Procurement COE Lead EMEA

Company Background:

Ingredion is a Fortune 500 provider of ingredient solutions that helps nourish, comfort, sustain, and delight people around the world. Ingredion’s wide range of ingredient solutions is strategically designed to address changing consumer trends and preferences. Our specialty portfolio includes starch-based texturizers, clean and simple ingredients, plant-based proteins, sugar reduction and specialty sweeteners, and food systems. Our innovative ingredient solutions are used by consumers in everyday products, from foods and beverages to paper and pharmaceuticals. And we do it all in a planet-friendly sustainable manner.

As the Procurement Center of Excellence (COE) Lead EMEA, you establish consistent and standardized Procurement processes across the organization to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and minimize risks. Furthermore, you identify, share, and implement best industry practices to optimize Procurement performance and increase savings. In cooperation with other functions (Finance, SC, Quality, etc.), you identify and collect local data and enable the tracking and analyzing of Procurement performance metrics to measure progress, identifying opportunities for continuous improvement and driving the same. You own spend analysis and Procurement relevant reporting in the region. A key deliverable is to visualize data, drive messaging, and communication of the data together with the regional Procurement leadership across the organization. You identify, assess, and manage risks to minimize impacts on the business. Key to this is cooperating with the category managers to assess the supplier base, develop and implement corrective actions as well as manage the global Business Continuity Process (BCP) for Procurement in the region.

Another aspect of the role is project management and advancing the technology agenda for the function in EMEA. You are the main contact for training and development of the Procurement Team in the region.

You work closely with and are the regional extension of the Global COE to ensure consistency between global and regional policies, processes, scorecards, reporting, and initiatives/change management.

Task transfer and management including leadership responsibility for 1-2 employees in the Supply Chain and Procurement Support Team working in Pakistan.

Main responsibilities:

Processes & Policies

• Standardization by establishing consistent and standardized procurement processes across the organization to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and minimize risks.
• Ensure and maintain connectivity between regional and global Procurement procedures and policies as well as templates, standard documents, and contracts in coordination with the EMEA Procurement leadership and other stakeholders like Legal, Finance, and Quality.
• Regularly review and update regional policies, procedures, and processes together with responsible category managers (energy, indirect, agribusiness, logistics, and others) and other functions (finance, legal) throughout the organization and train users on purchasing processes across the region.
• Review, update and maintain the SAP PR / PO approval structure in the region.
• Drafting and maintenance of templates (bidder score cards, etc.) as well as design of sourcing / bidding processes including documentation for internal and external stakeholders.

Implementing best practices: Identifying and implementing industry best practices to optimize procurement performance, increase savings, and reduce risk.

• Evaluation of Critical Suppliers: Update and monitor the list of suppliers, perform the evaluation together with category managers and other stakeholders plus monitoring of action plans.
• Support the drafting of supplier briefs, gather and maintain data for briefs.
• Responsibility for the EMEA supplier brief inventory.
• Train and guide contract administrators in the evaluation methodology and process updates.
• Serve as the local point for global Procurement Audits.
• Responsible for the implementation of action plans for non-conformities, findings, and aspects to be improved in audit processes.
• Connect with other global functions like the Supply Chain GOAT, Quality, etc. on reporting, best practices, and more.

Managing procurement performance:

• Tracking and analyzing procurement performance metrics to measure progress, identify opportunities for improvement, and drive continuous improvement.
• KPI administration including tracking and reporting.
• Alignment of regional/global reports for budget (GOAL, LEs) and in Power Steering.
• Establishing and maintaining for Procurement a monthly operations results dashboard.
• Assure that both the global and regional teams work with updated and accurate data.
• Support audits on Cost Savings and Cost Avoidance.

Risk Management:

• Identifying, assessing, and mitigating procurement risks to minimize the impact of disruptions on the organization. Implement standards policies, processes, and procedures.
• You manage the Business Continuity Process (BCP) for Procurement in the region.

Project Management & Technology:

You manage projects of new technology or tool rollouts (like Keelvar and others) in your area of responsibility and support projects of other functions that rely on Procurement support. Defining the needs and requirements of technology support for EMEA Procurement together with other functions and stakeholders (SC, IT, manufacturing). Drive the sourcing of technology solutions. Enable the rollout of these tools through documentation development and review, user testing, and user training, and serving as the local Subject Matter Expert (SME). Manage SAP administration like approval limits and workflows of purchase requisitions (PRs) and purchase orders (POs) and optimize processes in SAP in general. Support the improvement of Ingredion internal systems (IPA, TraceGains, etc.) from Procurement. You are the regional owner of IT solutions for Procurement like contract management software (ICERTIS) and alike and a power user of such tools.

Task Management of Supply Chain and Procurement Support staff in Pakistan:

Leadership responsibility for the team. Together with relevant stakeholders, you assess the need and possibilities to transfer EMEA Supply Chain and Procurement tasks to the support employees in Pakistan. Capturing and documenting relevant processes and tasks (e.g. implementation descriptions, procedural instructions, guidelines, SAP authorizations, etc.) with the relevant stakeholders and manage the handover to the employees in Pakistan as well as continuous coordination and monitoring of the activities. Prioritizing the tasks for the team and guide on efficient use of time. Guide and support the Pakistan HR department in the recruitment of support employees in Pakistan.

Other responsibilities:

Supporting the development of procurement team members: Developing the skills and expertise of procurement professionals within the organization, so they can effectively manage procurement activities as well as:

• Keep track of the procurement skill & capability development program across the region.
• Keep an updated repository of training documentation and templates.
• Develop and organize trainings together with the global organization and HR/Development.
• Sustainability - Align with the Regional Sustainability Manager and the Corporate Sustainability Team on Strategy and Tactics (ESG, SEDEX, SMETA, etc.) and support relevant projects.

Qualification, Knowledge and Skill Requirements:

- Bachelor or Master degree in supply chain/business/economics/finance or a related field – alternatively long-term practical experience in procurement with exposure in relevant requirements.

- Min. 5 years of professional experience in direct or indirect procurement or sourcing of food and/or raw materials, preferably a COE background or similar role.

- IT skills: very good knowledge of MS Office, especially Excel, PowerBI, PPT plus SAP.

- Excellent analytical and financial acumen including cost modeling and budgeting/forecasting.

- Experience with e-sourcing tools including spend analytics as well as project and contract management.

- Strong time management, be highly organized and efficient in the use of own resources.

- Good oral and written communication skills.

- Strong project management skills with emphasis on business processes.

- Commercial mindset with good knowledge of contract law, risk management.

- Initiative and flexible when changing priorities and under deadline pressure.

- Problem-solving skills and goal orientation, including resilience and perseverance.

- Open to innovations and changes.

- Fluent in English, another language like German, French, and/or Spanish is a plus.

- Willingness to travel if needed (max. 10%).

- Strict adherence to and application of Ingredion’s EMEA business procedures, policies, and processes.

Relocation Available: No