Category Management Lead

Shape your future at IEWC! As an employee-owner, you will be a valued team member, contributing to something bigger and gaining skills that will set your career up for hypergrowth!

OVERVIEW

The Infrastructure Category Management Lead  provides leadership to the people, processes, and systems supporting North American sourcing for IEWC’s Infrastructure Division. This position is responsible for ensuring that quality products and services are secured at the best total value to support our customer and manufacturing supply needs across the Infrastructure business. The Infrastructure Sourcing Manager will partner with suppliers to deliver cost savings, supply assurance, and innovation, while developing and nurturing healthy, vibrant, value-added partnerships over time. The role will maintain a close working relationship with the Materials Management, Commercial, Finance, and Operations teams to ensure their supply needs are being met and that sourcing strategies are aligned with business objectives.

POSITION RELATIONSHIPS

The Infrastructure Category Management Lead  will report directly to the Global Sourcing Director and will work collaboratively with members of the Supply Chain and Infrastructure Commercial Leadership Team, as well as Managers, Directors, Division and Country Leaders across the organization. This position will provide direct supervision to the North American Infrastructure Sourcing team and works closely with the Commercial, Finance, and Materials Management teams to align sourcing strategies with customer needs, pricing strategies, and long-term business objectives.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategy

• Continually monitor and assess trends affecting IEWC’s Infrastructure sourcing strategies and benchmark against the best companies in the industry.
• Provide thought leadership in bringing solutions through process improvement, best practices, tools, and technology that will continue to set IEWC apart from its competition and identify new business opportunities.
• Champion process excellence, continuous improvement, and identify best practices, ensuring cross-sharing across the broader Sourcing organization.
• Create a sound North American Infrastructure sourcing strategic plan that supports market vertical business plans.
• Develop sound policies and processes to ensure consistent practices across the Infrastructure division.
• Work collaboratively with all Divisions and Functions to ensure their business success.
• Drive a customer-focused culture by partnering with sales, improving response times, and offering strategic alternatives and supplier capabilities with a “win” mentality.
• Serve as a role model for the Company’s Values and Core Leadership Competencies.

Leadership

• Provide leadership, coaching, guidance, and direct daily operations of the North American Infrastructure Sourcing team to achieve work objectives and improve performance and skills.
• Empower team members to resolve issues by delegating tasks to the appropriate level.
• Communicate a clear vision and achieve a shared understanding of the day-to-day operational activities that support a high-functioning matrix structure.
• Foster high performance teamwork and balance empowerment of all employees with appropriate controls.
• Prioritize the activities and the allocation of resources, balancing the short-term interests and the long-term interests of the business.
• Participate in or lead cross-functional teams to ensure the continuous, ongoing improvement of process, methods, productivity, and quality, while reducing costs.
• Ensure there is a solid understanding amongst all team members regarding governance and the application of the New Product Introduction Process.
• Champion that every team member is partnering effectively with Sales to balance the needs of the customer, the supplier, and IEWC.
• Confirm there is a solid working knowledge of the points of intersection between divisional roles and responsibilities and corporate roles and responsibilities.

Supplier Relationship Management

• Foster and develop supplier relationships to ensure IEWC is in preferred status with key Infrastructure suppliers.
• Oversee the negotiation of material prices, terms of supply, and cooperative programs to meet IEWC’s plans.
• Partner with suppliers and internal teams to develop joint business plans and identify innovation opportunities.
• Drive strategic supplier positioning by identifying consolidation opportunities that increase IEWC’s volume leverage, simplify the supply base, and improve commercial competitiveness.
• Engage suppliers in discussions on their target markets, product roadmaps, capacity strategies, and new product introductions to align IEWC’s sourcing strategy with emerging technologies and growth opportunities.

Cross-Functional Support

• Serve as the knowledge expert on assigned product categories, guiding the organization on product usage and specifications.
• Ensure the build and maintenance of should-cost libraries, rebate/price governance tools, and sourcing dashboards.
• Support the Commercial team in shaping price strategy and aligning sourcing execution.
• Analyze cost savings opportunities and implement changes through sourcing initiatives.
• Work with the Commercial and Materials Management teams in solving supply issues impacting markets or customers.
• Work with Product Development and the Commercial teams on New Product Introduction.

Market Intelligence/Continuous Improvement

• Leverage Qlik, Rubicon, SAP, and BI tools to deliver accurate, actionable reporting and sourcing analytics.
• Oversee the development of dashboards to monitor supplier performance, pricing trends, and sourcing KPIs.
• Provide insight-driven recommendations to leadership for cost reduction and margin improvement.
• Perform market and capacity analysis to identify risks, trends, and opportunities for supplier alignment.
• Effectively create and support process enhancement initiatives to maintain an environment of continuous improvement throughout the organization.
• Improve sourcing cycle time and win rate through data-driven process enhancements.
• Lead automation and analytics projects that scale sourcing performance.
• Ensure process efficiency and scalability without increasing headcount.
• Responsible for Vendor and Material Master Data inclusive of creation, archiving, continuous improvement and verification in Rubicon

*The above represents the essential job functions that you are assigned to perform in your job.  If you are unable to perform these essential duties, please see Human Resources as IEWC may be able to provide reasonable accommodations against the ADA requirements.

We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetics, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

VALUES AND COMPETENCIES

• Support IEWC’s commitment to its Vision, Values and Purpose.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

• Education and/or Experience: A bachelor’s degree and 5+ years of progressively responsible related experience; or a combination of education and experience.
• Certificates, Licenses, and/or Registrations: A valid driver’s license and an ability to obtain a valid passport.
• Reasoning Ability: Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts and draw valid conclusions.  Ability to interpret an extensive variety of technical and business information and deal with several abstract and concrete variables.

• Computer Applications Skills: Ability to work in a Windows environment. Possess advanced skills in Microsoft Excel—Pivot Tables and formula calculations, PowerPoint and Word. Experience with AI interfaces (Claude, ChatGPT) and writing prompts to assist in CI and expediting tasks. SAP experience is preferred.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Movement: Frequently required to use hands to finger, handle or feel.  Regularly required to sit and talk or hear.  Occasionally required to stand and walk.  Occasionally required to reach above shoulders, stoop, kneel or crouch.  Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision and ability to adjust focus.  Occasionally required to lift and/or move up to 25 pounds.

• Vision: Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision and ability to adjust focus.
• Work Environment: Occasionally is exposed to a Distribution Center or manufacturing environment and outside weather conditions.  Occasionally is exposed to fumes and airborne particles.  Occasionally is exposed to a noise level ranging from moderate to high.  Occasionally is exposed to risk of electrical shock.
• Travel: Occasionally required to perform work related travel.
• Reasonable accommodation: Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

The above statements reflect the general framework of the position and are not to be construed as a detailed statement of all the requirements that may be inherent in the position.  Details may be added or subtracted from time to time.  As needed, the manager will review this position description with the employee and determine appropriate modifications.

*The above represents the essential job functions that you are assigned to perform in your job.  If you are unable to perform these essential duties, please see Human Resources as IEWC may be able to provide reasonable accommodations against the ADA requirements.