Part of the Supply Chain family, Procurement is responsible for over 30B Euro of material and services spend globally with more than 60,000 suppliers, over half of them in MBS. Getting the right services and materials, sustainably sourced and ensuring responsible procurement is critical to ensuring our brands with purpose grow. Our teams work closely with the business to understand stakeholders needs, bring innovation to meet changing consumer, employees and customers needs, and drive financial value for Unilever through competitive buying. We’re at the forefront of digital procurement, bringing new tools and analytics to drive data-based decisions.

Our strategy is ‘Procurement with Purpose’ and focuses on buying responsibly, buying better, and growing together with partners around the world. Our ambition is based on three key drivers: being Purpose-Led, Value-Driven, and Future-Fit.

ABOUTMBS

MBS, Unilever’s Marketing and Business Services Procurement team, is responsible for Unilever’s sourcing and supplier strategy and execution for all third party spend across Marketing, Business Services, and IT, supporting the business requirements of Brands, Divisions, Markets, and functions to drive 4G growth through strategic supplier management, cost and value management, sustainability and innovation, aligned with Unilever’s Compass. The team manages an annual spend of ~9B Euro with a supplier base of about 40,000.

The Strategic Sourcing Manager- Agencies will work together with our Brand teams and Divisions to increase effectiveness of our marketing procurement by developing and executing global sourcing strategies in market, in partnership with marketing business stakeholders and procurement portfolio strategy leads.

They will increase efficiency of our marketing procurement by driving scale where it makes sense, decreasing fragmentation, prioritizing higher impact areas, leveraging technology and data, ensuring adherence to the sourcing strategy through best in class processes and technology, while driving performance that unlocks 4G growth for Unilever.

The role will deliver top and bottom line results and increasing levels of executional efficiency, rigor, and business impact through implementation of marketing souring strategies and strong business partnership with key senior stakeholders.

Key Accountabilities:

• Understand and execute the 7 step sourcing strategy, while unlocking the full capability and potential of the Future Fit Procurement organization (Sourcing (this role is part of the Sourcing organization), Strategy and Insights, Supplier Operations, Purpose and Partnerships) through strong collaboration internally within procurement, partner functions (finance, legal), and business stakeholders

• Earn a seat at the table with business stakeholders within the marketing organization and beyond, establishing credibility through strong subject matter expertise and sourcing excellence.

• Earn consideration as a trusted business partner to key day to day and senior (Dir, VP, EVP) stakeholders

• Execute sourcing strategies at the appropriate level of scale in market

• Understand the business needs related to marketing spend portfolios, and bring deep expertise and insights across the value chain and supply base to bring business strategy to life through execution of best in class sourcing strategy  

• Connect strategy & execution aligned to Unilever Compass, Global Divisions, Function & Markets goals and priorities, aligned with Procurement with Purpose and OneMBS strategies and principles

• Deliver against financial targets and other KPIs (including value delivery) as per business plan objectives, accountable for delivery of results from all markets, PMUs, Divisions and functions globally

• Together with the function implement Unilever Partner with Purpose strategy, balancing a portfolio of global and local suppliers

• Liaise with internal and external stakeholders globally, to support business, market, MBS and Procurement priorities and enable rapid alignment and deployment

• Ensure Portfolio fundamentals (i.e. data consistency, data insights, recurring stakeholder communications, contracts, etc.) are all put in place

• Support future proofing the marketing portfolio by driving digital approaches that help simplify the life for our brand teams, while unlocking efficiencies in the marketing value chain

• Execute best in class Supplier Relationship Management and Customer (internal stakeholder) Management strategies

• Support internal performance management and reporting including creation and stewardship of relevant key performance indicators for the relevant Division and Brand teams.

Experience Required:

Qualification/experience

• Procurement experience, including proven and deep experience in Marketing procurement portfolio

• Expert in stakeholder engagement

• Understanding of supply market, value chain, and FMCG knowledge. Knowledge across multiple Marketing portfolios and supply markets.

• Experience on large-scale project management

• Demonstrated and proven leadership capabilities to lead transformative initiatives

• Experience in shaping and leading transformational business process reengineering, with experience driving Change Management initiatives.

• Knowledge of and passion for sustainability, including social sustainability

General Skills & Competencies

• Ability to work under pressure and in a complex global environment balancing a broad spectrum of stakeholder requirements

• Comfortable working in conditions of ambiguity and leading through change

• Able to create and drive adoption and execution of a shared vision and strategy for change.

• Ability to interact with senior stakeholders cross effectively and efficiently functionally to understand their needs and deliver effective balanced solutions

• Delivers change whilst managing the interface between “day to day” and improvement projects.

• Passion for continuous improvement

• Strong verbal and written communication skills, including creation and delivery of effective presentations

• High financial and business acumen

• Strong in selling ideas and concepts

• Strong in project and time management for complex global projects

• Passion and practical creativity

• Tenacious and resilient in the pursuit of challenging goals

Travel:

International travel required. Not projected to require more than 20% on average (may vary based on location)

Contacts:

Internal:

Procurement:

• CPO and UPLT

• MBS VP and MBS LT

• Sourcing teams

• Supplier Operations in UniOps

• Procurement Strategy and Insights

• Procurement Partnership and Purpose team

Business partners:

• Divisions

• Function

• PMUs

• Finance

• Legal

External:

• External Partners

• Suppliers

• Advisors and benchmarking organizations

Reporting Channel:

Reporting into Portfolio Strategy Lead

Diversity & Inclusion

While we have an idea of the experience required to succeed in this role, we have no pre-requisites.

Diversity at Unilever is about inclusion, embracing differences, creating possibilities, and growing together for better business performance. We embrace diversity in our workforce. This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity