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Northwestern Mutual · 1 day ago

Senior Director, Sourcing & Procurement Ops

Milwaukee, WI

Full-time

Onsite

Senior Level, Lead/Staff

$129K/yr - $240K/yr

10+ years exp

Northwestern Mutual is seeking a Senior Director of Procurement Operations responsible for leading and optimizing the company's procurement operations. This role focuses on ensuring efficiency and strategic alignment while overseeing procurement technology and operational processes to drive value and cost savings across the organization.

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Responsibilities

Ability to build strong relationships with business partners at all levels, in order to implement procurement best practices, increasing the influence/role of Sourcing & Procurement within various business teams

Direct management of people leaders and individual contributors aligned to the Procurement Operations and Procurement/Finance Centers of Excellence (COE)

Perform constant evaluation of procurement processes across market research, planning/forecasting, strategic sourcing, contracting, third party risk management, and supplier governance for ongoing synergies, efficiencies, and improvements

Understand procurement best practices in order to provide process and system recommendations to sourcing and procurement leaders

Set a long-term strategic approach to enrich and maintain accurate and robust procurement data and information

Set a long-term vision to execute and transform the value realized from procurements ability to conduct data analytics and data visualization practices

Expand Procurement’s capabilities around reporting for the purpose of influencing business decisions and improving supplier-based ROI

Create, update, and maintain strategic roadmaps for S&P’s data/analytics strategies to drive project prioritization and create alignment across all procurement and finance functions

Develop and maintain S&P reporting dashboards to represent NM supplier spend, demand, supplier utilization, performance, and risks

Develop and maintain S&P’s measurements and reporting surrounding the function’s savings and value contributions

Develop a strong execution strategy for team members, business partners, and the broader function

Define and direct performance objectives and career path/building opportunities for each member of the team

Oversee day-to-day management of a broad portfolio of Procurement systems, tools, and programs

Evaluate opportunities to streamline the performance and administration of all procurement systems and tools

Influence leadership on best practices, process changes, market inputs, etc

Establish and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) for procurement operations performance

Oversee procurement operational units (i.e. Sales/Use Tax and others) to ensure performance, delivery, and value

Consistently work with procurement stakeholders and partners across the company to ensure the team’s success and changing requirements/needs for compliance, risk, audit, and regulatory standards

Support procurement’s compliance with company policies, ethical standards, and regulatory requirements

Establish and lead ongoing initiatives to improve procurement agility, speed, transparency, and partnership with company stakeholders, leaders, and business owners

Qualification

Strategic sourcingSupplier managementProcurement systemsData analyticsCategory plansContract managementFinancial services experienceLearning agilityInterpersonal skillsProblem solvingCommunication skillsAttention to detail

Required

Bachelor's Degree with an emphasis in Business, Information Systems, Supply Chain Management, Accounting/Finance, Engineering or related field, or an equivalent combination of education and work experience

Minimum of 10 years of work experience with a specific focus on, strategic sourcing or procurement, supplier management, finance, supply chain management, or other related field

Minimum of 5 years of management experience

Minimum of 5 years of experience in leading the development and management of category plans or sourcing strategies

Proven ability to establish and maintain cross-functional relationships, influence change with diplomacy, and lead the decision-making processes

Strong customer focus, interpersonal, and communication skills

Excellent research, analytical, problem solving, planning and organization skills required as well as a high degree of personal initiative and motivation