General Category lead

This is a leading institution in the UAE that is building a digital-first, AI-enabled financial services organisation from the ground up. This is a unique opportunity to join at an early stage and help shape the people, operational, and service foundations of a business with significant institutional backing and long-term ambition. If you're passionate about HR operations, payroll excellence, and creating exceptional employee experiences, we'd love to hear from you.

Owns category planning, business requirements, RFP content and supplier onboarding for the bank’s general-spend categories, including marketing and customer-growth services. Partners with the Procurement Operations Lead, who leads sourcing, to ensure supplier solutions are fit for purpose, controlled, and ready for mobilization and ongoing operations.

• Develop and maintain category strategies, demand forecasts, specifications, and supplier-market insight for professional services, facilities, real estate, corporate services, marketing, travel, banking operations services, business process outsourcing and third-party processing, and other general spend.
• Define business requirements, scopes of work, service levels, evaluation criteria, and implementation expectations for RFPs; work with the Procurement Operations Lead, who owns the sourcing process and commercial procurement activity.
• Lead business stakeholder engagement throughout RFPs, coordinate subject-matter input, and lead the business evaluation of supplier proposals in accordance with the approved procurement process.
• Provide category intelligence, demand forecasts, and fit-for-purpose requirements to the Procurement Operations Lead to support supplier selection, commercial negotiation, and contracting.
• Own the business-side supplier onboarding and mobilization plan after appointment, including service acceptance criteria, stakeholders, controls, operational handover, and early-life performance monitoring.
• Work with Legal, Compliance, Risk, Facilities, Finance, and business stakeholders to ensure that service requirements and onboarding arrangements meet applicable control, data-protection, and operational needs.
• Monitor category performance, demand trends, service quality, and stakeholder feedback; identify opportunities to rationalize demand, improve specifications, or refresh requirements for future RFPs.
• Maintain category documentation, RFP requirements, evaluation records, and onboarding evidence in line with procurement and third-party governance standards.
• Use approved analytics and AI-enabled tools for demand analysis, supplier-market insight, requirements development, and onboarding tracking, with human validation of outputs.

• 8+ years in category management, business procurement, or supplier management within banking or financial services, including senior leadership of a general category management team.
• Deep expertise across indirect and general spend, including professional services, facilities, real estate, corporate operations, and marketing services.
• Proven record defining category strategies, RFP requirements, evaluation frameworks, and supplier onboarding arrangements in a regulated environment.
• Strong knowledge of relevant CBUAE expectations and applicable standards for outsourcing, data protection, and third-party risk.
• Exposure to AI-enabled procurement tooling, spend and demand analytics, supplier-market insight, and onboarding workflow analytics.

• Bachelor’s degree in business, supply chain, or a related field preferred.
• Procurement certification preferred.
• CBUAE Fit & Proper requirements and any applicable controlled-function eligibility criteria, where required.