Procurement Senior Specialist, Marketing & Advertising - North America

at  KimberlyClark

You’re not the person who will settle for just any role. Neither are we. Because we’re out to create Better Care for a Better World, and that takes a certain kind of person and teams who care about making a difference. Here, you’ll bring your professional expertise, talent, and drive to building and managing our portfolio of iconic, ground-breaking brands. In this role, you’ll help us deliver better care for billions of people around the world. It starts with YOU.
Kimberly-Clark (K-C) is looking for a self-driven and talented individual to join our North America Marketing Services team. You will make a difference by developing and supporting the development of category strategies and oversee key supplier relationships for all K-C North America Design Agency, Pre-Press & Plates, Mobile Platforms, Name Acquisition and Sales Brokerage spend. You will build category expertise and provide guidance to regional teams in the context of stakeholder needs, data quality and service benchmarking/analysis; as well as lead Supplier Relationship Management by building and facilitating partnerships with strategic suppliers and key executives within K-C.
You will ensure K-C is maximizing value on the spend with suppliers while delivering high levels of data quality, service and security for sensitive internal/external data; and establish strong stakeholder relationships by providing market expertise and actively engaging them in procurement processes. In addition, you will work closely with the global procurement lead, business units and cross-functional team to achieve strategic sourcing objectives for the categories.

In this role you will:

• Execute category strategy & implementation plan created by Regional Category Lead and manage local supplier relationships within focus area (e.g., sub-category, cluster / country).
• Provide input to regional category strategy based on market dynamics, supplier landscape, business needs within focus area; Lead execution of global category strategic initiatives in region.
• Support regional sourcing events, working with Agile Squads and support execution of category strategic initiatives.
• Coordinate with regional business stakeholders on category needs and strategy (e.g., collect business requirements).
• Manage region-specific supplier relationships, escalate and resolve region-specific supplier continuity issues, etc.
• Support in the creation and maintenance of category knowledge and processes to ensure the category strategies are informed, relevant and up to date.
• Monitor supplier performance indicators and initiate supplier reviews as required or in accordance with agreed programs to drive improvement and reduce risk across the regional enterprise.
• Build trust and credibility with suppliers by demonstrating integrity, commitment, and results orientation to drive and deliver results; Manage regional supplier contracts, develop relationship management strategies driving collaboration, Supplier Relationship Management and / or other engagement programs.
• Identify hurdles and barriers to change, resolve where possible or escalate as appropriate and ensure compliance to K-C Policies and internal controls.
• Maintain an effective business relationship with all suppliers and stakeholders based on clear, concise group and personal communication.

ABOUT US

Huggies®. Kleenex®. Cottonelle®. Scott®. Kotex®. Poise®. Depend®. Kimberly-Clark Professional®. You already know our legendary brands—and so does the rest of the world. In fact, millions of people use Kimberly-Clark products every day. We know these amazing Kimberly-Clark products wouldn’t exist without talented professionals, like you.
At Kimberly-Clark, you’ll be part of the best team committed to driving innovation, growth and impact. We’re founded on more than 150 years of market leadership, and we’re always looking for new and better ways to perform – so there’s your open door of opportunity. It’s all here for you at Kimberly-Clark.

In this role you will:

• Execute category strategy & implementation plan created by Regional Category Lead and manage local supplier relationships within focus area (e.g., sub-category, cluster / country).
• Provide input to regional category strategy based on market dynamics, supplier landscape, business needs within focus area; Lead execution of global category strategic initiatives in region.
• Support regional sourcing events, working with Agile Squads and support execution of category strategic initiatives.
• Coordinate with regional business stakeholders on category needs and strategy (e.g., collect business requirements).
• Manage region-specific supplier relationships, escalate and resolve region-specific supplier continuity issues, etc.
• Support in the creation and maintenance of category knowledge and processes to ensure the category strategies are informed, relevant and up to date.
• Monitor supplier performance indicators and initiate supplier reviews as required or in accordance with agreed programs to drive improvement and reduce risk across the regional enterprise.
• Build trust and credibility with suppliers by demonstrating integrity, commitment, and results orientation to drive and deliver results; Manage regional supplier contracts, develop relationship management strategies driving collaboration, Supplier Relationship Management and / or other engagement programs.
• Identify hurdles and barriers to change, resolve where possible or escalate as appropriate and ensure compliance to K-C Policies and internal controls.
• Maintain an effective business relationship with all suppliers and stakeholders based on clear, concise group and personal communication

In one of our professional roles, you’ll focus on winning with consumers and the market, while putting safety, mutual respect, and human dignity at the center. To succeed in this role, you will need the following qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited institution in business, supply chain or related discipline.
• 5+ years of experience in Procurement, preferred experience in category management.
• Business acumen, excellent communication skills (both written and oral) able to communicate up and across the organization, cross functional collaboration & influencing, project management, analytical, problem solving, functional and technical awareness, manage vision and purpose.
• Strong project management, process improvement, analytical and problem solving skills.
• Identify and maintain a continued professional development plan focused on personal development aspirations and company goals