Procurement Lead, EMI - HDM
$141,500–$176,900 year
HybridChicago, Illinois, United States
Job Summary
Lead and develop a team of Innovation Managers responsible for sourcing and commercialization support across the business unit innovation portfolio. Translate business unit and brand innovation priorities into clear team focus, resource alignment, and execution direction while championing supplier-enabled innovation. Build the operating rhythm for innovation procurement, including prioritization, governance, issue escalation, and progress visibility. Coach Innovation Managers through complex sourcing challenges to strengthen decision making and remove barriers slowing innovation delivery. Drive alignment across procurement, R&D, operations, finance, quality, and legal teams to instill sourcing excellence. Lead continuous improvement in innovation procurement ways of working to simplify processes and improve speed. Partner with Associate Director and category leaders to ensure alignment between innovation activity and broader business strategies. Monitor portfolio health through key indicators related to sourcing progress and execution risk.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in supply chain, business, finance, operations, engineering, or a related field
- Significant procurement experience
- Demonstrated people leadership experience, including coaching and developing high-performing teams
- Strong experience supporting innovation, commercialization, supplier capability development, and launch execution in a fast-moving environment
- Strong systems thinking, with the ability to connect innovation strategy, supplier capability, commercialization requirements, and cross-functional dependencies across the portfolio
- Strong sourcing and supplier management foundation, with credibility to coach others on negotiation, contracting, commercialization readiness, and supplier execution
- Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite
- Familiarity with source-to-pay tools such as SAP, Ariba, Workday, and related systems
- Ability to lead through ambiguity, support team decision making, and escalate issues with sound judgment
- Continuous improvement mindset with the ability to strengthen innovation routines, governance, and ways of working over time
Desired Qualifications
- MBA and/or advanced procurement qualifications
- Experience including innovation sourcing, external manufacturing, commercialization, ingredients, packaging, CAPEX, or related categories
- Curiosity about AI and digital tools, with interest in how they can improve visibility, decision making, efficiency, and team effectiveness
- Strong communication, influencing, and stakeholder management skills across matrixed teams and functions
- Strong problem-solving, prioritization, and execution capabilities across multiple concurrent initiatives
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