaboration with Legal and other internal departments when needed for contract completion
• Negotiate terms and conditions with suppliers
• Ensures risk management strategies are embedded into contracts (when applicable)
• Ensure sustainability is embedded into contracts
• Share and support plans for commercial risk contingencies

Qualifications

• Bachelors Degree
• Minimum 7 years’ experience in strategic Procurement roles
• Relevant experience with Agencies (Creative, Medical Communications, Media) or Marketing Category
• Knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry is preferred
• Tactical expertise in category management, including market
• analysis, cost and financial assessment, ensuring strategic and informed procurement decisions.
• Strong interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence, facilitating empathetic interactions, effective communication, and robust relationship-building across a matrixed organization.
• Able to adapt and thrive in a dynamic team environment, operating in a cross-functional organization
• Strong communication skills and ability to build lasting business relationships
• Project management: overlapping tasks, projects, timelines, and deliverables
• Adept in drafting, negotiating, reviewing and managing contracts; understanding of relevant legal terms and business risks or implications
• Familiarity with procurement and finance tools and platforms [SAP/Ariba, PowerBI, Globality, Icertis (contracts)]
• Proficient in Category data/spend analysis and forecasting, market assessment, forward thinking and “connecting dots”
• Ability to think creatively, influence without authority, promote change with internal and external stakeholders
• Embrace inclusion and collaboration