Category Management Specialist IV

kp; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

kp is seeking a Category Management Specialist IV for Facilities and Corporate Services to lead category strategies, supplier negotiations, and end-to-end sourcing for national and regional stakeholders.

The role emphasizes analytics, contract drafting, RFP leadership, and leveraging market insights to drive value, quality, and governance across the organization.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field with at least 3 years experience in category management or strategic sourcing.
• Advanced degrees may substitute for work experience.

Responsibilities

• Promotes learning and builds cross-functional relationships; provides feedback and champions change.
• Autonomously completes work and collaborates to deliver creative solutions; guides stakeholders and follows procedures.
• Leads category spend strategies and end-to-end delivery; reviews decisions with leadership and aligns initiatives with client goals.
• Develops and maintains relationships with internal clients and suppliers; drives value, quality, and governance across programs.

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain Management, Operations, Management Science, Business, Finance, Accounting, Contract Administration, Procurement or a related field

Job description

Category Management Specialist IV - Facilities and Corporate Services Category Manager

The Category Management Specialist IV will serve as a Category and Sourcing Manager for Facilities and Corporate Services and support key corporate, operational, patient-facing and care-critical categories. The Category Manager will be responsible for developing category strategies, implementing sourcing strategies, conducting negotiations, performing analysis, drafting and facilitating contracts, and working closely with stakeholders at both the national and regional level.

This senior individual contributor position is responsible for developing category/spend strategies for key categories by leveraging extensive knowledge of the markets, suppliers and stakeholder needs; building long-term relationships with key internal clients and suppliers; owning end-to-end delivery of business needs for categories under management; identifying and understanding key initiatives of internal clients and short, medium, and long-term goals; ensuring alignment of initiatives and strategies with client expectations; adopting change practices with customers, suppliers and stakeholders to drive strategic programs; and interacting with leadership to review and drive decisions. This position is also responsible for leading the RFP process and/or supplier negotiations; developing and executing RFPs; leveraging analytics and insights to ensure data-driven decisions; analyzing category spend to understand price drivers and trends; applying cost and supply market analytics; and applying a digital mindset to adopt new technologies in the source to pay space.

Essential Responsibilities

• Promotes learning in others by proactively providing and/or developing information, resources, advice, and expertise with coworkers and members; builds relationships with cross-functional/external stakeholders and customers. Listens to, seeks, and addresses performance feedback; proactively provides actionable feedback to others and to managers. Pursues self-development; creates and executes plans to capitalize on strengths and develop weaknesses; leads by influencing others through technical explanations and examples and provides options and recommendations. Adopts new responsibilities; adapts to and learns from change, challenges, and feedback; demonstrates flexibility in approaches to work; champions change and helps others adapt to new tasks and processes. Facilitates team collaboration to support a business outcome.
• Completes work assignments autonomously and supports business-specific projects by applying expertise in subject area and business knowledge to generate creative solutions; encourages team members to adapt to and follow all procedures and policies. Collaborates cross-functionally and/or externally to achieve effective business decisions; provides recommendations and solves complex problems; escalates high-priority issues or risks, as appropriate; monitors progress and results. Supports the development of work plans to meet business priorities and deadlines; identifies resources to accomplish priorities and deadlines. Identifies, speaks up, and capitalizes on improvement opportunities across teams; uses influence to guide others and engages stakeholders to achieve appropriate solutions.
• Develops category/spend strategies for key categories by leveraging extensive knowledge of the markets, suppliers and stakeholder needs; driving clear, informed decisions based upon a multi-year strategy; owning end-to-end delivery of business needs for categories under management; keeping current on external and internal influences that may impact the larger organization (e.g., Healthcare Reform, macroeconomic issues, etc.); and interacting with leadership to review and drive decisions.
• Develops and maintains relationships with key internal clients and suppliers by building strong, collaborative relationships with internal clients across the business to gain buy-in and deliver value; identifying and understanding key initiatives of internal clients and short, medium, and long-term goals; working with suppliers to identify and pursue opportunities to drive improved quality and delivery performance; assuring alignment of initiatives and strategies with client expectations to drive value, innovation, service/supply resiliency, quality of care and governance; and partnering with cross-functional stakeholders (e.g., Portfolio Leads, Sourcing, Procurement Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, etc.) to advance Category Management capabilities.
• Leads RFP process and/or supplier negotiations and facilitates contracting to deliver strategic value by leveraging appropriate negotiation strategies, tactics, and processes in line with situational demands; leading contract negotiations in partnership with Legal; and developing and executing RFPs to drive the strategic sourcing process.
• Leverages analytics and insights to ensure data-driven decisions by analyzing category spend to understand price drivers and trends; applying cost and supply market analytics to create category strategies; and applying a digital mindset to adopt new technologies in the source to pay space.
• Adopts change practices with customers, suppliers and stakeholders to drive the implementation and/or modification of new or existing strategic programs (e.g., Source to Pay transformation, Category Management training programs, etc.).
• Contributes to KPs Sustainability and Environmental goals and serves as an advocate to further advance results in Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP).

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in Supply Chain Management, Operations, Management Science, Business, Finance, Accounting, Contract Administration, Procurement or a directly related field and minimum three (3) years experience in category management, strategic sourcing, or a directly related field. Additional equivalent work experience in a directly related field may be substituted for the degree requirement. Advanced degrees may be substituted for the work experience requirements.