About us

We're a truly international company, fourth largest in our industry and operating across 119 markets. An inclusive, innovative global FMCG business supported by 26,000 employees. As we embrace a new era of growth, we are transforming. Our ways of working and culture are driven by a challenger mindset, constantly questioning the status quo where people can bring their best selves to work. Our agility and collaboration are driving our ambitions, innovation and success all supported by our award-winning development programmes that creates exciting and rewarding career opportunities for all.

As we move forward, our consumers will be at the heart of what we do, evolving to needs and expectations and committing to a more meaningful contribution to harm reduction by building a successful NGP business. Integral to our long-term success is our sustainability strategy, behaving responsibly and supporting our ambitions, all underpinned by high governance.

Encouraging inclusion at local levels and supporting a developing and robust diversity agenda globally, we’re fully committed to creating and maintaining an environment that celebrates and respects difference.

The role

Location: Bristol or Warsaw

This new role has been created to be a catalyst for change, to drive further transformation from Imperial’s third party IT supply base, working with the IT Leadership Team and directly engaging with the CIO and CFO as needed, along with other C-suite executives to be a key enabler for the continued transformation for Imperial’s IT cost base.  

Champion a change agenda through development & execution of global, enterprise wide category strategies whilst working in partnership with key stakeholders, other category teams, suppliers and external partners.

Delivery impactful commercial and market intelligence to internal stakeholders to support strategic planning and project delivery that is an enabler for IT supply base transformation

Ensure delivery of efficiencies, mitigate risks and maximise value generation to Imperial to meet business challenges and objectives as they evolve, and respond to both internal and external challenges in a dynamic manner

Key accountabilities

• Provide leadership of the IT Category to drive a step change in coordination of all strategic and tactical sourcing activities within their category
• Leadership of the development, implementation, management, and performance of sourcing strategies within a given category, to meet business goals and objectives
• Ensure full buy in from Business Partner structure within procurement and the wider Procurement Leadership Team (PLT)
• Ensure timely execute category strategies through close collaboration with key business stakeholders, suppliers and the IT category team to delivery a step change in P&L and bottom line impact, working with IT finance to ensure benefits are captured
• Develop and maintain a sustainable and reliable supplier base to mitigate supply risk for the category
• Provide leadership, direction and impact to negotiations with key suppliers
• Ensure assessment, selection and development of strategic suppliers to meet cost, performance goals while delivering an optimal quality
• Ensure excellence in supplier relationship management with key suppliers and support supplier management activities through leveraging the IT Vendor Management team, ensuring clear governance with ITVM for the suppliers in their scope and to keep accountability of the delivery to the needs of procurement and leadership stakeholders
• Leverage appropriate research, benchmarks, peer networking and other expertise on current market trends, developing technologies, and supply/demand challenges to gain a competitive advantage and drive continuous improvement
• Forecast price and market trends to identify possible changes of the buyer-supplier power, to anticipate and avoid / mitigate them

Portfolio Specific

• Provide impactful leadership, development and management of a small Indirect Procurement team responsible for strategic commercial agreements and category development optimising value for money for Global IT and supported functions. 
• Engagement with C-suite (CFO and CSCO) and Procurement Leadership team
• Regular and direct engagement at IT Leadership Level - Head of Global IT and IT Leadership team, IT Vendor Management, IT Business Partners and Procurement Business Partners
• Global Category solution / deployment support focus on Tier 1 and Tier 2 markets working alongside Procurement Business Partners
• Drive a successful collaboration with Governance teams in relation to Information Security, Data Privacy and related topics on a cross-category basis and embedding required compliance standards in procurement category area, and ensure accountability of SMEs in this process
• Triage, governance and oversight of strategic procurement projects if procurement team augmentation is required for external delivery
• Provide leadership and engagement into strategic transformation and improvement programmes
• Category leadership and supplier strategy development for Global IT supply base of c. £100m and 1,300 suppliers – spend is expected to grow significantly with strategic investments underway for Finance / Digital Transformation and E2E Supply Chain Transformation Programmes.
• Global influence and category ownership for a supply base of c. £100m suppliers, with additional £60-80m investment spend each year over the next 5 years due to strategic investments underway for Finance / Digital Transformation and E2E Supply Chain Transformation Programmes.

Skills & experience

• Minimum 8 years specific Procurement category experience of portfolio considered
• University degree preferably with a numerical basis. MCIPS preferred
• Recognised as an IT procurement leader with external impact
• Ambitious and driven to achieve results
• Well organised, reliable and a commercially awareness
• A highly credible individual with a proven track record to influence and manage internal and external stakeholders, and in managing strategic relationships
• Strong ability to collaborate in a multi-cultural environment
• Outstanding communication skills
• Expert Negotiation skills
• Able to deal with a changing environment.
• Analytical and Strategic
• FMCG background preferred
• Fluent oral and written English is essential
• Cross cultural experience is preferred
• Some international travel on short notice likely to be required

What we offer

Competitive salary, bonus scheme, pension, and 25 days holiday (with an additional 4 days on top to cover the Christmas period, and bank holidays), corporate discounts, Health Cash Plan, and other wellbeing initiatives.

Next steps

Interested applicants are encouraged to apply, highlighting their suitability to the role.