Commodity Manager

Purpose:

Help shape the supply foundation behind high-performance engineered bearings. This role is a senior individual contributor position with global commodity strategy ownership and direct execution leadership for North America plant supply for critical raw materials: bearing-grade steel, wire, and forgings.

• Own global commodity strategies for steel raw material, wire, and forgings supporting the Engineered Bearings business.
• Provide direct sourcing execution leadership for North America plants, ensuring alignment to global strategy and continuity of supply.
• Lead end-to-end sourcing activities, including spend and market analysis, RFx development, bid evaluation, supplier selection, negotiation, contracting, and implementation.
• Apply metallurgy and bearing-grade steel knowledge to ensure supplier capabilities and material controls support critical performance and reliability requirements.
• Leverage working knowledge of forging processes (open-die, closed-die, near-net), tooling considerations, process capability, and cost drivers to inform sourcing strategy and supplier selection.
• Drive measurable outcomes through cost reduction, cost avoidance, and inflation mitigation, while balancing quality, service, and supply risk.
• Establish supplier performance expectations and governance; lead corrective actions and continuous improvement with suppliers.
• Partner cross-functionally with Engineering, Materials, Operations, Quality, and Finance to align material specifications, supplier capabilities, and sourcing decisions.
• Monitor global supply markets and develop mitigation plans for capacity constraints, consolidation, and geopolitical risk.

• Domestic and international travel to supplier locations. Early stages of the role up to 40% of the time.

• Ability to build credibility and trusted working relationships.
• Understanding of North America plant needs, constraints, and current pain points across steel, wire, and forgings.
• Develops a clear working view of bearing-grade steel, wire, and forging supply markets, including:
  • Key suppliers and capacities
  • Cost drivers and inflation exposure
  • Quality, metallurgical, and forging process risks
• Strong metallurgy and forging process fluency.
• Ability to identify and evaluate current processes and analyze gaps and risks.
• Aligns global commodity strategy intent.
• Assessment of supplier strategies.
• Identifies data-backed opportunities.
• Engage suppliers in early commercial discussions utilizing market intelligence and technical requirements.
• Ability to highlight short term supply continuity risk and propose mitigation steps.
• Demonstrated experience sourcing steel, wire, and/or forgings for engineered products.
• Working knowledge of bearing grade steel requirements and metallurgy fundamentals (steelmaking processes, alloying, cleanliness, heat treatment, CTQs).
• Working knowledge of forging supplier capability, including process controls, tooling strategy, dimensional capability, scalability, and cost drivers.
• Strong negotiation, analytical, and stakeholder influence skills; ability to lead cross functional decisions without direct authority.
• Direct experience working with steel mills, wire processors, or forging suppliers on process capability, quality improvement, or specification development.
• Experience developing global commodity strategies and translating them into effective regional execution.

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Metallurgy/Materials Science, Supply Chain, Business, or related field with 12 years of relevant work experience.
• Or a Master's degree in Engineering, Metallurgy/Materials Science, Supply Chain, Business, or related field with 10 years of relevant work experience.
• 8+ years of progressive experience in procurement, commodity management, or strategic sourcing within a manufacturing environment.

All qualified applicants shall be treated equally according to their individual qualifications, abilities, experiences and other employment standards. There will be no discrimination due to gender or gender identity, race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, sexual orientation, veteran/military status or any other basis protected by applicable law.