Vendor Manager - Strategic Initiatives, MENA UFG

Amazon; Dubai; On-site; AED 120,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

A global e-commerce leader in Dubai seeks a Manager to drive the MENA Grocery team. The successful candidate will be responsible for strategic vendor relationships, P&L ownership, and category profitability. Strong negotiation and analytical skills are essential. This role is ideal for those with experience in retail operations and a passion for enhancing customer experience.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5 years of experience in retail operations or product management.
• Strong financial analysis skills and P&L management experience.
• FMCG / Grocery / Vendor management experience is essential.

Responsibilities

• Build seasonal selection and long shelf-life Fresh/Frozen space.
• Own the P&L for hitting top and bottom-line targets.
• Source deals for value to Prime Customers.

Skills

Negotiation skills

Analytical skills

Vendor management

Business judgment

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

Excel

Job description

Interested in working on an innovative and high-impact business that is changing the way customers think about grocery. The MENA Grocery team (UFG) is offering a role to own building new business from ground Zero. We are seeking a self-starter who can quickly familiarize themselves with this fast-paced environment, build relationships/trust with cross‑functional teams and assume ownership within the program which will require understanding of complex business/Tech/Ops processes at Amazon and our partners and devising an optimal engagement model. You must be able to thrive and succeed in an entrepreneurial environment and not be hindered by ambiguity or competing priorities. High judgment analytical talent and good document writing skills with concise communication are essential to success in this role.

In this role you will influence internal and external stakeholders and leadership to buy in to your strategic direction, build a buying and sourcing strategy for a new category while ensuring flawless execution and continuously analyzing key metrics to drive improvements for your business.

The VM will be responsible for building relationships with vendors, adding selection, managing category profitability, optimizing pricing and developing their team. The best candidate will have a broad skill set including leadership development, analytical horsepower, excellent business judgment, strong vendor management and negotiation skills, deep curiosity about how things work, and a passion for creating a world‑class shopping experience for our customers. The successful candidate would possess great business judgment with a track record of strong project delivery, commercial negotiations, and relationship management along with deep analytical acumen. Additionally this position involves working with multiple stakeholders (marketing, marketplace, legal, supply chain, operations among others).

Key job responsibilities

• This is an external facing role with close collaboration with external vendors to build seasonal selection and long shelf‑life Fresh/Frozen space. The role has potential to build Amazon Ultra‑Fast‑Grocery (UFG) Retail business from scratch and define SOP for scaling the business long term.
• Support Category leader to drive new strategic initiatives and business opportunities.
• Negotiate: Build strategic partnership, align and close end‑to‑end vendor relationship and terms of trade operating model contracts from Dry Grocery Commodities, Fresh & Frozen vendors (F&V Dairy Poultry Ice‑cream etc.).
• Build the annual seasonal portfolio to drive continuous traffic and engagement to the store‑front.
• Identify automation opportunities to offer scalable solutions, improve all key inputs metrics such as Selection, profitability, Pricing, Availability.
• Post launches, Own the P&L for hitting top and bottom‑line targets and drive projects to improve profitability with critical stakeholders (Vendor Ops, Advertising).
• Define selection assortment continuously refine the mix at dark store level to reduce shrinkage & improve CX.
• Source deals during Tier 1/2 events to ensure we continue to offer value to our Prime Customers.
• Negotiate marketing funds from vendors for category visibility during BAU/Events.
• Prepare Pitch & close Annual JBP.

A day in the life

• 3 years of with Excel experience.
• 5 years of retail operations, product or program management or business management/consulting with negotiations and delivering results experience.
• Experience with financial analysis and P&L ownership.
• FMCG / Grocery / Commodities / Import Vendor management and retail experience is a must.
• Strong negotiation skills.
• Ability to represent Amazon with external C‑level executives.
• Experience managing large data sets and utilizing to drive performance and process improvements.
• Experience driving direction and alignment with cross‑functional teams.

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Required Experience

Manager