Director Of Purchasing

Herschend is seeking a Director of Purchasing to lead enterprise purchasing and procurement across its portfolio of family entertainment brands, including theme parks, water parks, attractions, resorts, aquariums, and related businesses. Reporting directly to the Chief Financial Officer, this leader will develop and execute sourcing strategies that create measurable financial value, strengthen supplier partnerships, standardize purchasing practices, and support seamless operations across a decentralized, multi-site environment.

The Director of Purchasing will establish procurement as a strategic business partner by delivering EBITDA improvement, reducing total cost of ownership, mitigating supply chain risk, improving purchasing discipline, and building scalable procurement capabilities. The successful candidate will bring executive presence, commercial acumen, analytical rigor, strong negotiation skills, and hands‑on leadership, with a proven ability to drive change while maintaining the highest standards for guest experience, safety, quality, and operational reliability.

• Develop and execute an enterprise purchasing strategy aligned with Herschend’s operating priorities, growth objectives, value creation goals, and portfolio needs.
• Centralize and optimize purchasing functions where appropriate across theme parks, water parks, aquariums, attractions, resorts, and related businesses to leverage scale and improve consistency.
• Build and mature purchasing processes, governance, systems, reporting, and team capabilities across the organization.
• Develop short- and long-term sourcing strategies across direct and indirect spend categories.
• Lead competitive sourcing initiatives, supplier evaluations, RFQs/RFPs, contract negotiations, and vendor selection processes.
• Create multi-year category strategies that balance cost, quality, service, innovation, guest experience, operational reliability, supplier resilience, and safety standards.

• Build and manage strategic supplier relationships with a focus on performance, accountability, partnership, and continuous improvement.
• Establish supplier scorecards and performance metrics related to cost, quality, delivery, responsiveness, innovation, and service levels.
• Lead supplier risk management efforts, including alternate sourcing strategies, continuity planning, capacity assessments, and escalation processes for critical categories.
• Improve purchasing execution across the full procure-to-pay lifecycle, including requisitioning, purchasing, delivery coordination, invoice resolution, contract compliance, and vendor accountability.
• Develop and manage a purchasing savings roadmap with clear ownership, initiative tracking, and validated financial results.
• Identify and execute initiatives that improve EBITDA, reduce total cost of ownership, increase contract coverage, and enhance working capital performance.
• Develop, track, and manage procurement budgets and cost-control initiatives, delivering measurable savings across the portfolio.
• Optimize payment terms, pricing structures, rebates, purchasing compliance, demand management, and supplier consolidation opportunities.
• Support acquisition integration, new business onboarding, and procurement synergy capture as Herschend expands its portfolio.
• Partner with Finance on budgeting, forecasting, spend analytics, savings validation, and executive reporting.

• Establish purchasing governance, policies, approval workflows, contracting standards, and negotiation practices across the organization.
• Build purchasing reporting, KPIs, dashboards, and analytics capabilities to improve spend visibility and decision-making.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Operations, Park Operations, Supply Chain, Marketing, IT, Finance, People, and field leadership to align purchasing initiatives with business objectives and guest experience priorities.
• Ensure specialized property-level needs are understood and met without disruption to park, attraction, hospitality, retail, food and beverage, or aquarium operations.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to executive leadership…