Category Group Director

Your Job

The Category Group Director is accountable for leading and advancing the Strategic Sourcing & Procurement (SS&P) Field portfolio, including Services, MRO (maintenance, repair and operations), Outage Services, and Track Implementation, representing approximately $3B in annual spend. This role provides direct leadership to the SS&P Field Category team (Mill Services and MRO), Outage Services, and Track Implementation teams, with responsibility for driving value creation, talent development, and PBM advancement.

This leader plays a critical role in accelerating value capture through strategic category management while fostering a unifying, high performance culture grounded in Principled Based Management (PBM).

Location:

This role is based in Atlanta at GP Center, and will enjoy a hybrid schedule.

Georgia-Pacific's Strategic Sourcing & Procurement (SS&P) organization is responsible for the strategic category management, sourcing and procurement of the critical supplies and materials that support our facilities. The SS&P organization partners with our business partners and leverages best practices to uniquely position the team to improve decision making capabilities and capture significant savings and efficiency opportunities.

• Lead, coach, and develop leaders and team members to maximize their contribution, capability growth, and self actualization.
• Model PBM and coach teams to apply economic thinking, disciplined decision-making, and profitable challenge to maximize contribution.
• Connect individuals to SS&P and Operations strategies, priorities, and longterm vision.
• Provide regular, actionable performance feedback and close capability gaps to improve performance and talent readiness.
• Support the growth, development, and movement of talent across GP and KII.

• Work through leaders and teams to execute sourcing and category strategies that maximize value across managed categories.
• Ensure strong integration and prioritization of work across category management, outage services, and track implementation.
• Incorporate market headwinds and tailwinds into category visions and value bets to optimize outcomes for GP and KII.
• Remove barriers and enable teams to leverage adjacent capabilities (Data, Market Insights, A&I, IFC) to strengthen competitive advantage.
• Build and sustain trusted partnerships with key leaders inside and outside SS&P, with a strong focus on Operations strategies and priorities, including major productivity and investment initiatives.
• Align resources to priority categories while remaining alert to value creation opportunities in base categories.
• Promote a healthy sense of urgency while applying Koch's risk philosophy to deliver results.
• Help teams prioritize and deprioritize initiatives to remain aligned with Operations productivity bets and the vision to be the best manufacturer in the industry.

• Champion "One Team" thinking and integrated teamwork across SS&P and Operations.
• Lead at the intersection of strategy, execution, and culture to create direct financial impact, strengthen SS&P's value and talent, and help manufacturing succeed.
• Demonstrate and reinforce economic and critical thinking, disciplined decision making, and speed to value.
• Promote continuous learning, PBM understanding, and leadership development across the organization.
• Own and champion transformation efforts by aligning the right skills, knowledge, and capabilities to create the highest value.
• Strengthen supervisory effectiveness and PBM capability of leaders and peers across the organization.

• Leader with experience leading complex, cross functional teams in category management, sourcing, or field services environments.
• Demonstrated ability to develop leaders, coach performance, and build high engagement, action-oriented teams.
• Strong economic thinker with a track record of disciplined decision making and value creation.
• Experienced in partnering with operations and enterprise capability groups to deliver results.
• Able to lead through change, manage ambiguity, and drive transformation aligned with PBM principles.

• Experience leading large, multi-category spend portfolios.
• Deep understanding of outage services, Track implementation, and/or asset intensive operations.
• Demonstrated success integrating data, analytics, and market insights into…