Director, Supplier Management

KeHE Distributors, LLC; Naperville (IL); On-site; USD 115,000 - 168,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental

Vision

HSA/FSA

Life insurance

401(k)

Paid time off

Paid sick time

STD/LTD

ESOP

Holiday pay

Job summary

KeHE Distributors, LLC in Naperville, IL is seeking a Director of Supplier Management to lead a team focused on maximizing supplier profitability and performance. You will partner with Category Management, Supply Chain, Finance, and Freight to optimize processes and strengthen supplier relationships.

This role drives supplier reviews, sets metrics, and mentors managers to improve terms, delivery, and cost efficiency while traveling about 20% domestically.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business or related field is required.
• Minimum 5+ years in food and/or distribution industry.
• Minimum 4+ years leading and developing teams.
• Experience with data mining software (e.g., SAP, Cognos) a plus.

Responsibilities

• Leads a team of Supplier Managers to identify, monitor, and improve supplier profitability and performance.
• Collaborates with cross-functional teams to optimize supplier business processes.
• Holds the team accountable for negotiations, policies, deductions, on-time delivery, and dispute resolution.
• Provides leadership to ensure suppliers meet profitability and operational KPIs (terms, spoilage, fees).
• Hosts regular business reviews outlining profitability and performance against expectations.
• Educates suppliers on policies, routing guides, and dispute resolution.

Skills

Leadership

Negotiation

Communication

Data analysis

Relationship management

Excel

PowerPoint

Travel willingness

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business or related field

Tools

SAP

Cognos

Job description

Why Work for KeHE?

• Full-time
• Pay Range: $114,840.00/Yr. - $168,432.00/Yr.
• Shift Days: , Shift Time:
• Benefits on Day 1
  • Health/Rx
  • Dental
  • Vision
  • Flexible and health spending accounts (FSA/HSA)
  • Supplemental life insurance
  • 401(k)
  • Paid time off
  • Paid sick time
  • Short term & long term disability coverage (STD/LTD)
  • Employee stock ownership (ESOP)
  • Holiday pay for company designated holidays

Overview

At KeHE, we’re obsessed with creating solutions, unboxing potential, and serving others - and it all starts with you. As an employee-owned distributor of natural and organic, specialty, and fresh products, we’re committed to making a positive impact and scaling our success together. With a culture that fosters development and opportunity, you’ll be embarking on a career that’s moving forward. When you join KeHE, you’re becoming part of a team that is a force for good.

Primary Responsibilities

The Director of Supplier Management leads a team that is responsible for monitoring, measuring, and maximizing supplier profitability and operational performance, identifying areas opportunity, and managing the business relationship with our supplier partners. The teams’ overall goal is to establish strategic connections with our supplier partners and ensure supplier partner success and a positive experience around ease, cost, and speed of doing business with KeHE. This role will collaborate with leaders in Category Management, Supply Chain, Finance, Pricing, and Freight to optimize business processes and positively impact their supplier relationships from an administrative perspective. As with all positions at KeHE Distributors, we expect that all actions will be consistent with KeHE’s Mission, Vision, and Values.

Essential Functions

DUTIES, TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Leads a team of Supplier Managers that identify, monitor, and track supplier profitability and operational performance opportunities for a subset of our supplier partners through:
  • Improvement of brand scorecard.
  • Compliance of inbound and outbound service standards.
  • Execution and negotiation of supplier policies and procedures.
  • Supplier inbound routing guide expectations.
  • Administrative aspects of supplier partnerships.
• Holds the team accountable to manage and improve supplier profitability and operational performance negotiations, execution of policies and procedures, deduction management, dispute resolution, on time delivery, and compliance of delivery quality.
• Sets expectations to ensure timely, accurate, and efficient processing of supplier questions and disputes by the team along with providing performance metrics, facilitating processes and supplier business improvement initiatives.
• Provide leadership to ensure suppliers are accountable for key profitability and operational performance indicators such as terms, spoils, value-added programs, inbound fill rate, on-time quality, and delivery.
• Proactively educates new and small suppliers on supplier policies and procedures, inbound routing guide, deduction management and dispute resolution.
• Hosts regular business reviews with subset of supplier partners to clearly outline profitability and performance expectations in comparison to actual experience, areas of improvement, and areas of opportunity.
• Creates and fosters a supplier friendly, relational environment of continuous improvement, accountability, and innovation.
• Leads a team of managers that support suppliers with root cause research and resolution on administrative aspects of supplier partnerships.
• Collaborate internally with cross-functional teams to improve business processes that impact suppliers in their administrative and support activities with KeHE.
• Other duties and projects as assigned.

SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE AND ABILITIES:

• Ability to manage various teams and provide leadership effectively.
• Ability to communicate effectively and in a professional manner both verbally and written.
• Ability to articulate and persuade effectively through presentations.
• Ability to negotiate agreements with a broad array of suppliers from small or emerging entities to large and established entities.
• Successful negotiator and ability to influence change.
• Ability to synthesize data and provide clear, concise recommendations.
• Strong relationship management skills and ability to provide guidance to higher management levels internally and externally.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).
• Demonstrate attention to detail and sense of urgency.
• Ability to manage a wide array of tasks simultaneously and often with minimal direction.
• Ability to analyze, budget, and manage key profit drivers such as gross margin %, promotional spend, spoilage, fees, and other program expenses.
• Ability to transfer information gained through analysis to fact based, action-oriented presentations for delivery to internal and external stakeholders.
• Willingness to travel domestically, occasionally over weekends for about 20% of time.

Minimum Requirements, Qualifications, Additional Skills, Aptitude

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

• Bachelor's degree in Business or related field of study required.
• Minimum of 5+ years of experience within the food and/or distribution industry required.
• Minimum of 4+ years of leading and developing teams.
• Experience with data mining software (i.e., SAP, Cognos) a plus.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:

• These physical demands are representative of the physical requirements necessary for an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of the job.

Requisition ID

2026-31215

Equal Employer Opportunity Statement

KeHE Distributors provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits all forms of discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, color, religion or faith, sex, gender, age, ancestry, national origin, mental or physical disability or medical condition, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, military or veteran status, genetic information, or any other category protected under federal, state, or local law. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training as well as the administration of all Human Resources and Talent Acquisition processes.