Supply & Services Procurement Manager - Contract
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Overview
Job Description
Title: Supply & Services Procurement Manager
Location: Overland Park, KS or Piscataway, NJ (preferred location) - No relocationTravel Required: Travel 20% of timeDuration: 12 Months (Potential to convert to FTE)
Work Hours: Mon - Fri, 4 days onsite and 1 day remote
Position Purpose
The Manager, Supply & Capital Services Sourcing serves as the embedded commercial partner to the Hills Pet Nutrition Engineering and Plant Operations teams. This highly influential, transformative role elevates traditional procurement by driving maximum asset utilization and long-term capital efficiency. By partnering directly with the manufacturing teams (FP&R, engineering, facilities) from project inception, the incumbent will guide teams through advanced risk management, strategic commercial structuring, and collaborative negotiations. The core focus of this role is optimizing the entire lifecycle of our service and goods purchases including capital equipment, guarding manufacturing uptime and powering business growth through robust after-sales support, secure contractual spare parts availability, and strict supplier accountability frameworks.
Skills/Experience
Expected Areas of Skills & Responsibilities
1. Embedded Engineering Partnership & Asset Optimization
- Act as a seamless extension of the Hills plant teams, participating early in capital planning to align requirements with forward-looking commercial strategies.
- Structure agreements with a strict focus on asset utilization, ensuring contracts guarantee maximum machinery performance, technical efficiency, and operational uptime.
2. Lifecycle Management & After-Sales Contract Governance
- Author, structure, and negotiate comprehensive after-sales support frameworks, performance guarantees, and multi-year maintenance covenants.
- Secure long-term, contractual spare parts availability and critical technical support response times within primary purchase agreements to minimize operational risk and optimize total cost of ownership (TCO).
3. Advanced Legal Contract Governance & Risk Shifting
- Demonstrate deep structural knowledge of commercial law, risk allocation, and sophisticated indemnification frameworks to shield the organization from liability during major capital installations.
- Masterfully translate complex manufacturing timelines into legally enforceable contractual deadlines, penalty clauses, and liquidated damages.
4. Transformative Influence & Stakeholder Diplomacy
- Drive a culture of process modernization across highly tenured plant environments, guiding stakeholder teams through structured sourcing governance while maintaining high project velocity.
- Navigate high-friction, matrixed environments calmly, utilizing data-backed commercial insights to influence senior stakeholders without direct authority.
5. Strategic Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)
- Lead executive-level SRM programs with global Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and industrial automation providers to drive continuous machine innovation, engineering priority, and strict lead-time mitigation.
Leadership & Functional Competencies
Transformational Leadership: A proven agent of change who successfully guides stakeholder teams to expand from a technical mindset to a comprehensive, risk-managed commercial lifecycle perspective.
Executive Presence: Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to distill complex technical risks and contract friction into brief, impact-driven updates for Senior Management
Level-3 Negotiation Excellence: Expert-level mastery of advanced negotiation methodologies, focusing on value-based levers, performance guarantees, and strategic risk-sharing mechanism
Required Skills
Position Requirements
Required Qualifications:
Experience: 8+ years of progressive experience in procurement, capital sourcing, or heavy manufacturing project engineering.
Lifecycle Sourcing Mastery: Detailed, hands-on experience structuring, negotiating, and executing high-value capital equipment contracts, performance metrics, and after-sales support frameworks.
Timeline Integration: Proven ability to accurately interpret complex specifications and project schedules, turning technical milestones into legally binding contractual commitments.
Preferred Qualifications:
Prior procurement or engineering leadership experience specifically within a highly automated manufacturing environment or complex industrial ecosystem.
Demonstrated success leading large-scale capital or infrastructure optimization projects within a cross-functional, highly matrixed corporate setting
Desired Skills
Hands-on experience with procurement platforms such as SAP Ariba, Sigma, and Ironclad (CLM) is ideal. Full proficiency collaborating within a Google Workspace environment (Google Sheets, Docs, Drive) is critical, as the temporary position is short and onboarding to the Google environment usually takes time.
Degree Requirement
Education: Bachelors degree in Engineering, Supply Chain, Sourcing, Business Administration, Finance, or a related field.
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