Job Introduction
Location: London, UK (Preferred)
Reporting to: Global Supply Management Category Director for Indirect Services
Travel: Up to 10-20%, mainly across Europe
Join Sodexo as a Senior Category Buyer – Travel & Mobility and play a key role in shaping our global procurement strategy. We’re looking for a commercially minded and strategic procurement professional to lead sourcing initiatives across our Travel and Car Fleet categories. This is a fantastic opportunity to manage high-impact supplier relationships, drive performance across multiple countries, and collaborate with a global network of procurement specialists.
If you’re a strategic, adaptable procurement professional with experience across multiple categories and a foundation in Travel and / or Mobility categories solutions, we encourage you to apply and help shape Sodexo’s procurement future.

Key Responsibilities

• Category Management: Own and drive category strategies for Travel and Car Fleet across defined geographies. Ensure business alignment, cost optimization, supplier innovation, and full integration of Sodexo CSR ambition.
• Strategic Sourcing: Lead end-to-end sourcing processes including RFI/RFP preparation, evaluation, supplier selection, negotiation, and implementation. Ensure robust governance and stakeholder engagement throughout.
• Supplier Relationship Management: Manage day-to-day supplier performance and act as the key point of contact for strategic vendors, ensuring service delivery and issue resolution.
• Network Animation: Lead and coordinate a network of local buyers. Share best practices, ensure consistency of sourcing approaches, and drive local implementation of strategic initiatives.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Engage cross-functional stakeholders (Finance, HR, Operations, Legal) to ensure business needs are fully integrated into category plans and sourcing decisions.
• Market Intelligence: Monitor trends and innovations in the mobility ecosystem to identify cost-saving or improvement opportunities.
• Contract Management: Negotiate and manage supplier contracts in close coordination with Sodexo Legal teams.
• Data & Reporting: Define KPIs and reporting frameworks to track category performance, savings delivery, and supplier KPIs. Contribute to management reporting and category dashboards.

PROFILE – KEY SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Business, Procurement, Supply Chain, or equivalent.
• Experience: Extensive experience in procurement; with proven experience leading Travel and/or Car Fleet sourcing projects..
• Leadership: Strong project leadership skills with ability to manage cross-functional teams and influence without authority.
• Autonomy & Accountability: Comfortable working independently and taking full ownership of strategic initiatives.
• Communication and Interpersonal skills: Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, capable of interacting with senior leaders and local buyers alike.
• Analytical & Strategic Mindset: Able to combine strong analytical capabilities with a long-term category vision. Skilled at working with complex and fragmented data sets to identify spend patterns, build robust business cases, quantify savings opportunities, and support strategic decision-making. Comfortable with data tools and KPIs, and able to translate insights into actionable sourcing lever.
• Language: Fluent in English; French is a plus.

UNIQUE CHALLENGES OF THE ROLE

The ideal candidate brings strong procurement expertise, a track record of independently managing complex sourcing projects, and the ability to influence in a matrixed and multicultural environment.

This position requires agility, strategic thinking, and strong stakeholder management to succeed in an environment marked by:

• Decentralized Procurement Landscape: Aligning diverse local practices with a harmonized category strategy.
• Data Limitations: Navigating incomplete or fragmented spend and usage data to support strategic decisions.
• Change Management: Challenging the status quo and embedding new ways of working across teams and geographies.

Key Responsibilities

• Category Management: Own and drive category strategies for Travel and Car Fleet across defined geographies. Ensure business alignment, cost optimization, supplier innovation, and full integration of Sodexo CSR ambition.
• Strategic Sourcing: Lead end-to-end sourcing processes including RFI/RFP preparation, evaluation, supplier selection, negotiation, and implementation. Ensure robust governance and stakeholder engagement throughout.
• Supplier Relationship Management: Manage day-to-day supplier performance and act as the key point of contact for strategic vendors, ensuring service delivery and issue resolution.
• Network Animation: Lead and coordinate a network of local buyers. Share best practices, ensure consistency of sourcing approaches, and drive local implementation of strategic initiatives.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Engage cross-functional stakeholders (Finance, HR, Operations, Legal) to ensure business needs are fully integrated into category plans and sourcing decisions.
• Market Intelligence: Monitor trends and innovations in the mobility ecosystem to identify cost-saving or improvement opportunities.
• Contract Management: Negotiate and manage supplier contracts in close coordination with Sodexo Legal teams.
• Data & Reporting: Define KPIs and reporting frameworks to track category performance, savings delivery, and supplier KPIs. Contribute to management reporting and category dashboards