Procurement Manager, Indirects – Marketing Agencies

Kraft Heinz; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Kraft Heinz seeks a Procurement Manager for Marketing to lead strategic planning and sourcing for marketing categories across the North American Zone (U.S. and Canada).

Build category strategies and execute through sourcing with cross-functional partners in Operations, Finance, Sales, and corporate functions to deliver innovative products and services. You will manage supplier relationships, drive cost reduction, and ensure value delivery through contracts, RFx, and performance reviews.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in supply chain, finance, business, or related field; degrees may be waived for extensive experience.
• 5–7 years in Procurement, preferably Indirect Procurement with category expertise; marketing background a plus.
• Experience in Supplier Performance and Risk Management tools desirable.
• Strong written, verbal, and analytical skills; interpersonal and presentation skills.
• Proven project management and data-driven decision making; multi-workstream experience.
• Business acumen to explain procurement results to non-procurement audiences.

Responsibilities

• Lead category planning, development, and execution across marketing categories.
• Manage mid-to-executive-level client and supplier relationships; ensure satisfaction.
• Lead sourcing and RFx processes; negotiate and execute contracts.
• Collaborate with stakeholders across Business Units, Operations, Finance, Sales, and corporate functions.
• Drive cost reduction, value delivery, and continuous improvement; monitor performance.

Skills

Procurement strategy

Category management

Negotiation skills

Supplier relationships

Project management

Data-driven decisions

Stakeholder collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree

CPM/CPIM certification

Tools

SAP

Ariba

Excel

Job description

As the Procurement Manager for Marketing, you will be responsible for leading all strategic planning and sourcing activities for several marketing categories and related subcategories across the North American Zone (U.S. and Canada). You will leverage your experience and knowledge to build comprehensive strategies at the category level and execute the strategy through the sourcing process. Through effective supplier and contract management you will drive program compliance generating value for Kraft Heinz. Your work will drive sustainable strategies that actively seek to reduce and/or control costs for products and services while increasing efficiencies for the business. The role requires close partnership and collaboration with various stakeholders in various Business Units, Operations, Finance, Sales, and corporate functions to provide innovative new products and services to meet business objectives. Success in the role requires the ability to be able to focus on balancing superior service to internal business clients and global collaboration, all while maximizing value for the company of items and services purchased.

Essential Functions & Responsibilities

• Ability to deeply understand and utilize procurement processes, tools, and systems, execute, and oversee lifecycle management processes. Be a proven expert in category planning, development, and execution, as well as ability to achieve tangible results in competitive and non-competitive supplier negotiations both directly and as a coach to others.
• Manage mid-to-executive-level clients and supplier relationships on an ongoing basis to ensure customer satisfaction.
• Lead Sourcing and Category Management for a wide portfolio of complex and/or critical categories to Kraft Heinz.
• Establish and deliver performance goals for a portfolio of categories representing a significant amount of spend.
• Lead strategic sourcing projects for supplier selection/optimization to execute Category Management vision and strategies.
• Manage Supplier Relationships and conducts Supplier Business Reviews – High Level Escalation Point for Performance and Risk Issues.
• As a component of supplier management activities for the role, you will segment suppliers at the category level, while developing and managing the supplier base for your categories.
• Lead discussions with critical suppliers around long-term objectives and strategies, ongoing market trends, innovation and technology advances, and potential investment decisions
• Support major supplier issues and work with stakeholders to identify and drive resolution.
• Identify business needs at the sourcing and category project level in the following areas: Assurance of supply, quality, service, cost, and innovation. Develop multi-year category vision and strategy based on the data, insights, and business requirements.
• Build strong business relationships to increase influence over total category spend.
• Identify and evaluate potential value generating projects based on complexity, resources, risk, time to implement, and estimated financial impact.
• Manage prioritized portfolio of projects for the category in the near and long term.
• Lead the supplier selection and RFx award process.
• Executes highly complex contracts in accordance with policies and processes; ability to apply competency across categories.
• Applies expert level of negotiation techniques and tools in all situations; ability to apply competency.
• Actively maintain strong understanding of category dynamics (current market, pricing, cost drivers, industry, and supplier variables) through trade groups, publications, etc. and communicates changes to business stakeholders.
• Manage Total Cost of Ownership at the category level and be accountable for measuring and reporting value delivery.
• Enable continuous process improvement and cost reduction.
• Ensure the strategic sourcing process is robustly applied to all sourcing projects.
• Collaborates with global procurement peers to ensure support of and alignment to the supported functions.

Expected Experience & Required Skills

• Bachelor's degree in supply chain management, finance, business, or related field. Candidates with extensive relevant experience and certifications (e.g., CPM, CPIM, etc.) may be considered in lieu of a degree.
• Possess at least 5 to 7 years of experience in Procurement, preferably in Indirect Procurement with relevant category expertise. Marketing background a plus.
• Experience in Supplier Performance and Risk Management tools desirable
• Strong written, verbal, and analytical skills, as well as interpersonal and presentation skills.
• Proven project management skills along with solid analytical and consultative skills; able to make sound, data-driven business decisions. Prior experience with business case development and multi-workstream project management is critical to success in this role.
• Strong Business acumen with the ability to understand and explain Procurement results and variances to non-Procurement audiences.
• Experience in developing long-term business strategies and confidence when doing so.
• Possesses extensive experience in the sourcing life cycle process and have a strong grasp of the tools needed to complete the process.
• Ability to multi-task, attention to detail, organized, and outstanding customer service skills.
• Judgment to handle confidential information and complicated business situations; ability to lead and influence others; project management, problem solving, leadership and team building skills.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook) and have an understanding for source-to-pay tools (SAP, Ariba, etc.).

Work Environment & Schedule

This position is considered a normal office environment with moderate travel to customer locations, stores, manufacturing facilities, etc.; offices are open workspaces. To create a more agile and modern workplace, we allow Chicago/Aon Center based employees to work virtually for up to two days each week and expect them to work in-person during the defined core days at their assigned work location at least three days per workweek.