Strategic Sourcing Manager

- United States - VWR International; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

VWR International is seeking a Strategic Sourcing Manager in the United States to oversee large-scale sourcing initiatives in chemicals and life-science products. The role focuses on developing multi-year category strategies, optimizing supplier performance, and negotiating contracts to deliver sustainable value and supply continuity.

You will partner across functions, manage cross-regional supplier relationships, and drive cost savings while mitigating risks in a complex global environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in supply chain, business, finance, engineering, science, or a related field.
• Five or more years of progressive experience in strategic sourcing, category management, procurement, or supply chain within a complex, global, or regulated environment.
• Demonstrated success leading competitive sourcing events, complex negotiations, supplier selection, and contract implementation.
• Relevant category experience in laboratory chemicals and life-science products, raw materials,.
• Experience managing significant spend portfolios and delivering measurable savings, value creation, supplier performance, and risk-reduction outcomes.
• Experience with tendering chemicals and life-science products, market analysis, spend analytics, and total-cost-of-ownership models.
• Professional sourcing or supply-chain certification, such as CPSM or CIPS, is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Partners in the development and execution of multi-year category strategies for a complex supplier portfolio, aligned with business, growth, margin, quality, and supply-continuity priorities.
• Lead end-to-end strategic sourcing initiatives, including opportunity assessment, market analysis, request-for-proposal development, competitive tendering, supplier evaluation, negotiation, selection, contracting, and implementation.
• Use spend, cost, demand, and market data to identify value opportunities; build fact-based business cases; establish savings targets; and drive initiatives through execution and benefits realization.
• Negotiate commercial agreements that optimize total cost of ownership, service, quality, innovation, payment terms, capacity, and risk protection.
• Build strategic relationships with key suppliers; establish performance expectations and scorecards; conduct business reviews; and lead corrective, development, and continuous-improvement actions.
• Partner with portfolio, operations, commercial, marketing, quality, finance, and other stakeholders to translate business needs into sourcing strategies and ensure successful adoption.
• Collaborate with Global Sourcing to aggregate demand, leverage enterprise scale, and identify regional and global opportunities.
• Source chemicals and life-science products and company-branded manufacturing operations.
• Assess and mitigate supplier, geopolitical, capacity, quality, regulatory, and continuity risks; develop contingency and alternate-source strategies where appropriate.
• Partner with legal counsel and relevant stakeholders to ensure contracts meet company standards and applicable legal, regulatory, and compliance requirements.
• Lead annual price negotiations and proactively monitor commodity, inflation, supplier, and market trends to inform sourcing decisions and forecasts.
• Provide clear updates on sourcing pipelines, financial impact, supplier performance, key risks, and recommended actions to business leaders.
• Lead and develop sourcing professionals, where applicable, fostering accountability, commercial excellence, collaboration, and a continuous-improvement mindset.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Job description

The Opportunity: Manages large-scale sourcing projects and oversees critical sourcing activities like supplier selection and performance management, contract negotiations and risk mitigation. Addresses complex sourcing challenges, like unexpected demand shifts or fluctuating raw material prices, performing in-depth evaluations of variable factors and developing innovative solutions that often require adapting precedents and departing from traditional approaches. Communicates and negotiates effectively with management to influence strategic decisions and ensure sourcing objectives are achieved. Cultivates relationships and networks with internal stakeholders and external suppliers. The Strategic Sourcing Manager partners in the development and executes category and supplier strategies for a complex portfolio exceeding $150 million in cost of goods sold. This role combines market intelligence, spend analytics, competitive sourcing, contract negotiation, supplier relationship management, and risk mitigation to deliver sustainable value, protect supply continuity, and advance business growth and margin objectives. Working across global sourcing, portfolio teams, operations, commercial, quality, regulatory, finance, and legal teams, the manager converts business requirements into actionable sourcing plans and high-performing supplier partnerships.

Key Responsibilities

• Partners in the development and execution of multi-year category strategies for a complex supplier portfolio, aligned with business, growth, margin, quality, and supply-continuity priorities.
• Lead end-to-end strategic sourcing initiatives, including opportunity assessment, market analysis, request-for-proposal development, competitive tendering, supplier evaluation, negotiation, selection, contracting, and implementation.
• Use spend, cost, demand, and market data to identify value opportunities; build fact-based business cases; establish savings targets; and drive initiatives through execution and benefits realization.
• Negotiate commercial agreements that optimize total cost of ownership, service, quality, innovation, payment terms, capacity, and risk protection.
• Build strategic relationships with key suppliers; establish performance expectations and scorecards; conduct business reviews; and lead corrective, development, and continuous-improvement actions.
• Partner with portfolio, operations, commercial, marketing, quality, finance, and other stakeholders to translate business needs into sourcing strategies and ensure successful adoption.
• Collaborate with Global Sourcing to aggregate demand, leverage enterprise scale, and identify regional and global opportunities.
• Source chemicals and life-science products and company-branded manufacturing operations.
• Assess and mitigate supplier, geopolitical, capacity, quality, regulatory, and continuity risks; develop contingency and alternate-source strategies where appropriate.
• Partner with legal counsel and relevant stakeholders to ensure contracts meet company standards and applicable legal, regulatory, and compliance requirements.
• Lead annual price negotiations and proactively monitor commodity, inflation, supplier, and market trends to inform sourcing decisions and forecasts.
• Provide clear updates on sourcing pipelines, financial impact, supplier performance, key risks, and recommended actions to business leaders.
• Lead and develop sourcing professionals, where applicable, fostering accountability, commercial excellence, collaboration, and a continuous-improvement mindset.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in supply chain, business, finance, engineering, science, or a related field; an advanced degree is preferred.
• Five or more years of progressive experience in strategic sourcing, category management, procurement, or supply chain within a complex, global, or regulated environment.
• Demonstrated success leading competitive sourcing events, complex negotiations, supplier selection, and contract implementation.
• Relevant category experience in laboratory chemicals and life-science products, raw materials,.
• Experience managing significant spend portfolios and delivering measurable savings, value creation, supplier performance, and risk-reduction outcomes.
• Experience with tendering chemicals and life-science products, market analysis, spend analytics, and total-cost-of-ownership models.
• Professional sourcing or supply-chain certification, such as CPSM or CIPS, is a plus.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Strategic and commercial mindset with the ability to connect sourcing decisions to growth, margin, working capital, quality, and supply resilience.
• Advanced negotiation, influencing, and relationship-management skills across suppliers, executives, and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Strong analytical capability, including spend analysis, cost modeling, market intelligence, benchmarking, scenario analysis, and financial business cases.
• Sound knowledge of category management, stra