Associate Director, Procurement Policy and Process

As the Associate Director of Procurement Policy and Process reporting to the Senior Director, Corporate Services Sourcing; your primary focus will be the maintenance and enhancement of Otsuka’s Procurement operations, processes and policies in support of Otsuka’s North America portfolios. This role will have responsibility for ensuring the efficiency and effectiveness of these policies, working closely with Sourcing, Finance, Technology, Legal and various business partners to allow for the ongoing evolution of maintaining and optimizing Procurement processes for business partners involved in acquiring goods and services for the organization.

This role supports the development and implementation of procurement strategies and policies that enable the Procurement and Sourcing functions to effectively manage supplier relationships, negotiate/execute contracts, leverage best‑in‑class reporting, streamline transactional processes, optimize technology capabilities and ensure compliance with relevant regulations. At the core of this role will be a comprehensive understanding of the Sourcing & Procurement transformation strategy and a deep awareness of the customer voice, ensuring the work of Sourcing & Procurement has a tangible impact to the organization.

Supports the development and implementation of procurement strategies aligned with organizational goals, forecasting needs, and managing the procurement planning process. Ensuring compliance with federal, state and local laws, regulations, and organizational policies related to procurement. This includes in depth knowledge of taxability on goods and services. Develop, update and enforce procurement policies, procedures and standard operating guidelines in line with regulatory requirements, corporate governance and best practice.

Support maintenance and administration for procurement related compliance issues. Partner with Sourcing, Legal, Compliance, Information Security, Finance and Quality to embed regulatory risk and controls into the purchasing process. Identify and recommend process improvement initiatives to streamline the end-to-end Source to Pay (S2P) process, including sourcing, contracting, purchasing and supplier management. Partner with Sourcing and Vendor Management professionals to identify, evaluation and manage relationships and ways of working with suppliers.

Administer and maintain established approval workflows, evaluation and implementation of delegation of authority thresholds and control mechanisms to mitigate risk while enabling efficient business operations. Implement standardized templates, RACI matrices, and playbooks to ensure consistency across companies and purchasing categories. Promote a culture of innovation, collaboration and continuous learning. Development and distribution of monthly success metrics across the S2P process.

Ad hoc responsibilities to address emerging business need and leadership requests

Provide training and guidance to internal Procurement team and business partners on procurement policies and procedures, acting as a resource for procurement-related questions. Collaborate with business stakeholders to support procurement processes with business objectives and operational needs. Support change management efforts to drive stakeholder adoption.

Collaborate with IT to prioritize and define system requirements, workflows, and controls within procurement platforms. Support operational excellence initiative and execution across S2P, emphasizing automation, lean processes and continuous improvement in conjunction with IT. Build business cases and success measures for major system enhancements. Ensure cleanliness or procurement master data and develop compliance reporting, and ensure adequate audit trails. Establish KPIs and dashboards powered by advanced analytics for spend, performance, cycle times and savings tracking.

Support adoption of Generative AI and advanced analytics to automate purchasing processes and performance reporting. Manage seamless transitions and process integrations, especially across affiliated companies…