NAM Regional Category Lead - Chemicals

Job Summary about the area and the role:

Veolia Water Technologies & Solutions (WTS) is a worldwide leader in water recovery, treatment and reuse. We design and supply a range of water systems, from food and beverage applications, to municipal water, to microelectronics ultrapure water and heavy industrial wastewater treatment. 

At WTS, we realize diverse teams make smarter decisions, deliver better results, and build stronger communities. We’re an organization that champions diversity and inclusion at every rung of the ladder and are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We offer challenging and meaningful careers, with competitive benefits and flexible work arrangements. 

North American NAM Regional Category Lead - Chemical & Monitoring Solutions - CMS

The Regional Category Lead will be responsible for bringing regional inputs into the global strategy for their respective category.  Additionally, this individual will be responsible for implementing the strategy in his/her region. In this role, the Regional Category Lead will work with the Order Fulfillment team, Global Category Leaders, and Regional Technology, and Supply Chain Leaders.

Key Characteristics:

• Chemicals background

• Knowledge in the North America Chemical Industry - Ability to know the players

• Strategic thinker and able to work in a collaborative and multicultural environment 

Duties & Responsibilities: 

• Leads the Regional category strategy, ensuring inputs from regional leadership, and regional operational teams (supply chain, order fulfillment, product management, etc..) and making sure they are partnering closely with the Global Category strategy to meet DMP (Direct Material Productivity), deflation and surety of supply targets. 

• Participates in the development of the Global Category Strategy

• Validates category strategy and drives compliance to the strategy

• Owns the category business goals for the region and reports out to the Global Category Manager and regional team on progress

• Coordinates the supplier(s) negotiations regionally and globally as needed by the Global Category Manager and region needs

• Responsible for maintaining ongoing dialog with the regional supply chain, order fulfillment teams, and global category managers.

• Drives consistent Supplier Quality and OTD for Regional Suppliers in the Category

Hard Skills:

• Knowledge of the Chemical Industry players in the North American market

• Understanding of the concept of Total Landed Cost 

• Experience on negotiating and managing suppliers

• Proficiency in the use of Microsoft and Google applications

Soft Skills:

• Expert: Demonstrate subject matter expertise in the field.

• Strategic: Gets the big game. Understands long term. Respects short term but doesn’t get hung up in the noise.      

• Inspirational: Ability to inspire/ motivate others.     

• Curious: Ability to pose high impact questions, seeing opportunities in areas where others see problems.    

• Courageous: Champions ideas and helps transform them into actions.      

• Humble: Respectful towards peers, team members, leadership, and stakeholders. 

• Holistic: Think customer and Company first.

• Accountable: Demonstrates responsibility ownership and commitment. Taking responsibility for making tough calls when necessary.

• Ambitious: Identifies underlying truths and comes up with ideas that change the way we conceptualize issues, depicts vision of future that rallies teams to compete in new ways.

Education & Experience

Required:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering, Business, or similar field. 

• 7+ years experience in Procurement, Supply Chain function or an equivalent function with knowledge of business strategy, procurement strategy & processes, category management and overall execution of procurement KPIs.

Preferred:

• Candidate with an MBA, Master's Degree and / or certification like CPM/CPSM, PMP, etc. 

• Good understanding of procurement sub-functions and water treatment technologies (products and operations)

• Experience on negotiating and managing suppliers within the Chemical industry

• Knowledge and experience on implementing supply chain models such as Kraljic’s Matrix and Porter’s 5 forces

• Experience in working in different cultures and environments, in a matrixed organization

Working Conditions

• Annual travel required: 15%