Purchasing Manager

Responsibilities

• Lead, develop, and manage Associate Managers, Senior Specialists, and Specialists; provide clear expectations, ongoing coaching, and timely feedback.
• Conduct performance reviews, succession planning, and skills development in line with current and emerging operational needs.
• Manage capacity planning, workload balancing, and peak-load strategies to maintain service commitments and continuity.
• Establish daily/weekly operating rhythms (huddles, tiered escalation, issue logs) that promote transparency, cross-functional alignment, and timely decision-making.
• Reinforce a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement across the team.
• Own purchasing dashboards and KPIs (cycle time, accuracy, backlog, exception rates, compliance).
• Review performance daily/weekly; identify trends, conduct root-cause analysis, and implement corrective and preventive actions (CAPA).
• Balance speed, cost, and compliance when reviewing exceptions and approvals; maintain transparent documentation and audit trails.
• Communicate performance results, risks, and resource needs to leadership; present recovery plans with owners, milestones, and expected outcomes.
• Approve or directly lead negotiations within DOA and standard terms, including volume-based price breaks and delivery commitments, expedite frameworks and service recovery provisions, credit, return/rebate programs, and invoice/pricing dispute settlements.
• Ensure negotiated outcomes are measurable, recorded in the ERP/contract repositories, and incorporated into standard negotiation playbooks; conduct quarterly refreshes based on results.
• Ensure ERP accuracy, purchasing controls, and segregation of duties; perform periodic controls testing and coordinate remediation.
• Maintain SOPs, desk-level procedures, and evidence packs to support internal/external audits.
• Monitor and resolve control exceptions (e.g., unmatched POs/invoices, late approvals, unauthorized vendors); track to closure.
• Standardize purchasing processes, SOPs, templates, and documentation; drive adherence and version control.
• Maintain a role-based training curriculum (onboarding, refreshers, control updates, system enhancements).
• Sponsor continuous improvement (CI) projects and targeted automation (e.g., data validations, auto-fills, scheduled reporting, exception alerts).
• Govern data quality for purchasing master data (vendors, catalogs, order parameters) to reduce rework and cycle time.
• Partner with Finance/AP/IT/Operations to fix systemic defects, streamline handoffs, and enhance end-to-end workflows.
• Govern catalog strategy: standard descriptions, approved alternates, reorder practices, and parameter settings to ensure accuracy and ease of use.
• Align purchasing execution with demand forecasts, supply constraints, quality requirements, and operational priorities.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required; master’s preferred.
• 7–10 years in purchasing/supply chain operations with people leadership experience.
• Strong operational negotiation acumen (volume breaks, expedites, credits/returns, dispute settlements).
• Expertise with ERP procurement workflows (Oracle preferred), internal controls, and analytics tools (Excel/BI).
• Demonstrated success in process standardization, CI, and team development.
• Effective communicator with the ability to prioritize, make sound tradeoffs, and drive cross-functional alignment.