About this role
The Associate Category Manager, EMEA will be a real contributor by supporting the business within the Global Purchasing team , executing category and sourcing activities across assigned indirect spend areas in EMEA. The role partners with regional and global stakeholders to analyze spend and markets, run competitive sourcing events, support negotiations and contracts, manage supplier performance, and deliver value through cost, service, quality, working-capital, risk, and supply-continuity improvements.
What you will do:
Category Strategy and Sourcing Execution
- Support the development and execution of EMEA category strategies aligned with Performance Solutions and Global Purchasing priorities, focusing on maximizing savings, reducing risk, and improving supplier value across assigned spend categories.
- Analyze spend, demand, supplier capabilities, market conditions, cost drivers, and total cost of ownership to identify sourcing opportunities and risks.
- Plan and lead assigned RFQ, RFP, and competitive bidding activities, including requirements gathering, supplier identification, bid analysis, recommendation, and implementation support.
- Prepare sourcing recommendations and business cases that clearly document value, trade-offs, risks, and required approvals.
- Maintain category plans, sourcing pipelines, project timelines, and supporting documentation in accordance with purchasing controls.
Supplier and Commercial Management
- Support and, within delegated authority, lead supplier negotiations covering pricing, service, payment terms, performance expectations, and other commercial terms.
- Colaborate with Legal, Finance, Risk, Operations, and other partners on contract development, approvals, renewals, and implementation.
- Build productive supplier relationships and monitor performance across cost, quality, delivery, service, responsiveness, compliance, and innovation.
- Support supplier reviews, corrective action plans, issue resolution, and continuity or risk-mitigation activities.
- Maintain accurate suppliers, pricing, contracts, savings, and project information in applicable systems.
Stakeholder Partnership and Value Delivery
- Partner with Performance Solutions stakeholders across EMEA to understand business needs, confirm specifications, align timelines, and support the adoption of sourcing decisions.
- Collaborate with regional and global purchasing colleagues to leverage common suppliers, methods, data, and category strategies.
- Track and communicate project status, savings, cost avoidance, working-capital impact, contract coverage, supplier performance, and key risks.
- Identify process, specification, demand management, supplier-consolidation, and workflow improvements that strengthen business value.
What will make you successful:
- Bachelor's degree in supply chain management, purchasing, business administration, finance, operations, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
- Three to five years of progressive experience in indirects procurement, purchasing, strategic sourcing, category management, supply chain, or supplier management.
- Experience supporting multi-step sourcing activities, supplier evaluations, commercial negotiations, spend or cost analysis, contract coordination, and cross-functional implementation.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to translate data and market information into clear recommendations.
- Strong communication, negotiation, project-management, and stakeholder-partnership skills.
- Familiarity with ERP, procurement, or eSourcing systems.
- Experience supporting indirect procurement categories in a complex manufacturing, automotive, industrial, or similarly matrixed organization.
- Additional language capability relevant to the selected EMEA location or supplier base, would be a strong competitve advantage.
What do we offer:
- Hybrid work schedule
- 13th salary (paid in 3 installments)
- Additional 5 paid leave days per year (calculated proportionally to the period worked)
- Monthly budget to spend on Flexible Benefits Platform
- Well-being bonus (1-time bonus after probation period)
- A medical subscription (Medicover)
- Access to the Bookster platform
- Access to the Employee Assistance Program
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