Procurement Planner (Ingredients)

This is a hybrid position requiring 1-2 days a week in our Chicago HQ office (River North).

The Role

The Procurement Planner for GTI is responsible for purchasing, vendor management & research, contract negotiation and the day-to-day purchasing operations. You will develop operating plans to ensure GTI has the resources to support current forecasted business and projected growth to respond to current and emerging markets.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate and communicate effectively with Procurement, Innovation, Brand, Project Team, Supply Chain, Ops Sites, and other HQ cross functional teams

• Balance multiple tasks while improving the efficiency of our Procurement team, managing competing priorities effectively

• Purchase Order creation in the ERP system, shipment tracking, delivery coordination, and payment confirmation, overall vendor management

• Develop a business relationship with functional stakeholders and solicits feedback on sourcing and vendor performance, share and discuss supply base opportunities, and identify new and changed needs.

• Support the development of cross-functional teams by identifying internal customers and stakeholders for inclusion; interfaces with internal customers to understand requirements and resolves issues; involves key stakeholders in sourcing development and execution; informs Sr. Director of Procurement of conflicts between stakeholder requirements and sourcing strategy.

• Set the standards for conducting internal and external research on supply market and competitive activities within assigned spend categories to ensure the highest levels of insight is generated; under-takes or ensures the identification of supply market economics and trends; ensures the identification of qualified supply base, maintains market information on suppliers and drives optimization of the supply base.

• Oversee the management of on-going vendor relationships and supplier performance across their portfolio; ensures regular supplier meetings take place and implements improvement strategies with suppliers.

• Execute purchasing for assigned categories.

• Monitor status of open purchase orders to ensure on-time delivery of all materials, including timely resolution, communication, and mitigation of future potential problems

• Work with internal team members to achieve optimal inventory levels for assigned categories based on forecast, demand variation and material lead times.

• Coordinate material flows throughout product/BOM changes, obsolescence, and the introduction of new suppliers and/or materials due to new product development

• Be a shared resource among the procurement team when support is needed

• Continue to work with leadership on maintaining and managing diverse vendor management database

• Identifies strategic opportunities which result in cost savings, areas for efficiency and opportunities for Procurement team.

• Works closely with the accounting team to ensure vendor billing is corrects and terms & conditions are adhered to.

• Follows procurement strategies, policies and procedures as defined by the leadership team, develops a comprehensive understanding of the business and user requirements for assigned spend categories.

• Monitor status of open purchase orders to ensure on-time delivery of all materials, including timely resolution, communication, and mitigation of future potential problems.

• Identifies and drives process improvement workstreams to support both Procurement and cross-functional business partners.

• Lead or provide input in special projects as required.

Qualifications

• 2+ years’ experience in manufacturing or CPG procurement operations
• Highly motivated, self-directed, innovative, and able to work independently or among teams with keen judgement, common sense and resourcefulness.
• Strong working knowledge of Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint & Outlook)
• Adapts and thrives in a demanding, start-up, fast-paced environment.
• Superior communication and interpersonal skills (verbal, non-verbal, written), with the ability to build relationships at all levels, both internally and externally.
• Possesses a high level of critical thinking.
• Consistently operates with an elevated level of professionalism and integrity, including dealing with confidential information
• Experience with MRP/ERP systems preferred.
• Strong analytical skills preferred

Additional Requirements

• Must pass any and all required background checks
• Must be and remain compliant with all legal or company regulations for working in the industry
• Must be a minimum of 21 years of age