Director - Procurement Excellence - Supply Chain Management

Job Summary:

The Director - Procurement Excellence will lead the global procurement transformation agenda, creating a scalable operating model that strengthens value creation, governance, digital capability and execution discipline across end-to-end procurement. Based in Dublin, Ireland, the role will partner with global procurement, business and functional leaders to translate enterprise priorities into standard processes, integrated digital solutions, measurable performance and sustained adoption.

The role will establish the Procurement Excellence roadmap and lead portfolio execution across process maturity, source-to-contract, category management, contracting, supplier management, value creation, data and analytics, capability building and change management. A central priority is the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence in procurement, including practical use cases, data readiness, controls, human oversight and benefits realisation.

Job Responsibilities:

• Set and execute the global Procurement Excellence strategy and multi-year transformation roadmap, aligned with enterprise growth, productivity, resilience, working capital and compliance priorities.
• Lead the design and deployment of a consistent procurement operating model, including governance, decision rights, standard work, process ownership, controls and performance management.
• Build and manage a prioritised transformation portfolio across category management, sourcing, contracting, supplier management, procure-to-pay, new product introduction and value analysis/value engineering.
• Establish procurement maturity assessments, benchmarks and roadmaps; translate findings into sequenced initiatives with clear owners, investment cases, adoption measures and business outcomes.
• Sponsor simplification, standardisation and digitalisation of procurement processes and tools, ensuring solutions are scalable, integrated, user-centred and embedded in day-to-day work.
• Define and lead the artificial intelligence strategy for procurement. Identify and scale high-value use cases such as category intelligence, spend and market insights, bid analysis, should-cost support, contract intelligence, supplier risk signals, guided decision support and automated standard work.
• Establish responsible artificial intelligence governance, including data quality, security, privacy, legal and ethical controls, human validation, model performance monitoring and clear accountability for decisions.
• Partner with Digital, Information Technology, Finance, Legal, Engineering, Operations and business teams to integrate procurement platforms, data and workflows and create a trusted single source of truth.
• Strengthen value creation and value preservation through total-cost-of-ownership thinking, demand and specification challenge, working capital, contract compliance, supplier innovation and leakage reduction.
• Define enterprise procurement metrics and management routines covering value, cycle time, adoption, compliance, quality, risk, user experience and capacity creation; provide transparent insights to senior leadership.
• Lead enterprise change management for new processes and technology, including stakeholder alignment, communications, training, role-based capability building, adoption reinforcement and sustainment.
• Build a global procurement capability framework and learning architecture for category leaders, sourcing teams and procurement professionals, including digital and artificial intelligence fluency.
• Develop and lead a high-performing global network of process owners, subject-matter experts and transformation resources; coach teams and create clear accountability for delivery.
• Benchmark external leading practices and emerging technology, translating relevant innovation into pragmatic pilots and scaled enterprise solutions.
• Prepare investment proposals, resource plans and benefits cases; govern delivery, risks, dependencies and benefits realisation across the Procurement Excellence portfolio.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution required. Master’s degree in supply chain, business, engineering, technology or a related field preferred.
• Minimum 15 years of progressive procurement, supply chain or transformation experience, including significant leadership of global, enterprise-wide programmes and cross-functional teams.

Technical knowledge:

• Deep knowledge of end-to-end procurement, including category management, strategic sourcing, contracting, supplier management, source-to-contract and procure-to-pay.
• Proven leadership of large-scale process, operating-model and digital transformations.
• Strong understanding of procurement data, analytics, workflow platforms, automation and artificial intelligence use cases.
• Demonstrated ability to establish artificial intelligence governance, human-in-the-loop controls and measurable value realisation.
• Expertise in programme and portfolio management, Lean or continuous improvement, change management, performance systems, business cases and benefits tracking.
• Experience with supplier risk, resilience, sustainability, working capital and regulatory compliance.

Soft Skills:

• Enterprise leadership and strategic thinking.
• Executive-level influencing and communication.
• Strong judgement, integrity and accountability.
• Ability to translate complex issues into clear choices and action.
• Change leadership across cultures and functions.
• Customer-focused, collaborative and outcomes-oriented.
• Talent development and coaching.
• Comfort operating with ambiguity, setting priorities and sustaining execution across a global matrix.