Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organisation:

"The Global Non-Trade Procurement team is creating value for adidas by delivering opportunities beyond sustainable negotiation success. As a strategic business partner, we provide market insights and trends to our global stakeholders. Stakeholder Management, Sourcing Management, Category Management and Supplier Management can be considered as our main areas of activity.

This position is located in Portland responsible for supporting the implementation of procurement best practices within respective categories, including (below mentioned focus areas which are not exhaustive):

• Execution of procurement activities for respective categories in alignment with the line manager and relevant business partners.
• Support the implementation of category strategies for the responsible categories.
• Deliver towards the committed annual Non-Trade Procurement ambitions (e.g., negotiation success)

Key Responsibilities:

Stakeholder Management (if applicable)

• Act as the Single Point of Contact (e.g., escalations) for a dedicated adidas business area in context of all Non-Trade Procurement related topics
• Actively partner up with appointed stakeholders to effectively build business relationships enabling them to achieve their business targets
• Drive demand intake within NTP and provide regular status updates to your stakeholder
• Understand and manage business needs and address solutions
• Manage and challenge business expectations in line with Category strategies and policies
• Build up and drive project pipelines to achieve negotiation success ambitions

Sourcing Management

• Lead and/or execute medium sized sourcing projects and/or support large sized sourcing projects (e.g. (e-)RfX, Single Source, risk assessment, supplier base assessment, internal and external analysis) in alignment with the Category Strategy
• Engage with respective stakeholders and suppliers in context of the sourcing event
• Perform contract administration activities (local/global) and manage contract compliance
• Negotiate medium sized contracts up to final authorization
• Participate in regular Category strategy upskilling sessions

Category Management (if applicable)

• Drive and lead the development of global strategies (medium sized categories) to address business needs incl. risk and supplier base assessment)
• Market Trends: Perform a comprehensive market research to understand the current and potential future market trends and new innovations related to service scope of the category
• Internal Requirements: Follow-up with Business Stakeholder Managers on a global level to obtain current and future needs of their stakeholders to consider in their category strategy development
• Organize, prepare and conduct category council meetings on a regular basis including upskilling of Sourcing Managers
• Add, update and maintain all category relevant information (e.g., Supplier Rostering) in the Non-Trade Procurement Database
• Benchmark category practices to identify initiatives for improvement and drive innovative approaches
• Define P2P and buying channel strategies, identify and consider automation potential
• Act as an advisor/escalation point for category (medium sized) related issues towards Sourcing colleagues and drive resolution in line with global Procurement policies
• Consolidate and communicate category’s achievements (financial or other)

People Management (if applicable)

• Is involved in recruiting process and proposes support for hiring decision and pre-selection of candidates
• Allocates the different work to the respective employees considering experience, complexity, workload and organizational efficiency
• Continuously monitors and evaluates team workload and organizational efficiency, analysis team feedback and makes appropriate changes to meet business needs
• Provides team members/direct reports with clear direction and targets that are aligned with business needs and the Non-Trade Procurement objectives
• Responsible for performance assessment
• Supports team members development areas / upskilling needs

Supplier Management (if applicable)

• Act as Point of contact for assigned key supplier(s)
• Lead supplier development activities based on supplier partner management strategy
• Set-up cross-functional review meetings with key suppliers in order to improve performance and further cost reductions
• Develop and nurture relationship with supplier to explore further capabilities and drive future innovation
• Communicate any updates from key suppliers towards the Procurement organization
• Monitor the performance of the key suppliers, including key performance optimization such as

•     fulfillment towards their contractual agreement

•     benchmarking according to industry standards

•     managing risks

• Identify and drive potential contract improvement opportunities
• Establish regular Business Review meetings together with the key supplier
• Act as Advisor for Stakeholder/Category Manager related to key strategic suppliers

Key Relationships:

• Internal: Non-Trade Procurement team, Global Business Services teams, Key Business Stakeholder Functions, Key Business Partners (Legal, Finance, etc.)
• External: Suppliers: Executives, Key Account Managers & Legal Counsel, Peers and managers of other

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Advanced knowledge in strategic sourcing and procurement methodologies, business partnering and category management (4 steps strategic sourcing, TCO, fact-based negotiations, life cycle of products/services etc.)
• Experience across indirect spend categories
• Strong knowledge of procurement tools and data, content and automation (E-sourcing -ariba-, p2p - Ariba-, e-catalogues, buying channels, etc.).
• Proven expertise streamlining and improving procurement processes and systems, development of procurement category strategies
• Strong track record of delivering sustainable savings with bottom line impact
• Strong ability to analyze data, specifications and influence demand
• Experience in developing business cases to support investments
• Experience in working with procurement shared service centers
• Capability to independently interact throughout the adidas organization and to work with virtual teams
• Strong analytical, presentation, communication, interpersonal and influencing skills
• Ability to operate at pace and respond positively to change
• Action oriented and solution minded team player with high degree of self-management
• Proficiency in MS Office and ARIBA Sourcing
• Fluent in English, to a business standard, spoken and written, additional language skills are advantageous

Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualifications:

• A degree from an accredited college or university (B.Sc./M.Sc.) with emphasis on the areas of business, economics, finance, procurement or legal, or comparable professional education
• At least 5+ years working experience in a procurement role, minimum 3 years’ experience in a strategic procurement position (manager level or above) with project/strategic sourcing experience and knowledge of category management practices; strong experience across all stages of supplier selection, negotiation and contracting.
• Experience in a global / matrix structure, working with shared service centers is desired
• Experience of managing and developing teams of a similar size