Assistant Category Procurement Manager – HC Europe

Job Description: Assistant Category Procurement Manager – HC Europe

CATEGORY/FUNCTION INTRODUCTION​ 

​​Procurement is a dynamic and strategic field that plays a crucial role in ensuring a company's success. As a procurement professional, you'll be at the forefront of managing projects that keep the business running smoothly. The Category Procurement team is the face of the business to the Portfolio Procurement teams (buyers) and suppliers, and the face of procurement to the BU team, such as Supply Chain, R&D, Marketing, Finance, etc. You will be supporting the top and bottom-line growth of the BU from a procurement perspective in EU. As the strategic program lead you will be engaged in all key procurement activities like forecasting, cost savings, translating business needs into requests to buyers and engaging with the cross functional BU team.

Unilever is the place where you can bring your purpose to life with the work that you do – creating a better business and a better world. If you want to ​play a pivotal role in the world of procurement, see pressure as motivation, have an E2E business mindset, and love working with different stakeholders,​ then this role is just for you! 

Job Title:

Assistant Category Procurement Manager – HC Europe

Department:

Procurement

Profession:

Supply Chain

Work Level:

WL1S

Location (City, Country):

UK (Port Sunlight or London preferred)

Main Job Purpose:

The Assistant Category Procurement Manager – HC Europe will be acting as the strategic program lead. In this role you will be the first contact for the BU for any strategic initiatives, which involve the procurement forecast, network optimization and driving key innovations.

Key Accountabilities:

• Be the first point of contact for the Home Care EU BU.

• Business partner the Home Care EU BU by translating the procurement forecast into the landing view.

• Act as the Procurement partner to the Supply Chain and Finance team on network optimization projects.

• Drive key innovations, like project Nano, for our growing Capsules portfolio.

• Develop strategies for continuous value delivery and cost optimization to positively impact the P&L.

• Assist the HC EU BU senior leadership on strategic programs, developing tools, presentations and improve ways of working.

Responsibilities:

• Develop the landing view for HC EU BU following the procurement forecast cycle

• Deliver the procurement tasks for key innovation and network optimization projects.

• Develop a deep understanding of the HC EU BU strategy and P&L.

• Be outstanding in idea generation; come with ideas that are forward thinking and that contribute to creating sustained competitive advantage.

• Brief Portfolio Procurement on upcoming projects and key strategic changes to initiate discussions with the buyers.

• Develop a deep knowledge on the E2E process to support unlocking barriers.

• Ensure supplier selection is in line with our Procurement Strategies and is done with sufficient capacity for growth.

• Contribute to the Team goals, by leading common areas on behalf of the team.

This role requires a drive for continuous improvement, through applied market knowledge, internal stakeholder management, as well as Supply Chain E2E understanding.

Professional Skills:

• Strong analytical capabilities (incl. finance)

• Strong financial acumen for business understanding and reporting

• Personal Mastery (priority setting, risk analysis, resources)

• Strong communications skills, with the ability to engage virtually with cross-functional teams

• Strong ability in managing multiple stakeholders, projects, and deadlines

• Appetite for change and eagerness to collaborate with stakeholders to drive change & improvements in unchartered territory.

• Excellent Excel and PowerPoint skills

• Proven experience on cross functional project management

• Fluent communication and verbal/writing skills in English

• Strong presentation skills

• Able to work in fast paced environment and manage timelines

• Digital knowledge of tools like PowerBI, CoPilot etc.

Experience Required:

• Minimum 3 years of experience in Procurement or Supply Chain

• University/Bachelor degree or relevant experience

• Proven understanding of Finance and the Unilever P&L

• Excellent command of MS Office, especially Excel, PowerPoint, and PowerBI

Travel:

• As per requirement, up to 20%

Contacts:

(Please list any internal and external contacts arising from the job.)

Internal:

Procurement:

• Procurement Portfolio teams

• Procurement S&I teams

Supply Chain:

• Portfolio & Innovation Planning

• Manufacturing

• Quality

• Supply Chain Category Planning

R&D

• R&D BU team

• R&D global team

Finance

• Finance BU team

• Procurement Finance team

Marketing

External:

Suppliers

Reporting Channel:

Category Procurement Manager HC Europe