Lead International Category Manager - PHF

Position: Lead International Category Manager - PHF (all genders)
The role

As a Procurement Teamlead, you will report to the Procurement Director and own the strategy, performance, and people development for your category cluster. 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.

What you’ll do Strategy & Category Leadership 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 standardisation and process improvement initiatives, identifying leverage across the broader portfolio where applicable.

Own the NID (New Ingredient Development) governance pipeline for your cluster, ensuring robust cross-functional coordination between Procurement, Product, FSQA and Supply Chain.

Supplier Relationships & Partnerships 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.

Performance, Data & Commercial Delivery 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.

Team Leadership & Development 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 prioritisation, and performance development — including calibration, promotion cases, and succession thinking.

Foster a culture of continuous improvement, clear communication, and accountability without micromanagement.

Stakeholder & Cross-functional Leadership Build and maintain strong working relationships with Product, Supply Chain Operations, FSQA, Finance, and Legal — representing Procurement credibly and influencing decisions in cross-functional…