VP Global Category Management - Electronics

Your Job

The VP, Global Category Management – Electronics is an enterprise leadership role accountable for defining and executing Molex's global electronics category strategy. This executive will shape and govern a resilient, innovative, and cost-competitive supply ecosystem that enables Molex's growth strategy across all five divisions while elevating supplier collaboration, technology alignment, and supply assurance in a fast-paced global environment.

This leader will operate as a strategic partner to the Molex executive team and divisional leadership, driving category decisions that directly influence product competitiveness, time-to-market, working capital, risk posture, and profitability. The role requires executive presence, strong external influence with strategic suppliers, and the ability to lead globally through complexity and change.

What You Will Do

• Enterprise Category Strategy & Business Outcomes
• Own and evolve the global electronics category vision, multi-year strategy, and governance model, ensuring alignment with Molex enterprise priorities, divisional P&L objectives, and product roadmaps. 
• Drive measurable outcomes across cost competitiveness, supply continuity, innovation enablement, working capital efficiency, and risk reduction. 
• Establish category operating mechanisms, executive dashboards, and performance routines to ensure transparency and accountability across the enterprise. 
• Global Supply Base Architecture & Technology Alignment
• Architect and continuously optimize a world-class global supply base capable of supporting Molex's scale, technology trajectory, and regional manufacturing footprint. 
• Lead supplier portfolio design across strategic partnerships, dual/multi-sourcing, regionalization, and capacity strategies to improve resilience and agility. 
• Ensure supplier technology roadmaps are proactively aligned with Molex product and platform roadmaps; sponsor executive-level roadmap reviews and joint innovation planning. 
• Supplier Governance, Performance & Executive Relationships
• Set and oversee enterprise standards for Supplier Relationship Management (SRM), including segmentation, governance, performance management, and executive escalation paths. 
• Build and maintain C-suite-level relationships with strategic suppliers to influence investment decisions, capacity allocation, quality priorities, and technology collaboration. 
• Lead strategic supplier engagements including Executive Business Reviews (EBRs), QBRs, joint technology councils, and contract/partnership negotiations. 
• Cross-Functional Enterprise Leadership
• Partner across Business Units, Engineering, R&D, Product Management, Operations, Quality, Finance, Legal, and Risk to ensure category decisions optimize total enterprise value. 
• Sponsor and govern the Preferred Supplier List (PSL) and Approved Parts List (APL) framework, ensuring compliance, risk management, and technical qualification rigor. 
• Drive enterprise alignment on standardization opportunities, platform strategies, and design-to-value initiatives. 
• New Product Development (NPD), New Product Introduction (NPI) & Value Engineering
• Institutionalize early supplier involvement (ESI) to accelerate innovation, reduce time-to-market, and optimize cost structures at design inception. 
• Lead enterprise-wide efforts to deliver ongoing cost and value improvements through value engineering, should-cost analysis, specification optimization, and multi-source strategies. 
• Ensure category strategy supports NPD/NPI ramps, mass production continuity, and end-of-life transitions with minimal disruption. 
• Market Intelligence, Risk Management & Scenario Planning
• Maintain deep expertise in the electronics and semiconductor landscape; build a forward-looking capability that identifies market shifts, supply constraints, geopolitical risks, and technology inflections. 
• Lead scenario planning and risk mitigation strategies (e.g., allocation management, capacity reservation, inventory posture, alternate qualification, regional supply strategies). 
• Provide executive-ready insights that inform enterprise decisions regarding investment, technology direction, and supplier partnerships. 
• Transformation & Operating Model Excellence
• Act as a transformational leader driving process modernization, digital enablement, and best-practice adoption across category management. 
• Identify and implement improvements that elevate performance in speed, governance, compliance, and value delivery, benchmarking externally against best-in-class peers. 
• Executive Communications & Thought Leadership
• Serve as an executive spokesperson for Molex in relevant supplier, industry, and ecosystem forums when appropriate. 
• Publish and present a quarterly executive category briefing to senior leadership summarizing market dynamics, supplier health, risk outlook, and strategic actions. 
• Leadership Scope
• Lead, coach, and develop a global electronics category organization, including succession planning and capability building. 
• Build a high-performance culture across regions and functions in a matrixed environment, setting clear expectations and enabling accountability. 

Who You Are (Basic Qualifications)

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, Supply Chain, or related field. 
• 15+ years of progressive leadership experience across global procurement/category management, strategic sourcing, and/or engineering within electronics. 
• Demonstrated executive ownership of complex, global categories with significant spend and supplier complexity. 
• Proven track record leading high-stakes negotiations and contracting (pricing, supply agreements, LTAs, capacity reservations, IP/technology collaborations, and risk/commercial terms). 
• Strong understanding of electronics and semiconductor ecosystems, market dynamics, production processes, and sourcing strategies. 
• Proven ability to influence and drive alignment across executive stakeholders in a matrixed, global organization. 

What Will Put You Ahead

• Master's degree (MBA, MS Engineering, or equivalent) strongly preferred. 
• Demonstrated success building and leading global, high-performing category teams and operating models. 
• Experience shaping enterprise procurement strategies supporting: 
• Optical module architecture, active electrical cables, passive optical components, and automotive systems. 
• Next-generation bandwidth platforms (400G, 800G, 1.6T). 
• Datacenter and optical network component technologies (silicon photonics, laser diodes, PICs, co-packaged optics, isolators, optical DSP). 
• Advanced automotive electronics systems and architecture. 
• Experience leading through disruption (e.g., allocation environments, major supply constraints, geopolitical shocks, rapid demand swings). 
• Executive Skills & Abilities
• Enterprise strategy leadership: Ability to translate market and technology signals into actionable, value-creating category strategies. 
• Executive presence and influence: Credible with C-suite stakeholders internally and externally; able to lead through persuasion and governance. 
• Transformational change leadership: Proven ability to modernize processes, adopt new operating models, and sustain change. 
• Global leadership: Builds inclusive, high-performance teams across cultures, time zones, and matrixed structures. 
• Commercial excellence: Advanced negotiation, contracting, and total cost/value modeling capabilities. 
• Technical and business fluency: Can engage deeply with engineering specifications while maintaining enterprise-level commercial focus. 
• Risk management mindset: Proactive scenario planning, mitigation design, and crisis leadership. 
• Communication excellence: Strong executive-level written and verbal communication; capable of board-ready synthesis and storytelling. 

At Koch companies, we are entrepreneurs. This means we openly challenge the status quo, find new ways to create value and get rewarded for our individual contributions. Any compensation range provided for a role is an estimate determined by available market data. The actual amount may be higher or lower than the range provided considering each candidate's knowledge, skills, abilities, and geographic location. If you have questions, please speak to your recruiter about the flexibility and detail of our compensation philosophy.

Who We Are

As a Koch company, Molex is a leading supplier of connectors and interconnect components, driving  innovation in electronics and supporting industries from automotive to health care and consumer to data communications. The thousands of innovators who work for Molex have made us a global electronics leader. Our experienced people, groundbreaking products and leading-edge technologies help us deliver a wider array of solutions to more markets than ever before.

At Koch, employees are empowered to do what they do best to make life better. Learn how our business philosophy helps employees unleash their potential while creating value for themselves and the company.

Additionally, everyone has individual work and personal needs. We seek to enable the best work environment that helps you and the business work together to produce superior results.