Category Manager, Industrial Chemicals & Minerals

Category Manager, Industrial Chemicals & Minerals

Job Category: Purchasing

Requisition Number: CATEG
001993

Lansing, IL 60438, USA

At NPAA, we believe our employees are our greatest strength. We are proud to offer a generous and competitive rewards package, including:

• Earned Bonus Structure – annual merit increases, and an annual incentive bonus plan.
• Time Off & Holidays – 11 paid holidays each year, plus paid time off to support work-life balance.
• Health & Retirement – comprehensive health and welfare plans, along with a 401(k) program featuring an exceptional company match.
• Career Growth & Recognition – tuition reimbursement, employee recognition programs, and opportunities to grow within the organization.
• Culture & Community – as part of the NPAA family, you’ll enjoy company events throughout the year celebrating and appreciating our employees’ hard work and dedication.

POSITION SUMMARY
:

The Category Manager is a key contributor to the Strategic Procurement team, responsible for developing and executing category strategies that drive cost savings, value creation, operational efficiency, and profitability. This role thrives in a complex, fast-paced environment and serves as both a strategic thought leader and project manager, partnering closely with technical, operations, finance, and global teams. The Category Manager will leverage a strong understanding of industrial chemicals and raw materials to manage assigned categories, identify market opportunities, strengthen supplier relationships, and support the organization’s overall procurement strategy.

POSITION RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Strategic Category Management
• Develop and execute strategies for assigned category areas in alignment with regional and global organizational objectives.
• Leverage market intelligence to improve purchasing decisions both proactively and reactively.
• Manages direct raw material categories including solvents, acids, bases, chloral alkali compounds, and minerals.
• Oversees a $50-$80MM USD in annual spend.
• Seek out new supplier relationships, positioning the organization for improved costs, continuity of supply, and/or production efficiency.
• Lead supplier performance reviews, development activities, and supplier non-conformance inquiries.
• Develop toll manufacturing relationships to improve organizational capacity, optimize conversion costs, and reduce on-hand inventory.
• Manage assigned categories in the North American region (USA, MX,  ) and collaborate with global teams to support international group objectives.
• Cost and Value Creation
• Identify and drive cost reduction opportunities at various levels of complexity.
• Enable tactical procurement personnel to focus on day-to-day activities by owning all strategic procurement functions.
• Mitigate inflationary costs due to tariffs, geopolitical conflicts, force majeure, and other market disruptors.
• Supply Risk and Business Continuity
• Evaluate assigned categories for areas of high risk and establish mitigation strategies therein.
• Manage supply disruption projects and lead cross functional teams in disruption resolution and root cause analysis.
• Coordinate cost savings opportunities with technical stakeholders and manage savings projects from beginning to end.
• Target suppliers for quality audits and collaborate with quality teams to execute the audit process.
• Develop raw material price trend forecasts and communicate relevant findings to commercial leaders to inform customer pricing decisions.
• Contracts and Process Management
• Negotiate supply contracts and shop for contract terms that create significant value for the organization (lower price, price stability measures, improved net terms, discounted terms, rebate structure, guaranteed volumes/priority allocation, enhanced technical support, etc).
• Create new processes to streamline complex workflows such as new raw material introduction, contract review, supply disruption tracking, supplier non-conformance corrective actions, etc.
• Sustainability and Compliance
• Implement emissions accounting models such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (Scope
  3) to shape the organizational response to internal and external sustainability initiatives.
• Support regulatory and…