Director Indirect Procurement

At ADS, no idea is off limits, and we celebrate creativity and bold moves.  For more than 50 years ADS has been manufacturing a variety of innovative and environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional materials.  Headquartered in Hilliard, Ohio, we are a multi-billion dollar stormwater management company, manufacturing pipe and ancillary products. What does that mean? When it storms, we capture rain with our drain basins, convey it with pipe, store it using chambers and finally treat it with our water quality products, before safely returning water back to the environment. We handle, what we call, the entire lifecycle of a raindrop. Our products help prevent flooding, which increases quality of life for people living in large cities, suburbs, and rural towns. We also believe in creating a circular economy and are the largest plastic recycling company in North America. We use plastic shampoo and detergent bottles to create pipe, diverting over 500 million pounds of plastic from landfills every year. ADS operates a global network of over 60 manufacturing plants and 30 distribution centers. 

We have amazing stories to tell, and we need your help getting our story out there. To learn more about ADS, please visit our website at www.adspipe.com.

The successful candidate must bring high level of ethical, intellectual, professional, and personal values that complement the team.

• Strategic Mindset – anticipates future trends and implications accurately
• Decision Quality – relies on a mixture of analysis, wisdom, experience, and judgment when making decisions
• Customer Focus – identifies opportunities that benefit the business
• Business Insight – keeps up with current and possible future policies, practices, and trends in the organization, function, and in the marketplace
• Plans and Aligns – breaks down objectives into appropriate initiatives and actions
• Optimizes Work Processes – seeks ways to improve processes, from small tweaks to complete reengineering
• Ensures Accountability – establishes clear responsibilities and processes for monitoring work and measuring results
• Collaborates – works cooperatively with others across the organization to achieve shared objectives
• Develops Talent – develops others through coaching, feedback, exposure, and stretch assignments
• Builds Effective Teams – forms teams with appropriate and diverse mix of styles, perspectives, and experience
• Drives Vision and Purpose – talks about future possibilities in a positive way
• Courage – faces difficult issues and supports others who do the same

The Strategic Sourcing Director, Indirect Spend is ultimately responsible for developing and deploying an all-inclusive sourcing strategy for the full scope of supply while ensuring operational procurement excellence and continuity of supply for approximately $500M in spend on indirect goods and services. Areas include but are not limited to: MRO, Corporate Adm, Utilities, Freight/Distribution, Fleet Management, IT, Facility Services, Maintenance, Temp Labor, Marketing, Travel, IT, HR, and Legal. This position relies on strong leadership and drive towards results, a high degree of internal and external cross-functional collaboration and relationship management, good organizational and communication skills, and the ability to lead the execution of strategic sourcing processes that enable the achievement of business objectives. Must be customer service oriented and a solid team player.

Specifically, this role will be responsible for the following:

• Develop and deploy a 3-year Strategy for the Indirect Spend aligned with the Business objectives.
• Generate Cost Savings YOY for the duration of the assignment, reporting monthly to executive team.
• Develop and Deploy a Cost Savings Funnel Process for Ongoing Cost Savings Projects.
• Develop a Spend Map that identifies (i) actively managed categories go forward strategies and (ii) opportunities for categories unmanaged thus far. Lead sourcing events, such as RFPs and online reverse auctions, collaborating with stakeholders to define scope, sources of supply and overall sourcing strategy.
• Leverage and consolidate spend, rationalizing the supplier base.
• Ensure high level of engagement with strategic suppliers and key internal stakeholders.
• Maximize extending supplier payment terms for free cash flow optimization.
• Implement effective and comprehensive supplier relationship management programs.
• Develop depth of knowledge about Indirect Spend Strategic Sourcing within the Sourcing and Procurement organization.
• Develop a succession plan.
• Lead strategic initiatives such as Industry and Market Analysis & Benchmarking, Risk Mitigation Plans, Supplier Performance Improvement Plans, etc.
• Drive all key strategic sourcing initiatives for the category.
• Leverage ADS’s systems and technologies; Identify opportunities for value creation through synergies of people, processes and technology.
• Lead commercial agreements negotiations with suppliers and ensure continuity of supply, improve lead-times, control pricing, and mitigate risk.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives for development of TCO and Should-Cost models, VA/ VE, Process Improvement, Brainstorming/ Trystorming, etc.
• Leverage and manage industry associations on behalf of ADS.
• Develop collaborative relationships with other ADS sourcing managers and cross functional counterparts in Supply Chain, R&D, Finance, Legal, Marketing, BT, HR, etc.
• Ensure organizational alignment with sourcing strategies.
• Leverage relationship with category business leaders to develop an in-depth understanding of ADS current and future business needs.
• Stay current on new laws/policies that impact ADS’ compliance record relative to sourcing and supply contracts.
• Ensure contract disputes and supplier performance issues are resolved in a timely manner.
• Analyze markets and create accurate cost forecasts.
• Identify and exploit emerging technologies and trends.
• Expand the XBE (disadvantaged business enterprises) supplier base.

