Associate Director, Ingredients – Cheese and Dairy

Job description

Set enterprise-level strategic direction for the Cheese and Dairy procurement portfolio, ensuring strong annual execution and credible three-year plans are established, owned, and delivered across the category landscape. Lead through category leaders by aligning talent, resources, priorities, and operating routines to deliver sustained enterprise value across cost, service, risk, productivity, innovation, and supply continuity.

Shape the long-term category strategy, supplier relationship strategy, and operating model for dairy, cream, milk, cheese, cheese powder, cultures, trim, whey, and milk fat across the Kraft Heinz North American Zone. Build executive alignment with internal stakeholders and strategic suppliers through clear business storytelling, enterprise judgment, and decisive recommendations on complex trade-offs. Serve as the senior escalation and decision-shaping leader for high-impact supplier, market, operational, quality, financial, and risk matters that require cross-functional resolution.

Develop leadership capability across the team by coaching leaders, setting standards, creating transparency on priorities, and strengthening succession readiness for critical procurement roles. Own enterprise outcomes for assigned categories, including productivity, cash, inflation mitigation, supply assurance, supplier performance, innovation enablement, and total cost of ownership. Establish scalable routines, governance, and performance management processes that improve decision quality, stakeholder confidence, and functional effectiveness across Procurement and partner functions.

Lead strategic sourcing, supplier selection, and negotiation strategy for complex, business-critical categories while ensuring leaders apply robust sourcing discipline and commercial governance. Advance the category roadmap by translating market dynamics, supplier capabilities, risk signals, and business priorities into clear strategic choices and executable plans. Influence senior stakeholders across Business Units, Operations, Finance, Quality, R&D, Global Procurement, and suppliers to align on priorities, decisions, and trade-offs that support enterprise outcomes.

Drive continuous improvement in internal and external ways of working, including supplier governance, cross-functional decision forums, category planning, risk management, and value reporting. Ensure performance goals, productivity pipelines, risk mitigation plans, and financial commitments are clearly owned and visible across the portfolio. Create durable functional improvement by strengthening standards, tools, routines, and leadership behaviors that enable consistent execution beyond annual results.

Represent Cheese and Dairy Procurement in enterprise forums, providing strategic recommendations and clear communication to senior leadership on category outlook, risks, opportunities, and required decisions. Leads a team of category leaders and procurement professionals; accountable for coaching, performance standards, succession readiness, and delivery of business outcomes through others. Bachelor's degree in supply chain management, finance, business, or equivalent.

MBA and advanced Procurement qualifications preferred (CPM, CPIM, etc.). Candidates with equivalent experience will be considered. 10+ years of progressive procurement, supply chain, finance, or commercial experience, including significant experience leading complex ingredient, dairy, cheese, commodity, or food manufacturing categories. Demonstrated ability to lead through leaders, build organizational capability, coach talent, set leadership standards, and strengthen succession pipelines.

Strong enterprise and business judgment with the ability to connect category strategy, supplier dynamics, operational risk, financial performance, and long-term business priorities. Proven ability to shape and deliver one-year execution plans and credible three-year strategies across multiple categories, spaces, or strategic priorities. Executive communication and business storytelling skills; able to simplify complex issues, influence senior stakeholders, and build alignment around trade-offs and decisions.

Advanced negotiation and supplier relationship leadership experience with demonstrated success in complex supplier, commercial, and cross-functional decision environments. Ability to resolve ambiguous and high-impact business challenges by aligning stakeholders, resources, talent, and operating routines to strategy. Experience establishing scalable processes, governance, and performance management routines that improve decision quality, accountability, and functional effectiveness.

Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite and source-to-pay tools; ability to leverage data, analytics, and market intelligence to inform enterprise-level recommendations.