Associate Director International Procurement

The role

As an Associate Director, Procurement, you will report to the Procurement Director and own the strategy, performance, and people development for your category cluster. This is a 12-month fixed-term position. You will lead a team of Category Managers, set the direction for supplier relationships and commercial outcomes, and operate as the senior point of escalation across operational and strategic procurement challenges.

This is a role for a procurement professional who is equally comfortable in a negotiation room with a strategic supplier, a governance forum with senior cross-functional leaders, and a development conversation with a direct report. You will act as a connector between your team's day-to-day work and the broader supply chain strategy and as a builder of capability, process, and relationships that outlast the current planning cycle.

• Define and own the multi-year category strategy for your cluster sourcing model, supplier segmentation, risk posture, and cost ambition and present that strategy coherently to Director-level stakeholders.
• Translate market intelligence (commodity dynamics, seasonality, geopolitical risk, supply constraints) into actionable procurement decisions and communicate them with clarity and confidence.
• Lead cross-category standardization and process improvement initiatives, identifying leverage across the broader portfolio where applicable.

• Build and steward the most strategically important supplier relationships in your cluster, including joint investment plans, multi-year contracts, and structured partnership governance.
• Lead or oversee tender processes end-to-end - from strategy and data-pack through to award, contract, and supplier briefing at pace and to a high standard of documentation.
• Act as the senior escalation point for supply disruptions, quality issues, and commercial disputes, resolving with a mix of supplier accountability and operational pragmatism.
• Develop new or alternative suppliers to strengthen resilience and competitiveness across your category network.

• Take full commercial accountability for your cluster's cost performance, savings targets, and COGS variance - ensuring outcomes are tracked, explained, and acted upon.
• Drive a data-first culture within your team: category reviews, investment cases, and supplier performance assessments should be grounded in robust analysis and structured decision-making.
• Contribute to seasonality planning, static pricing rounds, and volume S&OP processes with the rigour and cross-functional coordination those forums require.
• Oversee cost reporting, invoice validation and supplier database quality for your cluster.

• Lead, coach and develop a team of Category Managers, creating a high-performance environment that is psychologically safe, commercially ambitious, and genuinely invested in its people.
• Shift progressively from doing to enabling: your job is to build the capability of your team, not to be their best individual contributor.
• Own team capacity planning, workload prioritization, and performance development including calibration, promotion cases, and succession thinking.
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement, clear communication, and accountability without micromanagement.

• Build and maintain strong working relationships with Product, Supply Chain Operations, FSQA, Finance, and Legal representing Procurement credibly and influencing decisions in cross-functional forums.
• Represent GRO Strategic Procurement at Director-level planning and governance meetings as appropriate, contributing with the strategic perspective expected at that level.
• Manage upward effectively - keeping the Procurement Director informed, flagging risks early, and bringing well-framed recommendations rather than unresolved problems.

• 7+/9+ years in strategic procurement, supply chain, or a closely related commercial discipline ideally in FMCG, or food ingredients, though we care more about the quality of thinking than the specific category.
• Demonstrated track record of building supplier relationships at a strategic level, including contract negotiation, partnership governance, and managing through disruption.
• Experience setting and executing category strategy across a meaningful portfolio ideally managing a cluster of subcategories or a team.
• Proven…