Year one critical success factors:

• Quickly integrate into ADS and develop strong relationships with key company stakeholders and with the supply chain team
• Integrate into and own key supplier relationships
• Following the initial assessment, design and obtain alignment to a multi-year strategy and tactics to ensure the biggest operational impact and resources/changes required for effective execution

Professional Experience/Qualifications:

The ideal candidate will be a proven procurement and business leader with experience in a public company, indirect procurement, and in a large decentralized, multi-site manufacturing organization. The candidate will also have the following experience and competencies:

• Demonstrated capability of developing sourcing strategies for sub-commodity categories within Indirect Goods and Services.
• Track record of delivering significant bottom line impact through deployment of sourcing strategies supporting margin expansion, W/C improvement and topline growth.
• Proven ability in successfully executing strategic sourcing processes.
• Experience in developing and maintaining supply agreements and contracts.
• Demonstrated strong change management and organizational transformation skills.
• Mastery of procurement tools and negotiation skills, including on-the-job buying experience.
• Development and utilization of metrics, KPIs, scorecards and dashboard concepts.
• Ability to work on extremely complex problems where analysis of situations or data requires an evaluation of intangible variance factors.
• Excellent planning and organizational, project management, and time management skills.
• Strong interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills that engage and inspire the team.
• Strong ability to lead in a cross-functional / matrix management environment.
• Demonstrated ability to transform an organization’s culture through change management, development of new processes and improvement of existing ones, and to drive outstanding team performance via goal setting and prioritization, substantiated by metrics and KPIs.
• Decision Quality: Makes well-informed, collaborative, and effective decisions quickly, if necessary, based upon a mixture of analysis, wisdom, experience, and judgment; a high percentage of his/her solutions and suggestions turn out to be correct and accurate when judged over time; sought out by others for advice and solutions.  Willing and able to make tough calls and unpopular decisions that are in the best interests of the business.
• Empowers Employees: Makes sure that employees have the direction, tools, and freedom to achieve excellent results in each of their jobs; removes obstacles and focuses people on opportunities, not hurdles.  Able to get people to work cross-functionally and delegates authority appropriately.
• Business financial assessment and related business case development.

Other Critical Competencies:

• An inspirational leader and team player who fosters a collaborative environment and develops a strong culture enabling high levels of morale and engagement, resulting in exemplary performance in efficiency and productivity.
• Safety Awareness and Conduct: must keep safety as a number 1 priority for the organization and behave accordingly at all times.
• Ability and commitment to guide, motivate, mentor and develop staff members and successors to key positions within the department.
• Drive Innovation – has redefined operations to support growth through analysis and novel ideas and is experienced with managing and institutionalizing innovation and purchasing practices.
• Demonstrated ability to enable results across functions, cultures and hierarchy.
• Strong leadership, communication and influencing skills to drive results in a highly decentralized organization and impact at all levels of the organization.
• A strategic thinker with vision combined with willingness and ability to ‘roll up his/her sleeves’ – able to “make it happen” in a fast-moving environment.
• Expert problem solver who uses data to drive informed decision making.
• Experience with LEAN practices and concepts.

Education:

• The successful candidate will have an undergraduate degree, preferably in Business, Supply Chain Management, related Operations discipline, or Engineering.  An MBA or advanced degree is preferred.

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ADS supports an inclusive workplace that values diversity of thought, experience, and background. We celebrate the power of our differences to create better solutions for our customers by ensuring employees can be their authentic selves each day. ADS is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, pregnancy, veteran status, marital status, creed, status with regard to public assistance, genetic status or any other status protected by federal, state or local law.